CEDH · PRESS;GENERAL;ENG — 12 octobre 2004

.s800EAC49 { font-size:12pt } .sFE10DC93 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:center } .s29100277 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold } .s40F41F73 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:right } .s32563E28 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt } .sBB9EE52A { font-family:Arial } .s7ED160F0 { text-decoration:none } .s33165EBA { font-family:Arial; font-size:8pt; vertical-align:super; color:#0069d6 } .s4DDA3AA3 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; font-style:italic } .s3F1942F4 { width:128.78pt; display:inline-block } .s9793A85B { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-indent:14.2pt } .sADADF4A7 { font-family:Arial; text-decoration:underline } .sCB9E0544 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:left } .s9F8EB0C0 { width:18.63pt; display:inline-block } .s9E97F54A { width:85.05pt; display:inline-block } .sA36B60A1 { font-family:Arial; font-style:italic } .sF6A12959 { width:33%; height:1px; text-align:left } .s2EB42ED2 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; font-size:10pt } .s653E6C45 { font-family:Arial; font-size:6.67pt; vertical-align:super; color:#0069d6 } EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS   501 12.10.2004   Press release issued by the Registrar   Chamber judgments concerning France and Iceland   The European Court of Human Rights has today notified in writing the following four Chamber judgments, none of which are final. [1]   Casalta v. France (application no. 58906/00) Chesnay v. France (no. 56588/00) Lafaysse v. France (no. 63059/00)   Violation of Article 6 § 1   Jacques Casalta is a French national who was born in 1918 and lives in Ajaccio (France). He brought an action against a third party to establish title to land situated in Corsica.   Denis Chesnay is a French national who was born in 1948 and lives in Gavray (France). Following a dispute with police officers who had come to question his son, he lodged a complaint against the officers concerned.     Claude Lafaysse is a French national who was born in 1945 and lives in Portet (France). In 1998 he was given a suspended sentence of ten months’ imprisonment for sexual assault on a minor aged under 15 by a person in a position of authority.   The applicants, who appealed unsuccessfully on points of law against the decisions given by the French courts in their cases, complained of the unfairness of the proceedings before the Court of Cassation. Relying on Article 6 § 1 (right to a fair hearing) of the European Convention on Human Rights, they complained that they had not been served with a copy of the reporting judges’ reports. In addition, Mr Lafaysse criticised the fact that he had not been informed of the Advocate-General’s submissions.   Referring to its case-law, the European Court of Human Rights noted that the failure to communicate to the applicant or his counsel the reporting judge’s report before the hearing, although this document had been provided to the Advocate-General, created an imbalance that was not compatible with the requirements of a fair trial. Accordingly, it concluded unanimously that there had been a violation of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention in all three cases in that respect. In the case of Lafaysse v. France , the Court also concluded unanimously that there had been a violation of Article 6 § 1 on account of the failure to inform the applicant of the Advocate-General’s submissions, thus making it impossible for him to respond to them.   The Court held in these three cases that the finding of a violation constituted in itself sufficient just satisfaction in respect of the non-pecuniary damage sustained by the applicants. It awarded 1,500 euros (EUR) to Mr   Chesnay and EUR 1,000 to Mr Lafaysse in respect of costs and expenses.   (These judgments are only available in French.)   Kjartan Ásmundsson v. Iceland (no. 60669/00) Violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 The applicant, Kjartan Ásmundsson, is an Icelandic national who was born in 1949 and lives in Reykjavík.   In 1978 he had a serious accident on board a trawler and had to give up work as a seaman. His disability was assessed at 100%, which made him eligible for a disability pension from the Seamen's Pension Fund (“the Pension Fund”) on the ground that he was unable to carry out the work he had performed before his disability.   After his accident the applicant joined a transport company, Samskip   Ltd., as an office assistant, and is still employed there as head of the claims department.     In 1992, new legislation changed the way the applicant’s disability was assessed for the purposes of his pension, so that it was to be based not on his inability to perform the same work, but work in general. The new provisions had been enacted in relation to the Pension Fund’s financial difficulties.   Under the new rules, the applicant's disability was re-assessed and his loss of capacity for work in general was found to be 25%; below the minimum level of 35 %. As a consequence, from 1 July 1997 onwards the Pension Fund stopped paying his disability pension and related child benefits which he had been receiving for nearly 20 years. Overall, he lost pension rights (disability and children's annuity benefits) amounting to 12,637,600 Icelandic krónur (ISK).   Relying on Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (protection of property), taken on its own and in conjunction with Article 14 (prohibition of discrimination), the applicant complained of the decision to discontinue payment of his invalidity pension.   The European Court of Human Rights was struck by the fact that the applicant was one of 54 people whose disability pensions were discontinued altogether on 1 July 1997. Legitimate concerns about the need to resolve the Fund's financial difficulties seemed hard to reconcile with the fact that after 1 July 1997 the vast majority of the 689 disability pensioners continued to receive disability benefits at the same level as before the adoption of the new rules, whereas only a small minority of disability pensioners had to bear the most drastic measures of all, namely the total loss of their pension entitlements. In the Court's view , although changes made to pension entitlements might legitimately take into account the pension holders' needs, the above differential treatment in itself suggested that the impugned measure was unjustified for the purposes of Article 14.   The discriminatory character of the interference was compounded by the fact that it affected the applicant in a particularly concrete and harsh manner in that it totally deprived him of the disability pension he had been receiving on a regular basis for nearly 20 years and which, at the time, constituted one third of his gross monthly income.   In the Court's view, the applicant could validly plead an individual legitimate expectation that his disability would continue to be assessed on the basis of his incapacity to perform his previous job. And, regard should be had to the fact that, under the former rules, gainful employment was not incompatible with a Fund member's receipt of a full disability pension, provided that that pension did not exceed the member's loss of income.   It was significant that the applicant lost his pension on 1 July 1997, not in relation to a change in his personal circumstances but following changes in the law altering the criteria for disability assessment. Although he was still considered 25% incapacitated to perform work in general, he was deprived of the entirety of his disability pension entitlements.   Against that background, the Court found that the applicant was made to bear an excessive and disproportionate burden which could not be justified by the legitimate community interests relied on by the authorities. It would have been otherwise had the applicant been obliged to endure a reasonable and commensurate reduction rather than the total deprivation of his entitlements. Accordingly the Court held, unanimously, that there had there had been a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1.   The Court also held, unanimously, that no separate issue arose under Article 14.   The Court awarded the applicant EUR   75,000 in respect of pecuniary damage EUR   1,500 in respect of non-pecuniary damage and EUR   20,000 for costs and expenses. (The judgment is available only in English.)     ***   These summaries by the Registry do not bind the Court. The full texts of the Court’s judgments are accessible on its Internet site ( http://www.echr.coe.int ).   Registry of the European Court of Human Rights F – 67075 Strasbourg Cedex Press contacts:   Roderick Liddell (telephone: +00 33 (0)3 88 41 24 92)   Emma Hellyer (telephone: +00 33 (0)3 90 21 42 15)   Stéphanie Klein (telephone: +00 33 (0)3 88 41 21 54) Fax: +00 33 (0)3 88 41 27 91   The European Court of Human Rights was set up in Strasbourg by the Council of Europe Member States in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights. Since 1 November 1998 it has sat as a full-time Court composed of an equal number of judges to that of the States party to the Convention. The Court examines the admissibility and merits of applications submitted to it. It sits in Chambers of 7 judges or, in exceptional cases, as a Grand Chamber of 17 judges. The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe supervises the execution of the Court’s judgments. [1] Under Article 43 of the European Convention on Human Rights, within three months from the date of a Chamber judgment, any party to the case may, in exceptional cases, request that the case be referred to the 17 ‑ member Grand Chamber of the Court. In that event, a panel of five judges considers whether the case raises a serious question affecting the interpretation or application of the Convention or its protocols, or a serious issue of general importance, in which case the Grand Chamber will deliver a final judgment. If no such question or issue arises, the panel will reject the request, at which point the judgment becomes final. Otherwise Chamber judgments become final on the expiry of the three-month period or earlier if the parties declare that they do not intend to make a request to refer.