NGOs under European Convention on Human Rights / Tymofeyeva

and degrading manner in the proceedings. The Court, without any grounds of justification, concluded that in the light of all the materials in its possession, these complaints do not disclose any appearance of a violation of the rights and freedoms set out in the invoked Articles of the Convention or its Protocols. Therefore, this part of the application had been rejected in accordance with Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention. In a number of other cases, Article 3 was invoked by the applicants in the common submission of both natural and legal persons. In some of these cases, the Court ruled on a violation of the Convention, however, the breach of the right not to be tortured concerned only the individuals, 369 not the NGO applicants. As to the alleged violation of Article 5 to the Convention , the situation here is similar to the one described in respect of Article 3. The applicants, namely, three Moldovan nationals, Mr Gheorghe Straisteanu, Ms Natalia Straisteanu and Ms Daniela Straisteanu, and Codran-Lux, a company from Moldova, lodged an application with the Court in the case of Straisteanu and Others v. Moldova. 370 One of the applicants relied on Article 5, but it was not a legal person in question. Also, in the case of Yushchenko and Others v. Ukraine, 371 a legal person, the private transport enterprise ‘YUVM-Avtoservis’ (ПП «ЮВМ-Автосервіс»), was among the applicants, but the complaints under this provision of the Convention did not concern its rights. Currently, there are no judgments where the Court had found a violation of Article 5 to the Convention in respect of an NGO. 372 The amendment to the possible perception of the list of Articles of the Convention under which a non-governmental organisation may complaint was created by the already vividly discussed case of Centre for Legal Resources on behalf of Valentin Câmpeanu v. Romania . 373 The applicant in this case was an NGO, the Centre for Legal Resources (CLR). However, the complaint was lodged with the Court on behalf of Mr. Câmpeanu. The Court held that in this case, there have been violations of Article 2 and Article 13 in conjunction with Article 2 of the Convention . The complaint under Article 3 of the Convention was declared admissible. It was also found that it is not necessary to examine the admissibility and merits of the complaints under Articles 5 and 8 of the Convention; nonetheless, it was not ruled directly that the NGO at issue had no locus standi under these provisions. The findings of the judgments in this case did not specify in respect of whom the Court had ruled. On this basis, it would be possible to conclude that an NGO may seek before the Court protection of the rights under Articles 2, 3 and 5 of the Convention. If the very right to life is in theory guaranteed to applicant NGOs, there could be no other limitations. On the other hand, returning to the concept of de facto representation, any representative of an individual is authorised to do this. Consequently, it is still unclear whether an 369 Rosenzweig and Bonded Warehouses Ltd v. Poland (dec.), no. 51728/99, 2 September 2004 and Coorplan-Jenni GmbH and Hascic v. Austria (dec.), no. 10523/02, 24 February 2005 and Tornaritis and C.T. Tobacco Ltd v. Cyprus (dec.), no. 34798/03, 3 January 2008. 370 Straisteanu and Others v. Moldova , no. 4834/06, § 1, 7 April 2009. 371 Yushchenko and Others v. Ukraine (dec.), nos. 73990/01, 7364/02, 15185/02 and 11117/05, 27 March 2007. 372 Data valid on 17 June 2015. 373 Centre for Legal Resources [GC], cited above.

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