The Bacău Trial Court ruled on Friday that the appeal in a case against the military cemetery in Úzvölgy was unfounded and upheld the lower court's ruling in favour of Csíkszentmárton.

An extract of the second instance judgment of the Trial Court of Bacău was published on the Romanian Courts Portal on Friday. According to this, the appeal is unfounded and the judgment of the first instance will become final. Exactly one year ago to the day, the first instance judgment annulled the building permit for the Romanian plot of the cemetery and ordered the demolition of the illegal building.

In its judgment of 10 February 2022, the Bacău County Court of First Instance "annuls the building permit of 17.12.2018/69 issued by the Mayor of Darmanesti for the erection of the monument to the International Cemetery and the fifty crosses of the Romanian heroes and orders the termination of the works carried out under the permit". It also ordered the losing party to pay 350 lei in legal costs.

"Today, a final decision has been handed down in the lawsuit in Uzwölgy concerning the dismantling of the crosses. According to this decision, the crosses must be dismantled," Imre Mikó Legal Defence Service reacted to the final judgment on its social media page on Friday. The organisation had previously tried to enter the case on the side of the municipality of Csíkszentmárton, but the judges only recognised the interest of Csíkszentmárton municipality among the Szeklerland parties. However, Harghita County was allowed to participate in the proceedings as an intervener for Csíkszentmárton.

"Today justice has won! The verdict is final and irrevocable: the concrete crosses in the military cemetery in Uzhhorod must be demolished," Csaba Borboly, president of the Harghita County Municipality, also wrote on his Facebook page, referring to Friday's decision. As he said, the Szeklerlanders continued to fight for their rights with the force of law, doing their job in silence. The final decision was welcomed by several Szekler leaders.

Sándor Birtalan, the mayor of Csíkszentmárton, told MTI earlier that they always knew they were right and trusted that they would find their just cause in court.

In March 2019, the municipality of Darmanesti declared the military cemetery of Úzvölgye its public property and in April it arbitrarily established a Romanian plot in the grave yard of the deserted settlement of Úzvölgye, on the border of Harghita and Bacău counties. Previously, the cemetery had been maintained by the Szekler municipality of Csíkszentmárton, and was regarded by the Hungarian community as a Hungarian military cemetery.

On 6 June 2019, thousands of Romanian commemorators forced their way into the cemetery to attend the Romanian Orthodox consecration of the Romanian plot and monument, after Szeklers tried to prevent this with a live dance.

A week after the violence, the Romanian authorities clarified that the 149 Romanian soldiers whose roll-call was part of the ceremony after the forced occupation of the cemetery were not buried in the cemetery in Úzvölgy.

A year ago to the day, the court of first instance annulled the building permit for the Romanian plot in the cemetery and ordered the demolition of the illegal structure.

MTI – 10 February 2023

Title image: Úz valley military cemetery, 6 June 2019 | Photo: © Toró Attila

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)