Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 92
December 2006
Linkov v. the Czech Republic - 10504/03
Judgment 7.12.2006 [Section V]
Article 11
Article 11-1
Freedom of association
Refusal to register a political party on the ground that one of its aims was anti-constitutional: violation
Facts: In July 2000 the preparatory committee of a political party (the Liberal Party – “the PL”), of which the applicant was a member, applied to the Ministry of the Interior to register as a political party. The Ministry refused the application on the ground that the party’s constitution was in breach of the Political Parties Act, taken together with the Czech Constitution and the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms. It considered in particular that the party’s goal of “breaking the legal continuity with totalitarian regimes” was unconstitutional. On an appeal by the preparatory committee, the Supreme Court upheld the Ministry’s decision to refuse to register the party and fully endorsed its opinion concerning the political goal of “breaking the legal continuity with totalitarian regimes”, finding that such a goal was designed to destroy the democratic foundations of the State. Furthermore, the Constitutional Court declared an appeal by the applicant and the preparatory committee manifestly ill‑founded on the ground that the decisions appealed against had not infringed their constitutional rights.
Law: The refusal to register the PL amounted to interference with the applicant’s right to freedom of association. The interference was prescribed by the Political Parties Act and the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms and had pursued a legitimate aim for the purposes of the Convention. As to whether the interference met a pressing social need, the PL’s constitution had advocated a policy of breaking the legal continuity with totalitarian regimes. In the applicant’s view, that goal should have been achieved by ending the “impunity in relation to certain offences” committed by representatives of the communist regime, an act that would not have been in breach of the Constitution. The Court considered it necessary to take into account the historical and political background to the applicant’s case. Following the change of regime in 1989, the Czech legislature had passed two laws declaring that the communist regime had consistently and systematically breached human rights, the fundamental principles of a democratic State, international treaties and its own laws, and that it had pursued its ends by committing offences and persecuting citizens. In addition, one of these laws stipulated that, as regards limitation-periods for offences that had remained unpunished for political reasons, the running of time was suspended between 25 February 1948 and 29 December 1989. In view of the age of the perpetrators, that amounted to removing the possibility of limitation for such offences – the goal for which the PL had sought to campaign. Hence, there was no evidence that the PL had not sought to pursue its aims by lawful and democratic means, or that its proposed change of the law had been incompatible with fundamental democratic principles, especially as the party’s registration had been refused before it had even had time to carry out any activities. The Court reiterated in that connection that the refusal to register a party was a drastic measure that could be applied only in the most serious cases. As the PL had not advocated any policy that could have undermined the democratic regime in the country and had not urged or sought to justify the use of force for political ends, the refusal to register it had not been necessary in a democratic society.
Conclusion: violation (unanimously).
Article 41 – Non-pecuniary damage: finding of a violation sufficient.
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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