CEDH · PRESS;ADMISSIBILITYDECISIONS;ENG — 25 octobre 2006

.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 } .s4DDA3AA3 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; font-style:italic } .sA36B60A1 { font-family:Arial; font-style:italic } .s7ED160F0 { text-decoration:none } .s33165EBA { font-family:Arial; font-size:8pt; vertical-align:super; color:#0069d6 } .sADADF4A7 { font-family:Arial; text-decoration:underline } .sCB9E0544 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:left } .sC7EAD8B { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; text-decoration:underline } .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   630 25.10.2006   Press release issued by the Registrar   STRIKE-OUT DECISION ASSOCIATION SOS ATTENTATS AND DE BOËRY v. FRANCE   The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights has decided to strike out the application lodged in the case of Association SOS Attentats and de Boëry v. France (application no. 76642/01). (The decision exists in French and English.)   The applicants   The case concerns an application brought by the association “SOS Attentats, SOS Terrorisme”, whose headquarters are in Paris, and by Béatrix de Boëry (married name: Castelanu d’Essenault), a French national who lives in Paris.   Summary of the facts   The application concerns the fact that it was impossible for the applicants to bring proceedings against Colonel Gaddafi, the head of the Libyan State, in connection with a terrorist attack in 1989 against a DC 10 operated by UTA, and to obtain compensation by him for damage arising from the attack, as a result of the immunity from jurisdiction of foreign heads of State in office .   On 19 September 1989 an airliner operated by the French airline UTA exploded over the Ténéré desert following a bomb attack in which 170 people, including Mrs de Boëry’s sister and a number of other French nationals, were killed.   In proceedings instituted in France, six Libyan nationals were committed for trial in the Paris Assize Court, sitting in a special composition. These were the head of the Libyan secret service (Colonel Gaddafi's brother-in-law), four members of the Libyan secret service and a civil servant from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs who worked at the Libyan Embassy in Brazzaville. On 10 March 1999 the six defendants were convicted and sentenced in their absence to life imprisonment and ordered to pay compensation to the victims’ families. Mrs de Boëry and her family have thus received between 15,244.90 euros (EUR) and EUR 30,489.80.   In June 1999 the applicants lodged a civil-party complaint against Colonel Gaddafi ( une plainte avec constitution de partie civile ). They alleged complicity in voluntary homicide, the destruction of property by an explosive device causing fatal injury, and conspiracy to undermine public order through intimidation and terror.   The investigating judges ruled that there was a case to answer. Although the Indictment Division of the Paris Court of Appeal noted that an international custom afforded foreign heads of state immunity from prosecution in the courts of another state, it went on to find that the immunity did not apply in the case before it owing to the nature and seriousness of the alleged offences. However, its judgment was quashed by the Court of Cassation in a decision of 13 March 2001 in which it held that the alleged offences did not come within the exceptions to the principle of immunity for foreign heads of state and that there was therefore no ground for investigating the applicants’ complaints.   On 9 January 2004 the association ‘Les familles du DC 10 UTA en colère!’ and the applicant association, both representing families of the victims, concluded an agreement with the ‘Gaddafi World Foundation for Charities’ under the terms of which the families were each to receive one million US dollars (the equivalent of EUR 783,453) in consideration for waiving their right to bring “civil or criminal proceedings in any French or international court on account of the explosion aboard the aircraft” and the applicant association agreed “not to take any hostile action or to lodge any complaint against Libya or Libyan natural or legal persons in connection with the explosion aboard the aircraft”.   Complaints   Relying on Article 6 § 1 (right to a fair hearing) of the European Convention on Human Rights, the applicants submitted that the Court of Cassation’s ruling that Colonel Gaddafi was entitled to sovereign immunity had infringed their right of access to a court. They also complained under Article 13 (right to an effective remedy) of the lack of an effective remedy in that connection.   Procedure   The application was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 11 September 2001. On 5 January 2006 the Chamber to which the case was assigned relinquished jurisdiction to the Grand Chamber in accordance with Article 30 [1] of the Convention.   The British Government was authorised to take part in the proceedings as a third-party intervener (Article 36 § 2 of the Convention and Rule 44 § 2 of the Rules of Court).   A hearing was held in public in the Human Rights Building, Strasbourg, on 21 June 2006.   Decision of the Court [2]   After the application had been lodged, a new fact was brought to the Court’s attention: on 9   January 2004 an agreement was signed between the Gaddafi International Foundation for Charity Associations, the families of the victims and the Bank for Official Deposits.   The Court had therefore to determine whether, as the Government alleged, this new fact was such as to lead it to decide to strike the application out of its list of cases in application of Article 37 § 1 (striking out) of the Convention.   The Court dismissed the French Government’s submission that, through this agreement, the applicants had agreed to desist from the proceedings before the Court and that, consequently, they no longer intended to pursue their application within the meaning of Article 37 § 1 (a) of the Convention. It also considered that it could not be concluded that the dispute had been resolved within the meaning of Article 37 § 1 (b).   In contrast, the Court found that it was appropriate to strike the application out of the list in application of Article 37 § 1 (c). It noted that the conclusion of the agreement of 9   January 2004 was due in large part to France’s diplomatic intervention and took note of the resources made available by the French Government to guarantee and facilitate payment of the sums due under that agreement to the family members of the victims of the 1989 attack. It was satisfied that this agreement was in line with the latter’s interests, a view that was supported by the fact that the associations representing those interests – including the association SOS Attentats – were signatories to it. It pointed out in this respect that the agreement provided for the payment of substantial sums to the families of the victims. Some of those concerned, including members of Mrs de Boëry’s family, had already received the amount due to them under the agreement; others had to date refused to sign the waiver on which payment was dependent. Although Mrs de Boëry was one of those individuals, it appeared from the statements made by her counsel at the hearing before the Grand Chamber that the amount payable to her under the agreement (EUR 70,000) remained available at the Bank for Official Deposits and that she would take her final decision in the light of the outcome of the present application.   Furthermore, the Court noted a certain contradiction in the attitude of SOS Attentats, which, despite being a signatory to the said agreement, still wished the Court to pursue the examination of complaints based on the impossibility for the victims’ relatives to have access to such proceedings.   Finally, the Court noted that in 1999 the French courts sentenced six Libyan officials, in their absence, to life imprisonment and ordered them to pay compensation for non-pecuniary damage to the victims’ families, civil parties to those proceedings. At the hearing before the Grand Chamber the applicants’ counsel stated for the first time that various sums had indeed been paid in this connection to the civil parties, including to Mrs   de Boëry and her family.   In sum, the conclusion of the agreement of 9   January 2004, the latter’s terms and the fact that Mrs   de Boëry had obtained a judgment on the question of the responsibility of six Libyan officials were circumstances which, taken together, led the Court to consider that it was no longer justified to continue the examination of the application within the meaning of Article 37 §   1 (c) of the Convention.   As no other element regarding respect for human rights as guaranteed by the Convention required that this application be examined further, the Court decided, unanimously, to strike it out of the list.   ***   The decision is available on the Court’s Internet site ( http://www.echr.coe.int ).   Press contacts Emma Hellyer (telephone: 00 33 (0)3 90 21 42 15) Stéphanie Klein (telephone: 00 33 (0)3 88 41 21 54) Beverley Jacobs (telephone: 00 33 (0)3 90 21 54 21)   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.   [1] Where a case pending before a Chamber raises a serious question affecting the interpretation of the Convention or the protocols thereto, or where the resolution of a question before the Chamber might have a result inconsistent with a judgment previously delivered by the Court, the Chamber may, at any time before it has rendered its judgment, relinquish jurisdiction in favour of the Grand Chamber, unless one of the parties to the case objects. [2] This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.