Vozneac v Autonomous Administration of Posts and Telegraphs

• Jurisdiction: Polonia
• Docket Number: Case No. 30
• Date: 22 June 1931
• Court: Court of Cassation (Poland)

Roumania, Court of Cassation, Third Division.

Case No. 30

Vozneac

and

Autonomous Administration of Posts and Telegraphs.

State Succession Succession to Obligations Administrative Debts Partial Succession Bessarabia.

The Facts.On January 9, 1918, the plaintiff paid in at the post office in Baltzi the sum of 2,304 roubles to be transmitted to an addressee in Chisinau. Both towns were in Bessarabia, which then formed part of Russia. The money never reached its destination. Later in 1918 Roumania annexed Bessarabia. Article 8 of the Treaty of Paris of October 28, 1920,1 between Roumania and the Allied and Associated Powers provided that Roumania will assume, so far as Bessarabia is concerned, a proportionate part of the public debt and of other financial engagements of Russia to be determined by a special convention between Roumania and the Allied and Associated Powers. No such convention had been concluded. In 1928 the plaintiff brought an action against the Roumanian

Ministry of Communications claiming the amount sent in 1918. He was successful in the Courts of first and second instance. The autonomous Administration of Posts and Telegraphs, a department of the Ministry of Communications, appealed on the ground that it was not liable for the debts to individuals incurred by the former Russian administration of posts and telegraphs

Held: that the appeal must be upheld. The Court accepted the contention of the appellant seeing that, in virtue of the annexation of Bessarabia by Roumania, the question at issue was not one of universal succession to the assets and liabilities of the frmer Russian State. This was a case of partial succession to be regulated by a special convention between the States concerned, as laid down in Article 8 of the Convention of Paris of October 1920. The plaintiff had not invoked the provisions of...