Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 103
December 2007
I.T.C. LTD v. Malta - 2629/06
Decision 11.12.2007 [Section IV]
Article 6
Civil proceedings
Article 6-1
Civil rights and obligations
Proceedings for awarding a government tender: inadmissible (Article 6 inapplicable)
The applicant company applied to a public tender to stage a major public event on the occasion of Malta’s joining the European Union. The tender was eventually awarded to another bidder. The applicant company objected to that decision, but to no avail. Before the Court it complained about the unfairness of the proceedings in which it challenged the decision on the tender.
Inadmissible: Article 6 of the Convention was not aimed at creating new substantive rights without a legal basis in the Contracting State, but to providing procedural protection of rights already recognised in domestic law. Given the wording of the relevant Maltese law, the mere fact that a legal person had submitted a bid or made an offer at a public tender could not give rise to an expectation or a right to be awarded the tender, or to have it determined by any particular method. Moreover, according to the case-law of the domestic courts a decision to award a government contract was considered an administrative act and the relevant legal provisions did not grant any civil right in the context of a public call for tenders. Finally, the fact that a tenderer had the right to object to an award and to have its objection considered at a public hearing did not amount to a civil right, but merely to a right of a public nature; a right to object did not suffice to make Article 6 applicable to proceedings determining the award of a tender, in view of the competent authority’s discretion to decide who should be granted the tender: incompatible ratione materiae.
(along these lines see Skyradio and others v. Switzerland (dec.) no. 46841/99, 31 August 2004; a contrario see Araç v. Turkey, no. 69037/01, 21 September 2006).
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This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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