Source: euobserver.com
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – The EU's Court of First Instance has annulled the member states' latest decision to keep Iran opposition group, the PMOI, on their terrorist register, creating a legal quandary.
The court verdict on Thursday (4 December) overturned the EU's July "common position" to label the PMOI as a terrorist organisation and to freeze its financial resources and fund-raising activity across the EU.
Member states in July had said that new information arising from a counter-terrorism probe by the Tribunal de Grande Instance in Paris justified leaving it on the blacklist, but kept the new information secret.
"The refusal by the council [the member states' secretariat] and the French authorities to communicate, even to the court alone, the information …has the consequence that the court is unable to review the lawfulness of the contested decision, which infringes the PMOI's fundamental right to an effective judicial review," the EU court said.
The verdict is the first time the court has ruled on the EU terror register while it is actually in force.
Member states issue a new blacklist every six months or so, with two previous pro-PMOI EU court rulings – in 2006 and 2008 – referring to lists which had already expired in legal terms.
"The hearing in this case took place on 3 December and today, only one day later, the court has delivered its judgement. This one-day period is the quickest that the court has ever delivered its judgement following the hearing," the court statement added.
The council's legal service is currently analysing if the timing means that the PMOI is off the register effective immediately, or if a follow-up EU common position amending the register is needed to enact the verdict.
"That's the key question. There's some legal doubt and we are examining it," an EU official said.
"There are many other groups on the list which have never complained. This is just one case and it doesn't mean the council is not doing its work properly," he added. "What all this shows is that EU mechanisms are working well – people are duly protected and they can appeal against any decision."
"With this ruling, the PMOI is no longer on the list and cannot be kept on the list in future. It is now up to the council of ministers to state this publicly and to apologise to the PMOI and the people of Iran," Shahin Gobadi, a spokesman for the PMOI's sister group, the NRCI, said.
"The EU should compensate the Iranian resistance and the Iranian people for the damage it has caused."
Mohahedin changes spots
PMOI – the People's Mojahedin Organistaion of Iran – was responsible for attacks against the Islamic leadership in Tehran in the 1980s and 1990s but renounced violence in 2001 and gave up arms in 2003.
The Paris-based NRCI – the National Resistance Council of Iran – has in the past accused the EU of suppressing the movement as a bargaining chip in negotiations on Iran's nuclear enrichment programme.
The EU terrorist register is compiled by the so-called "CP 931" working group, which consists of delegates from member states' interior and foreign ministries and is cleared to consult documents classified as "secret."
CP 931 decisions are then rubber-stamped by meetings of EU ministers, with the July common position enacted by agriculture ministers.