Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 150
March 2012
Granos Organicos Nacionales S.A. v. Germany - 19508/07
Judgment 22.3.2012 [Section V]
Article 6
Civil proceedings
Article 6-1
Access to court
Refusal of legal aid to foreign company wishing to issue civil proceedings in German courts: no violation
Facts – The applicant company is registered under Peruvian law and based in Lima. In 2005 it requested legal aid to bring a civil action in Germany against two German companies. The German courts refused the request on the grounds that under German law only legal persons based in the European Union or the European Economic Area were entitled to legal aid. In its application to the European Court the applicant company complained of a violation of its right of access to a court (Article 6 § 1 of the Convention) and of discrimination (Article 6 § 1 in conjunction with Article 14).
Law – Article 6 § 1: There did not appear to be a consensus or even a consolidated tendency among the State parties to the Convention as regards the granting of legal aid to legal persons. Indeed, the law of a substantial number of States did not provide any form of legal aid to legal persons. Under German law legal aid was only available to foreign legal persons if they were registered or residing in the European Union or the European Economic Area. According to the German courts this difference in treatment was justified by the principle of reciprocity. The Court noted that Peruvian law expressly provided for legal aid to be granted to natural persons only and that the applicant company had been unable to submit any case-law with respect to the granting of legal aid to foreign legal persons. It therefore considered that the domestic courts had based their decision to deny the applicant company legal aid on relevant grounds.
As regards the question whether the restriction on the applicant company’s right of access to a court could be considered proportionate to the aims pursued, specific weight had to be attached to the procedural safeguards provided in German law, notably the possibility to lodge a request for exemption from the obligation to advance payment of the court fee if immediate payment would cause difficulty. That possibility was open to natural and legal persons alike and did not differentiate between domestic and foreign legal entities. The applicant company could have lodged such a request, but had not done so. While it was true that, even if it had obtained such an exemption, the applicant company might still have been liable to make an advance payment on its own counsel’s fees or to provide security for the payment of its opponents’ court fees, the Court noted that the advance payment of counsel’s fees was not compulsory under German law and it had not been established that the question of providing security had been raised during the proceedings. In these circumstances, the limitations imposed on the applicant company’s right of access to a court were proportionate to the aims pursued.
Conclusion: no violation (unanimously).
Article 6 § 1 in conjunction with Article 14: In the light of its findings under Article 6 § 1, the Court considered that the Government had submitted relevant reasons for the different treatment of natural and legal persons (the necessity to control the use of public funds for financing litigation by private companies), and of domestic and foreign legal entities (the principle of reciprocity).
Conclusion: no violation (unanimously).
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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