CYIL Vol. 4, 2013

ALLA TYMOFEYEVA CYIL 4 ȍ2013Ȏ shareholder of the second applicant, a company selling painters’ equipment. The applicants complained that the proceedings before the Zürich Administrative Court were not in compliance with the Convention, namely that the principle ne bis in idem was breached, as both of them were punished for the same offence. The case was decided by the predecessor of the Court, the former European Commission of Human Rights, which declared the application inadmissible for failure to exhaust domestic remedies. In particular, it was mentioned that the second applicant had failed to raise the complaints under Article 4 of Protocol No. 7 in the proceedings before the Zürich Administrative Court. The case Saarekallas OÜ and Others v. Estonia 67 contained the complaints of eight applicants, among them the Saarekallas OÜ, a private limited company registered in Estonia. The Court admitted the status of victim of the applicant company, but, in the light of all the material in its possession, the Court ruled that these complaints did not disclose any appearance of a violation of the rights and freedoms set out in the invoked Article 4 of Protocol No. 7 and declared the application manifestly ill- founded. The NGO was not a victim of violation of Article 4 of Protocol No. 7 in the case of Mihai Gângă et Le Syndicat Indépendant Des Juristes De Roumanie v. Romania, 68 which concerned two applicants, namely Mr. M. Mihai Gângă and the company Le syndicat indépendant des juristes de Roumanie. Here, the Court noted that, the applicant company was not a party to the criminal proceeding relating to the applicant individual and, therefore, her complaints were dismissed. The case of Synnelius and Edsbergs Taxi AB v. Sweden 69 concerned the rights of two applicants, Mr. Anders Synnelius, a Swedish national, and a Swedish limited liability company Edsbergs Taxi AB, owned by him. In the course of different proceedings related to tax matters of both applicants the individual applicant was punished twice – specifically by the conviction for a bookkeeping offence and by the imposition of tax surcharges. Consequently, he submitted that the principle of ne bis in idem under Article 4 of Protocol No. 7 was violated. The Court found that the two offences in question were entirely separate and differed in their essential elements and therefore ruled that the application was inadmissible. 8. Conclusions The special meaning of the term “non-governmental organization”, which derives from the case law of the European Court gives us the understanding that the right to lodge a complaint under the Convention has all types of legal persons, from non-profit making organizations to business corporations and political parties.The Court also applies an autonomous concept of “criminal charge” under which the severity of punishment is

67 Saarekallas OÜ and Others v. Estonia (dec.), No. 11548/04, 15 May 2006. 68 Mihai Gângă et Le Syndicat Indépendant Des Juristes De Roumanie v. Romania , No. 28906/09, 10 April 2012. 69 Synnelius and Edsbergs Taxi AB v. Sweden (dec.), No. 44298/02, 17 June 2008.