Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 87
June 2006
Lykourezos v. Greece - 33554/03
Judgment 15.6.2006 [Section I]
Article 3 of Protocol No. 1
Free expression of opinion of people
Immediate application during current parliamentary term of provision disqualifying those engaging in professional activities from sitting as MPs: violation
Facts: The applicant worked as a lawyer when he was elected as a member of parliament in April 2000 for a four-year term. In 2001 a revision of the Constitution made all professional activity incompatible with the duties of a member of parliament, subject to certain exceptions which were to be adopted by legislative action. In the absence of implementing legislation, the rule on disqualification entered into force on 1 January 2003, with no exceptions. A constituent lodged a complaint against the applicant’s election. The applicant argued, inter alia, that the rule on disqualification could not apply in his case since he had been elected in 2000, prior to the enactment of the revision of the Constitution, and that he had practiced his profession without receiving any fees since the revision entered into force in 2003. In July 2003 the Special Supreme Court applied the constitutional revision and disqualified the applicant from holding his parliamentary seat.
Law: The applicant had been elected in accordance with the electoral system and the Constitution in force at the material time. Neither the applicant nor his electors could have imagined that his election might be called into question and considered flawed while his term of office was still in progress on the ground that simultaneously carrying on a profession was incompatible with his duties as a member of parliament. The incompatibility had not been announced prior to the elections and his disqualification during his term of office had come as a surprise both to him and his constituents. The rights guaranteed by Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 would be merely illusionary if the applicant or his constituents could be arbitrarily deprived of them at any moment. By considering the applicant’s election under the new Article of the Constitution which entered into force in 2003, without taking into account the fact that he had been elected in 2000 in accordance with the law, the domestic court had caused the applicant to forfeit his seat and had deprived his constituents of the candidate they had chosen freely and democratically to represent them for four years, in breach of the principle of legitimate expectation. The Government had not advanced any grounds of pressing importance to the democratic order that could have justified the immediate application of the absolute disqualification.
Conclusion: violation (unanimous).
Article 41 – EUR 20,000 in respect of pecuniary damage.
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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