NGOs under European Convention on Human Rights / Tymofeyeva

by the shareholding municipalities and had a natural monopoly on the region’s water supply sector. The Court observed that 96.89% of the shares of the applicant company were owned by municipalities of the Eastern Slovakia Region and the composition of the company’s board of directors and supervisory board reflected the ownership of its shares. Therefore, it was considered to be under the control of the municipalities. On a basis of these findings, the Court declared the application inadmissible as being incompatible ratione personae with the provisions of the Convention within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 (a). Distinction between different categories of the applicants In accordance with Article 34 of the Convention, in addition to applications from non-governmental organisations, the Court may also receive applications from ‘any person’ and ‘group of individuals’. Regarding the notion ‘NGO’ in this Article, as we have seen in the examples given above, the Court interprets this term very broadly. Therefore, it is possible to deduce that a large number of subjects may act in the capacity of an applicant NGO, such as traditional non-profit NGOs, religious organisations, trade unions, political parties and even business companies and corporations. Such an understanding of the term ‘NGO’ has been confirmed by the judicial practice of the Court. In the already discussed case of Ukraine-Tyumen v. Ukraine , 171 which concerned the interests of the applicant joint stock company, the Court directly stated that “the applicant company is a ‘non-governmental organisation’ within the meaning of Article 34 of the Convention”. 172 The Court then used this same expression when it concluded that “the national company Radio France is a ‘non governmental organisation’ within the meaning of Article 34 of the Convention”. 173 The text of Article 25 of the Convention, before the amendments brought by Protocol 11 to the Convention in 1994 174 created the right to lodge an application with the Court. The adoption of Protocol 11 transformed the language of the former Article 25 into the present Article 34 of the Convention. Therefore, in the older case of Holy Monasteries v. Greece , the Court stated that “the applicant monasteries are … to be regarded as non-governmental organisations within the meaning of Article 25 of the Convention”. 175 The Court, in its case-law, only specified that a certain applicant is the ‘‘non governmental organisation’ within the meaning of Article 34 of the Convention’, 176 but it never directly stated that any particular applicant is a ‘any person’ or ‘group of individuals’ within the meaning of this Article. Therefore, based only on direct citation of the Court’s judgments and decisions, it is impossible to specify who these

Ukraine-Tyumen , cited above, § 26. Ukraine-Tyumen , cited above, § 28.

171

172

173 Radio France, cited above . 174 Protocol No. 11 to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, restructuring the control machinery established thereby, Since its entry into force on 1 November 1998, this Protocol forms an integral part of the Convention (ETS No. 5), Strasbourg, 11 May1994. 175 The Holy Monasteries , cited above, § 49. 176 Ibid. , § 49 and Ukraine-Tyumen, cited above, § 28.

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