CEDH · CASELAW;CLIN;ENG — 28 avril 2009

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Italy - 17214/05 Judgment 28.4.2009 [Section II] Article 6 Civil proceedings Article 6-1 Civil rights and obligations Internal institutions of national parliament vested with judicial powers in respect of members of parliamentary staff: article 6 § 1 applicable   Impartial tribunal Independent tribunal Impartiality and independence of internal institutions of national parliament vested with judicial powers in respect of members of parliamentary staff: violation   Facts : Applications no. 17214/05 and no. 20329/05 : The applicants, a surveyor and an architect, were employees of the Italian Chamber of Deputies. They applied to their administration for a special project award, and the first applicant also requested the reimbursement of insurance contributions. The case was brought before the Judicial Committee for Officials of the Chamber of Deputies. The Committee partly upheld the applicants’ claims and granted the first applicant’s specific request concerning the reimbursement of insurance contributions. The administration appealed to the Judicial Section of the Bureau of the Chamber of Deputies and requested a stay of execution of the decisions. By decisions of 2004, the Judicial Section of the Bureau of the Presidency of the Chamber of Deputies, while finding inadmissible the requests for a stay of execution as out of time, upheld the administration’s appeals on the merits and set aside the Committee’s decisions. Application no. 42113/04 : In August 2000 the Italian Chamber of Deputies gave notice of a competition to fill 130 parliamentary assistants’ posts, for which the professional qualifications and economic treatment were set out in the Rules on the Services and Staff of the Chamber of Deputies. The applicants were selected and invited to take part in the competition. However, they were not included on the shortlist of candidates who passed the written examination. They appealed to the Judicial Committee for Officials of the Chamber of Deputies, contesting the organisation of the examination and the criteria adopted for assessment of the papers. They sought the annulment of the administration’s decision not to include them on the shortlist of candidates invited to the oral examination and, at the same time, a stay of execution of that decision. The Committee upheld the applicants’ appeals. The administration of the Chamber of Deputies appealed to the Judicial Section of the Bureau of the Presidency of the Chamber of Deputies and also requested a stay of execution of the Committee’s decisions. The Section upheld the administration’s appeals. The applicants appealed to the Court of Cassation, which declared inadmissible their appeal against the decisions by the internal judicial bodies of the Chamber of Deputies. Law : On the admissibility : The Court referred to its case-law in the case of Vilho Eskelinenand Others v.   Finland ([GC], no. 63235/00, ECHR   2007), in which it had set out two criteria that had both to be fulfilled before a respondent State could validly claim that Article 6 § 1 was inapplicable to an applicant who was also a civil servant, in the absence of a “civil” right: on the one hand, the civil-servant applicant had to be expressly denied access to a court under national law; secondly, the exclusion of the rights guaranteed under Article 6 §   1 had to be based on objective grounds that were related to the interests of the State. In evaluating the applicability of Article 6 § 1 in each case, it was necessary to establish whether the applicants enjoyed judicial protection at domestic level, that is, whether they had the possibility of obtaining a judicial remedy at national level and thus to have their claims concerning salaries, allowances or even recruitment examined. It appeared from the relevant normative provisions of the Rules on the Judicial Protection of Staff that the Judicial Committee and the Judicial Section of the Chamber of Deputies were competent to decide any dispute against the administration of the Chamber of Deputies. They reached their decisions at the close of organised proceedings, with full jurisdiction and in a binding manner, both for the administration and for the claimants. Consequently, there was no doubt that they exercised a judicial function and that Article 6 § 1 was therefore applicable to the present applications under the first criterion laid down in the Vilho Eskelinen judgment. In the instant case, however, even if the national legislative framework had specifically denied the applicants a right of access to a court, the non-applicability of Article 6 § 1 could not in any event be based on objective grounds linked to the interests of the State. Given the respective subject-matter of the proceedings brought by the applicants, which concerned the right to obtain a special project allowance (linked to the exercise of the activities of a director of public works) and to obtain the post of parliamentary assistant, the special bond of trust between the State and the applicants was not in question. It could not therefore be claimed that the exercise of public power was at stake in the instant case or that there existed a special bond of trust between the State and the applicants such as to justify excluding them from the rights safeguarded by the Convention. Article 6 § 1 was thus also applicable in the light of the second criterion laid down in the Vilho Eskelinen judgment. On the merits : In the instant cases, it was necessary to determine whether the Committee and the Section of the Chamber of Deputies were “independent and impartial tribunals established by law” when they heard the applicants’ cases. 1.     Were the courts "established by law”? The issue of the normative scope of the Rules of the Chamber of Deputies was examined by the domestic courts, which found that any Rules concerning the Chamber of Deputies derived from the Constitution and were not susceptible to review by any other State authorities. As to the requirements of accessibility and foreseeability of the law in question, the fact that the “Rules for the Judicial Protection of Officials of the Chamber of Deputies” had not been published in the Official Journal did not in itself affect its accessibility, provided that the individuals concerned had been able to consult them without difficulty. Bearing in mind the area covered by these Rules, namely the regulation of internal judicial proceedings before the Chamber of Deputies, their publication in a bulletin for internal distribution was sufficient to satisfy the criterion of accessibility set out in the Convention. Furthermore, the applicants had not alleged that they had faced difficulties in obtaining the text in question. Finally, the provisions concerned had been drafted in terms that were sufficiently clear to enable any participants in the proceedings to be aware of the rules governing proceedings before the Committee and the Section. It followed that the Judicial Committee and Judicial Section of the Chamber of Deputies satisfied the requirement of having a legal basis in domestic law, as set out in Article 6 § 1. 2.     Did the courts meet the requirements of impartiality and independence? The applicants complained that the Committee and the Section had lacked objective impartiality and independence with regard to one of the parties to the dispute (the Chamber of Deputies), particularly in the light of the arrangements for appointing their members. The mere fact that the members of both judicial bodies of the Chamber of Deputies were selected from among the Deputies (members) of the Chamber was insufficient to cast doubt on the independence of those bodies. Nonetheless, the Section (the appellate body), whose decisions were final, was made up entirely of members of the Bureau, that is, the body of the Chamber of Deputies that had jurisdiction for ruling on its main administrative matters, including those concerning finance and the organisation of staff recruitment competitions. In particular, the additional protocol to the finance rules of the Chamber of Deputies and the rules on staff recruitment competitions, that is, the subject-matter of the applicants’ respective complaints, were decisions adopted by the Bureau in accordance with its rule-making powers. In addition, the Chamber of Deputies was represented before the Section by the Secretary General, who was himself appointed by the Bureau. In the Court’s opinion, the fact that the administrative body with powers such as that of the Bureau was the same as the judicial body with competence to rule on any administrative dispute was sufficient to give rise to doubts as to the impartiality of the tribunal thus formed. Furthermore, the close link between the subject-matter of the proceedings brought before the Section and the decisions adopted by the Bureau in the context of its functions could not be denied. In the light of the foregoing, the applicants’ fears as to the lack of independence and impartiality of the Judicial Section of the Chamber of Deputies had been objectively justified. Conclusion : violation (unanimously). Article 41 – The finding of a violation constituted sufficient just satisfaction for any non-pecuniary damage sustained by the applicants.   © Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court. Click here for the Case-Law Information Notes