NGOs under European Convention on Human Rights / Tymofeyeva

consideration. This concept made taxation of manual gifts dependent on the conduct of a tax audit, which necessarily implied an element of chance and, consequently, a lack of foreseeability in the application of the tax law. As a result, the rights of the applicant association were infringed. On 31 January 2013, the Court issued another three judgments concerning taxation of gifts in France. These are The Religious Association of the Pyramid Temple/ Association Cultuelle Du Temple Pyramide v. France, 786 The Association of the Knights of the Golden Lotus (Association Des Chevaliers Du Lotus D’Or v. France) 787 and The Evangelical Missionary Church and Salaûn (Eglise Evangelique Missionnaire et Salaûn v. France). 788 The circumstances in these cases were similar to those described above. In all three cases, the applicant associations relying on Article 9 alleged that the fact that they were required to pay taxes on hand-to-hand gifts infringed their right to manifest and exercise their freedom of religion. The applicant in the first case, the Religious Association of the Pyramid Temple, was a not-for-profit association pursuing an aim to construct of a place of worship in Castellane (France). Following tax assessment procedures, sums of more than 2.5 million euros were recovered from the association. In the second case, the applicant was the Association of the Knights of the Golden Lotus, also a not-for-profit association. It was dedicated to the practice of a new religion known as Aumism.The applicant association was obliged to pay 37 thousand euros for the issue of the gifts received by it. When both associations refused to declare the gifts, the authorities automatically imposed a tax rate of 60% in accordance with the tax code, 789 which envisages that hand to-hand gifts are subject to gift tax. The associations were also ordered to pay an 80% surcharge. The applicants in the last case were the Evangelical Missionary Church and its president, Mr. Éric Salaûn. According to the result of an audit of its accounts and the imposition of tax on the hand-to-hand gifts, the administrative authorities considered the association unable to be classified as a ‘religious’ association for the purposes of claiming the corresponding tax exemptions. Consequently, the association had to pay more than 280 thousand euros to the French State Treasury. In all three cases, the Court held that the legislation was the same as that in the case of Association of Jehovah’s Witnesses case . Therefore, it saw no reason to depart from the conclusion to which it came in the aforementioned judgment and found a violation of Article 9 of the Convention in all three cases. As we see, all the cases in this section concern France, which could signify that France has a structural problem in this respect. Nevertheless, the judgments in questions may not be called ‘pilot judgments’ 790 as far as the Court does not require France to issue legislative changes

786 Association Cultuelle du Temple Pyramide , cited above. 787 Association des Chevaliers du Lotus, cited above. 788 Eglise Evangélique Missionnaire, cited above.

789 LE BARS, S. Témoins de Jéhovah : la Cour européenne des droits de l‘homme condamne la France . LE MONDE pour Le Monde.fr. 30. 06. 2011. URL: accessed 20 July 2015. 790 HAIDER, D. The Pilot-Judgment Procedure of the European Court of Human Rights . Leiden: Brill, 2013.

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