CEDH · PRESS;CHAMBERJUDGMENTS;ENG — 13 février 2007

.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 } .s653E6C45 { font-family:Arial; font-size:6.67pt; vertical-align:super; color:#0069d6 } .s4DDA3AA3 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; font-style:italic } .sA36B60A1 { font-family:Arial; font-style:italic } .sCB9E0544 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:left } .sADADF4A7 { font-family:Arial; text-decoration:underline } .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 } EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS   98 13.2.2007   Press release issued by the Registrar   CHAMBER JUDGMENT EVALDSSON AND OTHERS v. SWEDEN   The European Court of Human Rights has today notified in writing its Chamber judgment [1] in the case of Evaldsson and Others v. Sweden (application no. 75252/01).   The Court held unanimously that there had been a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (protection of property) to the European Convention on Human Rights.   Under Article 41 (just satisfaction) of the Convention, the Court awarded each of the applicants 5,000 euros (EUR) in respect of non-pecuniary damage and EUR 87,800, jointly, for costs and expenses. (The judgment is available only in English.)   1.     Principal facts   The applicants, Tommy Evaldsson, Johan Svahn, Tonnie Hodell, Jonny Lindqvist and Conny Brandt, are five Swedish nationals, born in 1948, 1974, 1965, 1964 and 1963 respectively.   The applicants were employed by the construction company LK Mässinteriör AB from 3 March to 30   July 1999.   The company was bound by a collective labour agreement, the Construction Agreement ( Byggnadsavtalet ), concluded between the Swedish Building Workers’ Union ( Svenska Byggnadsarbetareförbundet) (the union) and Swedish Construction Industries ( Sveriges Byggindustrier .   At the time, eight employees in the company carried out work covered by the labour agreement. Three of those workers were members of the union whereas the five applicants were not members of the union or of any other trade union.   Under the collective agreement, as it stood at the relevant time, the local union branch had the right to monitor salary payments and to be reimbursed for the costs involved on the basis of a fee of 1.5 per cent of the worker’s salary. The employer was obliged to deduct that amount from the worker’s salary and to supply the local branch with the information it needed for monitoring work. Only workers belonging to another union were exempt from those deductions.   The applicants having asked to be exempted from the deductions, the company complied and stopped paying the fees to the union or providing the agreed information concerning the applicants. The union insisted on payment and initiated formal local negotiations. However, no solution was reached.   The Industries eventually brought the case before the Labour Court ( Arbetsdomstolen ), seeking a declaratory judgment to the effect that the company was not obliged to levy the fees in question. On 7 March 2001, the Labour Court rejected the Industries’ claims.   2.     Procedure and composition of the Court   The application was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 4 September 2001 and declared partly admissible on 28 March 2006. A hearing took place in public in the Human Rights Building, Strasbourg, on 20 June 2006.   Judgment was given by a Chamber of seven judges, composed as follows:   András Baka (Hungarian), President , Ireneu Cabral Barreto (Portuguese), Riza Türmen (Turkish), Mindia Ugrekhelidze (Georgian), Antonella Mularoni (San Marinese), Elisabet Fura-Sandström (Swedish), Danutė Jočienė (Lithuanian), judges , and also Sally Dollé , Section Registrar .   3.     Summary of the judgment [2]   Complaints   The applicants maintained that they were forced to contribute to the financing of a union’s general activities against their will and in a manner comparable to a union member, which was tantamount to forced membership of the union. They relied on Article 9 (freedom of thought and conscience), Article 10 (freedom of expression), Article 11 (freedom of association) and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1. They also alleged that they had suffered discrimination compared both to the union members and members of other trade unions in breach of Article 14 (prohibition of discrimination).   Decision of the Court   Article 1 of Protocol No. 1   The Court noted that approximately 30 Euros were indeed deducted from the applicants’ wages to cover the union’s monitoring fee but that that deduction could be considered to pursue a legitimate aim “in the public interest” as the inspection work aimed to protect the interests of construction workers generally.   Furthermore, the Court accepted that, in 1999, 250 workers who were not members of a union had had their wages adjusted as a result of the union’s monitoring activities thus showing that the applicants did receive a certain service in return for the fee paid.   However, the Court observed that those fees should be for inspection activities only and not used to contribute to the union’s branch activities and should also be accounted for separately. Taking into consideration financial information provided with regard to the union’s activities, the Court noted that, whereas less than one-fourth of the union’s officials appeared to have been involved in inspection work, the statement of accounts for the years 1997-2000 attributed more than 90% of pension payments and almost half of the costs for wages, remunerations and other expenses to the same work.   The Court further noted that it could not draw any reliable conclusion from the information available as to whether profits had been made from the union’s monitoring activities or the inspection work carried out by the union branches as a whole. Nor could it be ascertained whether a possible surplus generated by the inspection work had been used to cover part of the costs relating to the union’s branch activities such as wage negotiations, union agitation and political work.   The Court found that the applicants had not been given sufficient information for them to verify how the fees they paid were actually used, information to which they were all the more entitled given that those fees were paid against their will and to an organisation with a political agenda they did not support.   Moreover, given that the Swedish authorities’ organised its labour market by delegating the regulation and legislation of important labour issues to independent organisations through a system of collective agreements, the Court found that the State was under the obligation to protect the applicants’ interests by holding those organisations accountable for their activities.   In conclusion, the Court considered that the union’s wage monitoring activities lacked transparency and, even having regard to the limited amounts of money involved, it was not proportionate in the applicants’ case to make deductions to their wages without giving them a proper opportunity to check how that money was spent. It accordingly held that there had been a breach of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1.   Other Articles of the Convention   In the light of its findings with regard to Article 1 of Protocol No. 1, the Court did not consider it necessary to examine separately the merits of the case under Articles 9, 10, 11 and 14.     ***   The Court’s judgments are accessible on its 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] 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. [2] This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.