Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 123
October 2009
Association nationale des pupilles de la Nation v. France (déc.) - 22718/08
Decision 6.10.2009 [Section V]
Article 14
Discrimination
Granting of financial assistance to a single category of Second World War orphans: inadmissible
Facts – The members of the applicant association are war orphans. In 2004 France passed a decree providing for financial assistance to orphans of persons who had died while being deported or been executed for acts of resistance (called “victims of acts of barbarity”). The applicant association brought an action in the Conseil d’Etat for judicial review of the decree. It argued that the compensatory measure, which it deemed to be discriminatory, should have been extended to orphans suffering in similar circumstances, particularly those whose parents had been killed in combat or had been “prisoners of war who had died in detention”. The application was dismissed by the Conseil d’Etat, which found that the stipulations of the decree were not discriminatory.
Law – Article 14: The dispute concerned the granting of financial assistance to a single category of Second World War orphans defined by decree. Neither the applicant association nor the members cited by it had an existing possession and none of them could have a legitimate expectation of realising a claim against the State because they did not satisfy the conditions laid down by the aforementioned decree for claiming the financial assistance. Accordingly, the dispute that was the subject of the application did not fall within the scope of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1, so Article 14 of the Convention could not apply.
Conclusion: inadmissible (incompatible ratione materiae).
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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