NGOs under European Convention on Human Rights / Tymofeyeva

consider a matter after all domestic remedies have been exhausted, according to the generally recognised rules of international law. In such circumstances, it concluded that the applicant organisation had failed to exhaust domestic remedies, and that this part of the application must be rejected pursuant to Article 35 § 4 of the Convention. The case of Hingitaq 53 and Others v. Denmark 1230 involved 428 individuals from theThule District in Greenland, and Hingitaq 53, a group that represented the interests of relocated Inughuit (the Thule Tribe). 1231 The Thule Tribe consist of people living off of hunting and fishing, who entered Greenland from Canada in around 2000 BC. They lived completely isolated until 1818, following which they received visits by whalers and expeditions. In 1909, the Danish polar researcher Knud Rasmussen established a commercial trading station and privately initiated a colonisation of the area, which he called the Thule District. During World War II, the United States of America reached an agreement with the Danish Minister, in Washington in 1941, that permitted the establishment of US military bases in the area. In 1953, the US obtained permission to expand the base to cover the whole Dundas Peninsula. Within a few days, the tribe was forced to leave their houses, a hospital, a school, a radio station, warehouses, a church and a graveyard (the family houses were later burned down and the church was moved to another village on the west coast). The applicants complained, inter alia , that in breach of Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention, they had not had any political influence at the relevant time. The Court did not give a detailed explanation on this issue, but only noted that in the light of all the material in its possession, they did not disclose any appearance of a violation of the rights and freedoms set out in the Convention or its Protocols. One more case, which can add to this category, is Communist Party of Russia and Others v. Russia . 1232 It concerned complaints by Russian political opposition parties that the media coverage of the electoral campaign by the five major TV companies was not comparable. As a result, the 2003 parliamentary elections had not been free and equal. The Court ruled that neither a violation of Article 13 (right to an effective remedy), nor a violation of Article 3 of Protocol No 1 took place. 1233 It found that laws and procedures existing at the relevant time had guaranteed the opposition minimum access to TV as well as provided for the neutrality of the state-controlled media. Although, at the material time, there were certain shortcomings on the equality in TV coverage in reality, it had not been sufficient to find that the elections had not been ‘free’ within the meaning of the Convention. Further, we will focus on the rights set forth in Protocol No. 7 to the Convention. Before starting the direct analysis of the case-law of the Court under this Protocol, a brief introduction on the subject matter will be given.

1230 Hingitaq 53 and Others v. Denmark (dec.), no. 18584/04, ECHR 2006-I. 1231 Protection of Cultural Heritage and the European Court of Human Rights – See more at: accessed 20 July 2015.

1232 Communist Party of Russia , cited above. 1233 LÉCUYER, 2014, cited above, p. 59.

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