Information Note on the Court’s case-law 12
November 1999
Döring v. Germany (dec.) - 37595/97
Decision 9.11.1999 [Section IV]
Article 1 of Protocol No. 1
Article 1 para. 1 of Protocol No. 1
Peaceful enjoyment of possessions
Disbarment of lawyer for having been a judge in the GDR: inadmissible
The applicant held judicial office in the Democratic Republic of Germany (GDR) for about twenty years. In that capacity, he secured or played a role in the convictions of people who had been prosecuted for saying that they wished to go over to the West or acting in a way that the regime considered reprehensible. In 1990, a few months before the treaty for the reunification of Germany came into force, he was given permission to practise as a lawyer by the GDR Bar Council. In 1995 his permission to enrol was set aside by an administrative decision pursuant to a 1992 statute that required people who had acted contrary to the principles of humanity and the rule of law to be disbarred. The treaty for German reunification provided that administrative acts of the GDR could be set aside if they were found to be incompatible with the rule of law. The applicant’s appeals against that decision were dismissed.
Inadmissible under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1.: The applicant’s disbarment amounted to an interference with his right to quiet enjoyment of his possessions as it deprived him of the client-base he had built up. It was irrelevant that the Convention did not apply to the GDR as the measure in issue was based on decisions of the courts of the German Federal Republic – a State to which the Convention applied – after reunification. The interference was lawful as in verifying the validity of permission given to enrol at the Bar under the 1992 statute the authorities had applied the reunification treaty concerning administrative measures taken by the GDR. The interference pursued an aim that was in the general interest in that its purpose was to establish whether persons who had obtained permission to enrol as lawyers in the GDR satisfied the moral standards that the public was entitled to expect of members of a profession who became “officers of the court and guarantors of the rule of law”. Though a heavy one, the burden imposed on the applicant had to be measured against the yardstick of that interest and with due regard to the exceptional nature of the historical context: manifestly ill-founded.
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This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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