Association Ekin v. France (dec.)

Information Note on the Court’s case-law 14

January 2000

Association Ekin v. France (dec.) - 39288/98

Decision 18.1.2000 [Section III]

Article 34

Victim

Continuing status of victim after annulment of impugned decision: admissible

Article 10

Article 10-1

Freedom of expression

Prohibition of Basque separatist publication: admissible

In 1987 the applicant, a French non-profit association for the promotion of Basque culture, published a collective work containing notably the contributions of Spanish academics and an article written by the Basque Movement of National Liberation. In April 1988 this work was banned in France for encouraging separatism and justifying recourse to violence. The decision to ban the work was taken on the basis of Article 14 of the Law of 29 July 1881 (Law relating to the press), as amended by the Decree of 6 May 1939 allowing the prohibition of foreign publications or publications in a foreign language. According to the case-law of the Conseil d’Etat, a publication with foreign contributions and/or based on foreign documentation, as was the case of the banned work, may be considered as being of foreign origin. In June 1988 the applicant lodged an appeal against the ban with the administrative court, which rejected the applicant’s application in a judgment of June 1993. The applicant lodged an appeal against that judgment with the Conseil d’Etat in August 1993, and also requested that the Conseil make a declaration that Article 14 of the Law of 29 July 1881 was incompatible with Articles 10 and 14 of the Convention in so far as that provision introduced unjustified discrimination with respect to foreign publications. In its decision of July 1977 the Conseil d’Etat rejected the applicant’s claim of incompatibility. The Conseil d’Etat found notably that although the power conferred on the Minister of the Interior under this provision was not limited by the law, it was subject to the review of the administrative courts and was as a result not contrary to the Convention. The Conseil d’Etat also quashed the judgment appealed against and the ministerial decree of prohibition. In December 1997 the applicant unsuccessfully made an application to the Minister of the Interior for compensation for loss caused by the nine-year prohibition on publication. The applicant association complained to the Court, among other matters, that Article 14 of the Law of 29 July 1881 was still in force in the French legal system.

Admissible under Articles 6 § 1 (length of proceedings), 10, 13 and 14 in conjunction with Article 10: Since the quashing of the prohibition only had the effect of permitting the circulation of a work which had become non-topical because of the length of proceedings, the decision of the Conseil d’Etat was not adequate compensation under the Court’s case-law. The applicant therefore still had the status of a victim. Since the Minister of the Interior did not allow his application, it would not be reasonable to ask the applicant after nine years of proceedings to seek other remedies under domestic law to obtain compensation for the loss suffered. Moreover, the fact that the statutory provision upon which the prohibition was based remained in force in the domestic legal system posed a real and serious threat to the applicant association in the light of its activities.

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This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.

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