NGOs under European Convention on Human Rights / Tymofeyeva

Article 10 . 221 In a number of other cases concerning complaints under Articles 5, 6 or 8, the Court has granted victim status to close relatives on the condition that they have shown a moral interest in having the late victim exonerated of any finding of guilt, 222 or in protecting their own reputation and that of their family. 223 Moreover, the persons may obtain the status of indirect victim where they have shown a material interest on the basis of the direct effect on their pecuniary rights. 224 The existence of a general interest, which necessitated proceeding with the consideration of the complaints, was also an important concern in these cases. However, participation in the domestic proceedings is only one of several relevant criteria. 225 All of these considerations indicate that it is almost impossible for an NGO to maintain that it is the indirect victim of breaches of the Convention. The attention-grabbing considerations in respect of the NGO status we may find also the case of Centre for Legal Resources on behalf of Valentin Câmpeanu v. Romania . 226 The applicant in this case was a Romanian non-governmental organisation, the Centre for Legal Resources (hereinafter also referred to as the ‘CLR’). It submitted the application on behalf of Valentin Câmpeanu, a mentally ill orphan who had no legal guardian appointed and, at the date of lodging the application with the Court, was already dead. During the last days of his life, Mr Câmpeanu was held in a psychiatric hospital, where he was visited by a team of monitors from CLR. The visitors reported that although Mr Câmpeanu could not eat or use the toilet without assistance, the hospital staff refused to help him. The CLR monitors came to the conclusion that the hospital had failed to provide Mr Câmpeanu with the necessary care. The same evening, he died. The CLR instituted a number of proceedings before the domestic institutions in relation to the circumstances leading up to Valentin Câmpeanu’s death, but to no avail. On behalf of Mr. Câmpeanu, CLR alleged before the Court that he had been the victim of breaches of Articles 2, 3, 5, 8, 13 and 14 of the Convention. In this case, the applicant NGO claimed that the nature of the link between the third party and the direct victim is among the criteria to be considered for determining its locus standi . The Court noted that it “cannot find sufficiently relevant grounds for regarding CLR as an indirect victim within the meaning of its case law. Crucially, CLR has not demonstrated a sufficiently ‘close link’ with the direct victim; nor has it argued that it has a ‘personal interest’ in pursuing the complaints before the Court…”. 227 Nevertheless, the Court dismissed the Government’s objection concerning the lack of locus standi of CLR. It explained that CLR has “standing as 221 Fairfield v. the United Kingdom (dec.), no. 24790/04, ECHR 2005-VI. 222 Nölkenbockhoff v. Germany , 25 August 1987, § 33, Series a no. 123 and Grădinar v. Moldova , no. 7170/02, § 98, 8 April 2008. 223 Armonienė v. Lithuania , no. 36919/02, § 29, 25 November 2008; Brudnicka and Others v. Poland , no. 54723/00, §§ 27-31, ECHR 2005-II and Polanco Torres and Movilla Polanco v. Spain , no. 34147/06, §§ 31-33, 21 September 2010. 224 Micallef v. Malta [GC], no. 17056/06, §§ 48-51, ECHR 2009 and Marie-Louise Loyen and Bruneel v. France , no. 55929/00, §§ 28-31, 5 July 2005. 225 Kaburov v. Bulgaria (dec.), no. 9035/06, §§ 52-53, 19 June 2012 and Micallef , §§ 48-49. 226 Centre for Legal Resources on behalf of Valentin Câmpeanu v. Romania [GC], no. 47848/08, ECHR 2014. 227 Centre for Legal Resources [GC], cited above, § 107.

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