The European Court of Human Rights ruled on Tuesday that the Romanian state was justified in refusing to register a political party that had not dissociated itself from the former Romanian Communist Party, which was led by dictator Nicolae Ceausescu before the revolution in the country in 1989.

“This interference was provided for by legislation and had been aimed at protecting national security and the rights and freedoms of others,” said the judges.

The case was taken to the Strasbourg rights court after the Romanian authorities decided that the applicants for registration had not dissociated themselves from the former Romanian Communist Party led by Ceausescu, which ran a totalitarian regime with no respect for democracy or human rights.

Bucharest County Court rejected the application to register a new Romanian Communist Party in May 2014. The judgment was upheld in October 2014, by the Bucharest Court of Appeal.

The Romanian courts found that the proposed new Romanian Communist Party’s program and constitution contained provisions contrary to the country’s law on political parties and that there was a real danger of undermining democratic values.

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The case was then taken to the European Court of Human Rights in April 2015 and the plaintiffs denied that links with the former Romanian Communist Party were “likely to generate conflicts within society”, according to the Strasbourg judges.

But their claims were ruled to be unfounded.

The Communist regime in Romania fell after a popular uprising began in the city of Timisoara on December 16-17, 1989, and continued in Bucharest on December 21.

Over 1,600 people are officially registered as having died during the overthrow of Ceausescu’s regime.

Source: Balkan Insight