Ždanoka v. Latvia (dec.)

Information Note on the Court’s case-law 51

March 2003

Ždanoka v. Latvia (dec.) - 58278/00

Decision 6.3.2003 [Section I]

Article 3 of Protocol No. 1

Stand for election

Ineligibility to stand for Parliament as an automatic consequence of a court finding of membership of an unconstitutional party: admissible

Article 6

Civil proceedings

Article 6-1

Civil rights and obligations

Proceedings relating to the right to stand as a candidate in elections: Article 6 inapplicable

Article 8

Article 8-1

Respect for private life

Restrictions on political rights on account of activities essentially falling with the public sphere: inadmissible

Article 11

Article 11-1

Freedom of association

Ineligibility for election on account of membership of unconstitutional party: admissible

During the Soviet era, the applicant was a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPUS), the sole and governing party of the USSR, and of its regional branch, the Communist Party of Latvia (CPL). IN January and August 1991, following the independence of the Republic of Latvia, the SPL actively supported two attempted coups d’État, which failed. Consequently, in September 1991, the Latvian legislature declared the CPL anticonstitutional and ordered its dissolution. In 1994 and 1995, the Latvian Parliament enacted two laws on the local and legislative elections, respectively, and declared that anyone who had participated in the activities of the CPL after 13 January 1991, the date on which the directors of that party had formally demanded the resignation of the Latvian Government and the assumption of full power by a Public Protection Committee, was ineligible. In 1997, the applicant was elected to Riga City Council and no measure was taken against her. However, in 1999, following an inter partes  procedure brought by the State Prosecutor’s Department, the Riga Regional Court and then the Civil Affairs Division of the Supreme Court found that the applicant had in fact been an active member of the SPL after the critical date of 13 January 1991. The applicant’s appeal on a point of law to the Senate of the Supreme Court was declared inadmissible by a definitive order of February 2000. The applicant automatically became ineligible and lost her seat on Riga City Council. The applicant’s name was removed from the electoral list presented in the subsequent legislative elections.

Admissible under Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 as regards the applicant’s ineligibility for the national Parliament: (a) As long as the applicant continues to be ineligible for the national Parliament, she may claim to be a “victim” within the meaning of Article 34 of the Convention and therefore the objection alleging that she lacks the capacity of victim is rejected; (b) It is not apparent that the action indicated by the Government would be effective. In particular, the situation of which the applicant complains results essentially from the electoral law as such and not from its interpretation by the domestic courts. The Latvian Constitutional Court expressly found that that law is compatible with Article 3 of Protocol No. 1.

Admissible under Articles 10 and 11.

Inadmissible under Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 as regards the loss of the applicant’s seat on Riga City Council: the Latvian local councils do not participate in the exercise of legislative power and therefore do not form part of the “legislature” for the purposes of Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention. That article does not therefore apply: incompatible ratione materiae.

Inadmissible under Article 8 (private life): the question is whether the restriction of the applicant’s right to stand for election owing to her political past interferes with her right to respect for her private life. The details of the applicant’s political past which served as the basis for her ineligibility were neither secret nor even confidential but were freely available in the public archives. The national authorities did not carry out any special investigation in order to obtain them and had not archived them or otherwise memorised them in order to make use of them in the future (cf., a contrario, Rotaru v. Romania, ECHR 2000-V). Furthermore, the activities held against the applicant formed part, more generally, of the recent historical context of the breaking up of the former Soviet Union and were widely reported in the media. Last, the applicant is a known public person who actively participated in the political events of the era in question and who was elected to the Supreme Council of Latvia in her specific capacity as a member of the SPL. Accordingly, her activities within that party were essentially a part of her public life and not of her “private life” and there has therefore been no interference for the purposes of Article 8.

Inadmissible under Article 6 § 1 (fairness of the proceedings relating to the applicant’s eligibility) as incompatible ratione materiae.

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This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.

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