NGOs under European Convention on Human Rights / Tymofeyeva

disputes, such as the one in the present case, from the jurisdiction of the courts in itself infringed the right to court access under Article 6. As to an infringement of Article 14 in conjunction with Article 6 § 1, the Court noted that the difference in treatment affecting the applicant parish’s enjoyment of its right of access to court had been based on its adherence to the Greek Catholic Church. 1070 The national courts had interpreted the legislation in a contradictory manner, sometimes accepting and sometimes declining jurisdiction to take on cases brought before them by Greek Catholic parishes. As the result, the applicant parish had been treated differently from other parishes involved in similar disputes. The difference in treatment to which the applicant parish had been subjected therefore had no objective and reasonable justification. The case of Canea Catholic Church v. Greece may serve as the other example of a violation of Article 14 taken together with Article 6 § 1. 1071 It originated in an application against the Hellenic Republic lodged with the Commission by a Greek national, the Right Reverend Frangiskos Papamanolis, Roman Catholic Bishop, on behalf of the Canea Catholic Church. The Commission considered that the application should be treated as having been submitted by the church itself. The circumstances of the case were as follows. In June 1987, two people living next to the church demolished one of its surrounding walls, which was 1.20 metres high, and made a window looking onto the church in the wall of their own building. The applicant church, represented by the abbot, applied to the Canea District Court seeking a declaration that it was the owner of the wall in question and orders that the defendants must cease the nuisance and restore the previously existing situation. The defendants raised an admissibility objection on the ground that Catholic churches in Greece had no legal personality and were thus prevented from bringing legal proceedings. 1072 By the final judgment of the domestic courts, the writ of the applicant church had been dismissed. Relying on Articles 6 § 1, 9 and 14 of the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1, the church complained of the Greek courts’ refusal to acknowledge that the Catholic Church of the Virgin Mary in Canea had legal personality. It claimed that the refusal amounted to a discriminatory interference with its right of access to court, its right to respect for its freedom of religion and its right to the peaceful enjoyment of its possessions. The Court observed that the applicant church, which owned its land and buildings, had been prevented from taking legal proceedings to protect them, whereas the Orthodox Church or the Jewish community could do so without any formality or required procedure. 1073 The government did not provide any objective and reasonable justification for such a difference in treatment. As to the complaints under Article 9 of the Convention, the Court concluded that it was not necessary to rule on this issue in view of the findings in the case. 1070 EDEL, F. Prohibition of discrimination under the European Convention on Human Rights. Strasbourg: Council of Europe Publication, 2010, p. 141. 1071 Canea Catholic Church , cited above. 1072 EDEL, 2010, cited above, p. 141. 1073 Canea Catholic Church , cited above, § 47.

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