469 / 536
455
CYIL 7 ȍ2016Ȏ THE CZECH REPUBLIC BEFORE THE EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS …
full jurisdiction, their judges had been acquainted with the report in question and
had also been obliged to examine the case even beyond the scope of the applicant’s
allegations and objections. Moreover, the first instance court had assessed the need
for the report to be classified. The Court therefore concluded that, in spite of the
applicant’s inability to get knowledge of the key element for the disputed invalidation
of his security clearance, in the circumstances the decision-making process respected as
far as possible the requirements of the principles of adversarial proceedings and equality
of arms, and the limitation on these rights of the applicant had been counterbalanced
by judicial safeguards for the protection of his interests. Hence, there had been no
violation of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention.
The truth is, however, that the Court’s approach towards non-disclosure of crucial
classified information in various cases involving the loss of security aptitude
5
is not
completely in line with the opinion taken in the
Regner v. the Czech Republic
case.
It remains to be seen how the Grand Chamber of the Court will tackle this issue,
possibly with regard to the current context of a general toughening of the security
considerations.
6
Conclusion
One can easily conclude that with regard to the Czech Republic before the
Strasbourg Court, virtually nothing happened in 2015. For the first time since 2002,
the Court did not pronounce any judgment establishing a breach of the Convention
by the Czech authorities. Notwithstanding that, there were a couple of judgments
in the process of execution delivered in the previous years, in particular those
in
D. H. and others v. the Czech Republic
(no. 57325/00, judgment [GC] of
13 November 2007, concerning the enrolment of Roma pupils in schools outside
the mainstream education),
Bureš v. the Czech Republic
(no. 37679/08, judgment
of 18 October 2012, in a case of both substantive and procedural violation of the
applicant’s right not to be subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment when
involuntarily admitted into a psychiatric hospital),
Delta pekárny a.s. v. the Czech
Republic
and
Hanzelkovi v. the Czech Republic
(for both of these see my contribution
last year to this Yearbook).
5
See e.g.
Užukauskas v. Lithuania
(no. 16965/04, judgment of 6 July 2010),
Ternovskis v. Latvia
(no. 33637/02, judgment of 29 April 2014) or
Miryana Petrova v. Bulgaria
(no. 57148/08, judgment
of 21 July 2016).
6
We may also be reaching the limits of the Court’s case law in the area of judicial review of decisions
concerning public officials, reformulated in
Vilho Eskelinen and others v. Finland
(no. 63235/00,
judgment [GC] of 19 April 2007). Is it better not to have any review at all or to have at least some review,
even if the person concerned does not enjoy to the full extent her rights to adversarial proceedings and
to equality of arms? It would be difficult anyway to abandon the existing standard in light of the Czech
Constitutional Court’s case law, which requires an appropriate review by a judge in security proceedings
(no. Pl. ÚS 11/2000, judgment of 12 July 2001).