NGOs under European Convention on Human Rights / Tymofeyeva

The objective of this provision is to protect the individual, not legal persons, against arbitrary action by public authorities. The initial approach of the Convention bodies was also confirmed in the case of Scientology Kirche Deutschland v. Germany. 712 In this case, the applicant association complained that a strong anti-Scientology campaign conducted in Germany had predictable and serious effects on the private life of its members. According to it, these effects were grossly disproportionate and destructive for the private and family lives of the persons affected and, therefore, violated Article 8 of the Convention. The Commission, in the present case, noted that the applicant association as such clearly cannot be a victim of the alleged violations of the rights guaranteed by Article 8 of the Convention . 713 It added that only the members of the applicant association, as individuals, could claim to be victims of a violation of these rights, which by their nature are not susceptible of being exercised by an association. Moreover, even if one assumes that the applicant association represented the interests of its members as alleged victims of a violation of Article 8 of the Convention, it had not identified these individuals and in any event has not shown that it received specific instructions from each of them. Consequently, this part of the application was declared incompatible ratione personae with the provisions of the Convention. The above examples show that at the end of the nineties, the old Commission still refused to recognise the rights of legal persons under Article 8 of the Convention. However, in the new millennium this approach has changed. 714 On 16 April 2002, in the case of Société Colas Est and Others v. France , referring to the ‘living instrument’ principle and the dynamic interpretation of the Convention, the Court concluded that “the time has come to hold that in certain circumstances the rights guaranteed by Article 8 of the Convention may be construed as including the right to respect for a company’s registered office, branches or other business premises.” 715 This case was groundbreaking for legal persons seeking to protect their rights under Article 8 of the Convention. This development could have been predicted in advance thanks to the number of judgments in respect of natural persons concerning the right to protection of one’s office from arbitrary interference by the authorities. 716 For example, in the case of Chappell v. the United Kingdom , the Court considered that a search conducted at a private individual’s home, which was also the registered office of a company run by him, had amounted to interference with his right to respect for his home within the meaning of Article 8 of the Convention. 717 This practice stemmed partly from the fact that the word ‘domicile’ (in the French version of

712 Scientology Kirche Deutschland v. Germany (dec.), no. 34614/97, Commission decision of 7 April 1997, unreported. 713 Ibid . 714 FURA-SANDSTRÖM, cited above, p. 165. 715 Société Colas Est , cited above, § 41. 716 Niemietz v. Germany , 16 December 1992, Series a no. 251-B. 717 Chappell v. the United Kingdom , 30 March 1989, § 26, Series a no. 152-A.

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