CEDH · PRESS;GENERAL;ENG — 17 février 2004

.s800EAC49 { font-size:12pt } .s5FFF0A77 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; font-size:1pt } .sBB9EE52A { font-family:Arial } .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 } .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 } .sA36B60A1 { font-family:Arial; font-style:italic } .s32B93E28 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:5pt } .s9B49264A { margin-top:5pt; margin-bottom:5pt } .s9AE6264A { margin-top:5pt; margin-bottom:0pt } .sCB9E0544 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:left } .s61E420C2 { font-family:Arial; font-variant:small-caps } .sADADF4A7 { font-family:Arial; text-decoration:underline } .s9793A85B { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-indent:14.2pt } .s9F8EB0C0 { width:18.63pt; display:inline-block } .s9E97F54A { width:85.05pt; display:inline-block } .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     078 17.02.2004 Press release issued by the Registrar   GRAND CHAMBER JUDGMENT IN THE CASE OF GORZELIK AND OTHERS v. POLAND     The European Court of Human Rights has today delivered at a public hearing in Strasbourg its Grand Chamber judgment [1] in the case of Gorzelik and Others v. Poland (application no. 44158/98).   The Court held unanimously that there had been no violation of Article 11 (freedom of association) of the European Convention on Human Rights. (The judgment is available in English and French.)     1.     Principal facts   The case concerns an application (no. 44158/98) brought by three Polish nationals who are all from Upper Silesia. They are Jerzy Gorzelik, born in 1971, who is a university lecturer living in Katowice (Poland), Rudolf Kołodziejczyk, born in 1940, who is an economist living in Rybnik (Poland) and Erwin Sowa, born in 1944, who is a steelworker living in Katowice.   The applicants and 190 others attempted to form an association called the "Union of People of Silesian Nationality" ( Związek Ludności Narodowości Śląskiej ).   The Polish authorities refused to register the association on the ground that both the intended name and certain provisions of the union’s memorandum of association, which characterised Silesians as a "national minority", suggested that their real intention was to circumvent the provisions of the electoral law. Also, had the members of the Union been recognised as a "national minority", they would automatically have gained unqualified and legally enforceable privileges. The appeals against that decision failed.     2.     Procedure and composition of the Court   The application was lodged with the European Commission of Human Rights on 18   June 1998 and transmitted to the European Court of Human Rights on 1 November 1998. It was declared admissible on 17 May 2001. In its Chamber judgment of 20 December 2001, the Court found that there had been no breach of Article 11. It held that the refusal to register the applicants’ association, which had been prompted by the need to protect the State electoral system against the applicants’ potential attempt to claim unwarranted privileges under electoral law, had been justified. The applicants requested that the case be referred to the Grand Chamber (Article 43 of the Convention) and the panel of the Grand Chamber accepted the request on 10 July 2002. A public hearing was held on 2 July 2003 in the Human Rights Building, Strasbourg. Judgment was given by the Grand Chamber of 17 judges, composed as follows:   Luzius Wildhaber (Swiss), President , Christos Rozakis (Greek), Jean-Paul Costa (French), Georg Ress (German), Giovanni Bonello (Maltese), Pranas Kūris (Lithuanian), Viera Strážnická (Slovakian) Corneliu Bîrsan (Romanian) , Josep Casadevall (Andorran) , Boštjan Zupančič (Slovenian) , Hanne Sophie Greve (Norwegian) , Egil Levits (Latvian) , Anatoli Kovler (Russian) , Antonella Mularoni (San Marinese) , Elisabeth Steiner (Austrian) , Stanislav Pavlovschi (Moldovan), Lech Garlicki (Polish), judges , and also Paul Mahoney , Registrar .     3.     Summary of the judgment [2]   Complaint   The applicants complained that the Polish authorities had arbitrarily refused to register their association, called the “Union of People of Silesian Nationality”. They further added that the absence of any legal definition of a national minority in Poland, or any procedure whereby such a minority could obtain recognition under domestic law, made it impossible for them to foresee what criteria they were required to fulfil to have their association registered. They relied on Article 11 of the Convention.   Decision of the Court   Article 11   The Grand Chamber agreed with the Chamber that refusing to register the association as an “organisation of the Silesian national minority” interfered with the applicants’ right to freedom of association and that the interference was justified.           The interference was “prescribed by law” With regard to the applicants’ argument that Polish law did not provide any definition of a “national minority”, the Court reiterated that a definition would be very difficult to formulate. In particular, the notion was not defined in any international treaty. Likewise, practice regarding official recognition by States of national, ethnic or other minorities within their population varied from country to country or even within countries. While it appeared to be a commonly-shared European view that national minorities should be respected, international law did not require States to adopt a particular definition of “national minority” in their legislation or to introduce a procedure for the official recognition of minority groups. The Court considered that the lack of an express definition of the concept of a “national minority” in Polish legislation did not therefore mean that Poland was in breach of its duty to frame law in sufficiently precise terms. The Court also recognised that, in the area under consideration, it might be difficult to frame laws with a high degree of precision. It might even be undesirable to formulate rigid rules.   It was both inevitable and consistent for the national courts to be left with the task of interpreting the notion of a “national minority”, as distinguished from an “ethnic minority” within the meaning of the Constitution, and assessing whether the applicants’ association qualified as an “organisation of a national minority”. The Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal took into consideration all the statutory provisions applicable to associations and national minorities as well as social and other legal factors, including all the legal consequences that registering the applicants’ association in the form they proposed might have entailed.   The Court was therefore satisfied that the Polish law to be applied in the case was formulated with sufficient precision to enable the applicants to regulate their conduct.   The interference “pursued a legitimate aim” The Court noted that the domestic courts expressly invoked the need to protect domestic law and the rights of other ethnic groups against an anticipated attempt by the applicants’ association to circumvent the provisions of the 1993 Elections Act or other statutes conferring particular rights on national minorities.   Against that background, the Grand Chamber considered that the applicants had not put forward any arguments that would warrant a departure from the Chamber’s finding that the interference in question was intended to prevent disorder and to protect the rights of others. Indeed, it could be said that, as the measure purported to prevent a possible abuse of electoral law by the association itself or by other organisations in a similar situation, it served to protect Poland’s democratic institutions and procedures.   There was a “pressing social need” for the interference The Court accepted that the national authorities, and in particular the national courts, did not overstep their margin of appreciation in considering that there was a pressing social need, at the moment of registration, to regulate the free choice of associations to call themselves an “organisation of a national minority”, in order to protect the existing democratic institutions and election procedures in Poland and to prevent disorder and to protect the rights of others.   The refusal to register the association was not a comprehensive, unconditional one, directed against the cultural and practical objectives that the association wished to pursue, but was based solely on the mention, in the memorandum of association, of a specific name for the association. It was designed to counteract a particular, albeit only potential, abuse by the association of its status. It by no means amounted to a denial of the distinctive ethnic and cultural identity of Silesians or to disregard for the association’s primary aim, which was to “awaken and strengthen the national consciousness of Silesians”. On the contrary, in all their decisions, the authorities consistently recognised the existence of a Silesian ethnic minority and their right to associate with one another to pursue common objectives. All the various cultural and other activities that the association and its members wished to undertake could have been carried out had the association been willing to abandon its insistence on retaining the name set out in paragraph 30 of its memorandum of association.   The Grand Chamber could hardly perceive any practical purpose for this paragraph in relation to the association’s proposed activities other than to prepare the ground for enabling the association and its members to benefit from the electoral privileges accorded by section 5(1) of the 1993 Elections Act to “registered organisations of national minorities”. The disputed restriction on the establishment of the association was essentially concerned with the label which the association could use in law – with whether it could call itself a “national minority” – rather than with its ability “to act collectively in a field of mutual interest”. As such, it did not go to the core or essence of freedom of association.   Consequently the interference in question could not be considered disproportionate to the aims pursued.   The Court concluded, therefore, that it was not the applicants’ freedom of association per se that was restricted by the State. The authorities did not prevent them from forming an association to express and promote distinctive features of a minority but from creating a legal entity which, through registration under the Law on Associations and the description it gave itself in paragraph 30 of its memorandum of association, would inevitably become entitled to a special status under the 1993 Elections Act. Given that the national authorities were entitled to consider that the contested interference met a “pressing social need” and given that the interference was not disproportionate to the legitimate aims pursued, the refusal to register the applicants’ association could be regarded as having been “necessary in a democratic society”. There had, therefore, been no violation of Article 11.     Judges Costa and Zupančič, joined by Judge Kovler, expressed a joint concurring opinion, which is annexed to the judgment.   ***   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] Grand Chamber Judgments are final (Article 44 of the Convention). [2] This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.