CEDH · PRESS;ADMISSIBILITYDECISIONS;ENG — 16 octobre 2009

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It provides adult education and secondary vocational training; it depends on Government funding. The Ministry of Education, Culture and Sciences grants public money to each educational institution in proportion to numbers of students registering for courses; the necessary powers are delegated to the Deputy Minister.   On 12 July 2002 and again on 14 October 2003 the Deputy Minister granted Government funding to the applicant institution based on the figures it had provided. The applicant institution had in both years reported a number of students as having registered for more than one course, additional tuition fees to be met by it from its own budget. However, no provision for these transactions had been made in its books.   Following an investigation ordered by the Deputy Minister in early 2002, specific cases of abuse were examined, among which the applicant institution’s. On 11 November 2004, it was ordered to repay 435,584 euros, for the funding unlawfully received.   After the Regional Court quashed the decision of 11 November 2004, the Deputy Minister appealed to the Administrative Jurisdiction Division of the Council of State. Councillor D., an ordinary councillor of the Council of State, was among those appointed to hear the case. The Regional Court’s decision was ultimately quashed by the Administrative Jurisdiction Division on 14 February 2007 ( link to the Administrative Jurisdiction Division’s decision ).   Complaints, procedure and composition of the Court   Relying on Article 6 § 1 (right to a fair trial) and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (protection of property) to the European Convention on Human Rights, the applicant institution complained that the Administrative Jurisdiction Division had not been impartial, and that the repayment order had arbitrarily deprived it of a possession.   The application was lodged on 13 August 2007.   Judgment was given by a Chamber composed as follows:   Josep Casadevall (Andorra), President, Elisabet Fura (Sweden), Corneliu Bîrsan (Romania), Boštjan M. Zupančič (Slovenia), Egbert Myjer (the Netherlands), Luis López Guerra (Spain), Ann Power (Ireland), judges ,   And Santiago Quesada, Section Registrar .   Decision of the Court   Article 6   The applicant institution alleged that Councillor D., as an ordinary councillor of the Council of State, had likely been involved in the preparation of the applicable legislation at issue allowing corrections to the State contribution, and had therefore probably lacked impartiality in the present case. The Court found that challenging Councillor D. would have been an effective remedy under Netherlands law to address the alleged lack of independence or impartiality of the Administrative Jurisdiction Division, which the applicant institution had failed to do. Consequently, this complaint was rejected for non-exhaustion of domestic remedies.   The applicant institution also alleged that the Administrative Jurisdiction Division had created factual grounds on which to base its decision accepting the Deputy Minister’s appeal. The Court found however that as a matter of domestic procedure, the Administrative Jurisdiction Division was not bound by findings of fact of lower courts or administrative authorities; it could therefore not be said that it had been prevented from deciding as it did.   The Court concluded that the applicant institution had been afforded ample opportunity to state its case and to contest the interpretation of the law at issue. It followed that this complaint was manifestly ill-founded and had to be rejected.   Article 1 of Protocol No. 1   The applicant institution had allowed students to register for a plurality of courses without paying the corresponding number of tuition fees. Any resulting excess sums obtained from the Government were therefore, in principle, paid to the applicant institution without cause.   For the derogation granted by the Deputy Minister allowing educational institutions to cover the tuition fees from their own budgets to apply, the transactions made by the applicant institution should have been entered in its books. This the applicant institution had failed to do. Consequently the sums in question had never lawfully been the applicant institution’s.   It followed that Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 was not applicable.     ***   The decision is available only in English. This press release is a document produced by the Registry; the summary it contains does not bind the Court. The decision is accessible on its Internet site ( http://www.echr.coe.int ).   Press contacts Tracey Turner-Tretz (tel : + 33 (0)3 88 41 35 30) or Stefano Piedimonte (tel : + 33 (0)3 90 21 42 04) Céline Menu-Lange (tel : + 33 (0)3 90 21 58 77) Kristina Pencheva-Malinowski (tel : + 33 (0)3 88 41 35 70) Frédéric Dolt (tel : + 33 (0)3 90 21 53 39) Nina Salomon (tel: + 33 (0)3 90 21 49 79)   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.