NGOs under European Convention on Human Rights / Tymofeyeva

the applicant union could rely on this Article. It noted, firstly, that secondary action was protected under the relevant International Labour Organisation Convention and the European Social Charter, and it would be inconsistent with the spirit of the Convention to take a narrower view on the freedom of association of trade unions than that which prevailed in international law. Secondly, and as regards the situation of other parties to the Convention, the Court observed that many of them had a long-established practice of accepting secondary strikes as a lawful form of trade union action. Nevertheless, the Court ruled that there was no violation of Article 11 of the Convention, giving the United Kingdom a wide margin of appreciation. What was important for the Court in this case was that the ban affected only an accessory aspect of the freedom of association of trade unions and did not affect any crucial part of their rights under this Article. Moreover, it stressed that democratically elected parliaments were better placed than an international judge to appreciate what legislative measures were best suited for the conditions in their country in order to implement the chosen social, economic or industrial policy. The case may be seen as an example of using systemic integration as a tool of judicial activism. 963 The dissolution of a trade union also falls under Article 11 of the Convention. This issue was the subject of a judgment in the case of Eğitim ve Bilim Emekçileri Sendikası v. Turkey. 964 The Court found a violation of this provision due to the trade union’s dissolution for supporting the right to education in a mother tongue other than the national language. In its statutes, the applicant union defended the right of all individuals of society “to receive, with equality and freedom, a democratic, secular, scientific and cost-free education in their mother tongue.” 965 Two sets of proceedings were brought against the applicant union for defending teaching in the ‘mother tongue’. The public prosecutor instituted the first proceedings for usage of the phrase in question in the union’s statutory documents. As a result, the applicant union amended the offending paragraph and the public prosecutor discontinued the dissolution proceedings. After the second proceedings, because the Turkish Court of Cassation had ruled that the statutes were incompatible with the Constitution and the principle of the unitary state, the applicant union was obliged to delete the offending words in order to avoid dissolution. The Court observed that the reasons given by the Turkish Court of Cassation had not been relevant and proportionate to the legitimate aims pursued. The proceedings to have the applicant union dissolved, which therefore obliged it to amend its statutes by deleting the words “to receive teaching in their mother tongue”, could not reasonably be regarded as necessary in a democratic society. The judgment in the case of Trade Union of the Police in the Slovak Republic and Others v. Slovakia 966 concerned strong ministerial criticism of the police union’s calls for the Slovak government’s resignation. The application in this case was submitted by 963 See, ISTREFI, K. R.M.T. v. The UK: Expanding Article 11 of the ECHR Through Systemic Integration (online). URL: accessed 20 July 2015. 964 Eğitim ve Bilim Emekçileri Sendikası , cited above. 965 Ibid ., § 59. 966 Trade Union of the Police in the Slovak Republic, cited above.

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