NGOs under European Convention on Human Rights / Tymofeyeva

There are no judgments of the Court in respect of Article 34 NGOs regarding a combination of Article 14 of the Convention with Articles 7 and 8; 1074 accordingly, we will proceed directly with allegations in relation to Article 14 taken together with Article 9 of the Convention. 2.9.3 Article 14 in conjunction with Article 9 of the Convention In the case of Savez crkava “Riječ života” and Others v. Croatia , 1075 the Court found a breach of Article 14 taken in conjunction with Article 9 of the Convention. 1076 The applicantswerechurchesof aReformist denominationregisteredas religious communities under Croatian law.They sought to conclude an agreement with theCroatian government regulating their relations with the state, but to no avail. They claimed that without such an agreement they were unable, inter alia , to provide certain kinds of activities, namely, religious education in public schools and nurseries, as well as pastoral care in health and social-welfare institutions and prisons. Additionally, without this agreement they would be unable to have their religious marriages recognised by the state. The authorities informed the applicants that they did not fulfil the cumulatively prescribed criteria for the conclusion of such an agreement as set out per government instructions. In particular, that they had not been present on Croatian territory since 1941 and did not have the required 6,000 adherents. The applicant churches complained that they had been discriminated against because the other religious communities, namely, the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, the Croatian Old Catholic Church and the Macedonian Orthodox Church, which did not satisfy the criteria set forth in the government’s instruction, had nevertheless concluded agreements with the state. They relied on Article 14 of the Convention, taken together with Article 9. The government of Croatia did not agree with the applicants and explained that this was so because the Religious Communities Commission established that those churches had satisfied the alternative criterion of being “historical religious communities of the European cultural circle”. Nonetheless, the government did not provide an explanation as to why the applicant churches, which are of a Reformist denomination, were not qualified as “historical religious communities”. The Court noted that the criteria set forth in the government’s instructions were not applied on an equal basis to all religious communities. Consequently, the Court concluded that the difference in treatment between the applicant churches and those religious communities which had concluded agreements on issues of common interest with the government 1077 did not have any objective and reasonable justification. It must be mentioned that in the present case the Court did not find a violation of Article 9 taken alone. It was mentioned that the Court considers the celebration of

1074 Data valid for 12 June 2015. 1075 Savez crkava “Riječ života”, cited above.

1076 MARINOVIĆ, A., and MARINOVIĆ JEROLIMOV, D.“What about Our Rights? The State and Minority Religious Communities inCroatia: a Case Study”. Religion and Society in Central and Eastern Europe, 2012, 5 (1): 39-53, p. 49. 1077 They were therefore entitled to provide religious education in public schools and nurseries and to have religious marriages they performed recognised by the state.

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