NGOs under European Convention on Human Rights / Tymofeyeva

could have led to a policy of racial segregation. Since no additional sanction had been imposed on the association or their members, who had not been prevented from continuing political activities in other forms, the Court concluded that the dissolution had not been disproportionate and unanimously ruled that there had been no violation of Article 11 of the Convention. The applicant in the case of Genderdoc-M v. Moldova 1010 was a non-governmental organisation based in Moldova whose object was to provide information and to assist the LGBT community. In April 2005, the applicant association applied to Chişinău Municipal Council for authorisation to hold a peaceful demonstration to encourage the adoption of laws to protect sexual minorities from discrimination. The request was rejected on the ground that the applicant association’s demonstration was baseless, since a law on the protection of national minorities had already been adopted. The NGO was not successful in proceedings before domestic courts concerning the refusal. The applicant association complained before the Court of a violation of its right to peaceful assembly claiming that the ban preventing it from holding a demonstration had not been in accordance with Article 11 of the Convention. The Court analysed the reasoning provided by the national authorities and ruled that the NGO had no effective remedy in respect of these complaints. Therefore, Moldova had violated provisions of the Convention. The analysis of the judgments presented in this section shows that Article 34 NGOs have a wide range of rights prescribed by Article 11 of the Convention. It is supposed that the authors of the Convention primarily expected that trade unions should become the main recipients among legal entities of the safeguards under this provision. Nevertheless, changes in society show that the most vulnerable of legal persons in this area are the political parties. The majority of violations of rights of these Article 34 NGOs concerned the dissolution or prohibition of their activities. The most controversial is a breach of Article 11 of the Convention in the form of the refusal to register an organisation, union or party. Here, the case-law does not give a concrete answer to the question as to who is a victim of such a violation, whether it is a natural person, who wishes to establish an NGO, a group of persons aiming to obtain legal personality, or unregistered Article 34 NGOs complaining of the infringenment of their right to be able to have a legal existence. The next section will explore the rights envisaged in Article 13 of the Convention. This provision provides for an effective remedy before a national authority. The right is guaranteed notwithstanding that the violation has been committed by persons acting in an official capacity.

1010 Genderdoc-M , cited above.

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