Source: European Voice
A case coming up for review before the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg today (6 March) should give pause for thought to anyone who values the EU’s fundamental commitment to the rule of law.
The court will examine the case of the main Iranian opposition group, which has challenged the Council of Ministers’ decision to maintain it on the EU terror list despite a ruling of the court in its favour in December 2006.
But we learnt during the case that although the Council has not appealed, the EU member states refused to implement the court’s ruling that PMOI was not a terrorist organisation. The PMOI immediately challenged the decision in the UK itself, and here we must pay tribute to the great British tradition of protecting civil liberties.
The special British court, the Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission (POAC), delivered a 144-page decision which is a real lesson about what the rule of law "of checks and balances" means, or should mean.
The court concluded, after detailed consideration of all the arguments, that nothing justified the inclusion of the PMOI in the proscribed list, even calling the decision by the British home secretary "perverse", which in plain English means that the government’s decision was illegal.
Yet, despite the POAC ruling, the UK government and the Council of Ministers still refuse to implement the courts’ decisions.
When I entered the European system in late 1978, I was struck by two major rulings which established the primacy and the direct effect of Community law.
These established the principle that every citizen has the right to appeal against a judgment by his/her national court and to demand the "suppression" of elements of national law contrary to the Treaty of Rome, or to the fundamental rights of EU citizens.
For French nationals, accustomed to having their rights granted only by their elected representatives without any possibility of objecting, this was a revolution. Indeed, a double revolution: the law is no longer the law and in the EU the state becomes subject to it.So the case of the PMOI goes beyond political arguments, though I firmly believe its cause is just. It is about the rule of law on our continent.
It is unthinkable to decide that an organisation "any more than a person" is an outcast without showing evidence, and without giving any possibility of mounting a defence.
In that sense the European judges showed themselves guardians of human rights. That the 27 member states have preferred to ignore what the court decided is ominous because it seriously undermines the rule of law.
If the Council does not comply quickly with the two courts’ decisions, how can Europe pretend to give lessons about democracy to the rest of the world?
⢠Jean-Pierre Spitzer is scientific director of the Union of European Lawyers and legal counsel to the European Movement.