Arc-in- Ciel wrote:" according to legal authorities, the history of European Community’s legal disputes has changed dramatically after the ruling on PMOI against the Council of the European Union. We must thank People’s Mojahedin of Iran whose struggle to free their nation has also allowed the progress of legal ruling in Europe."
French Quarterly Arc-in- Ciel (publication of the New Human Rights), Nð 56, June 2007:
Terrorist List and the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran
An Unprecedented Judicial Victory in Europe
On February 5, by invitation of the Association of the Iranian Lawyers and Jurists in Exile, a group of lawyers and political personalities met in Paris to discuss the consequences of the judgment of the Court of First Instance of European Communities (CFI) that annulled the decision of the Council of European Union to put the People’s Mojahedin Organization (PMOI/MEK) in the terror list. The New Human Rights (NHR) has been supporting this legal struggle with all its capacity since 2002.
Following the ruling by the CFI, the Iranian regime has been exerting pressure on diplomatic circles in Europe stating that the judgment serves as an obstacle to its relations with Europe.
The European Council of Minister’s decision caused an outcry by the lawyers and the members of Parliament. About fifty members of the “Friends of Free Iran” in the European Parliament strongly condemned the EU Council’s decision and called on the Council to abide by the court’s judgment; that is to remove PMOI from the list of terrorist organizations.
It is, in fact, the British government which has been the principal instigator of this challenge to the European court. The French foreign ministry also through its spokesman, declared on February 9: “We completely agree to keep PMOI in this list. There was a legal problem, a matter of procedure and reasoning, those problems are being corrected, but this organization will remain in the list. ”
This clearly shows that the French government already had made a decision to continue its appeasement policy towards Iran, even before PMOI could be given the right to a fair hearing. This position thus constitutes a violation of the principle of the presumption of innocence and a challenge to governance of law, since it has been taken contrary to the December 12, 2006 judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Communities.
Let us see if the verdict of the court is only a simple matter of “procedure”?
Henri Labayle, professor of the University of Pau and a specialist in European law says, “The ruling of the Court of First Instance is a true legal revolution. For the first time, the judge is not making vague and general statements, but is very precisely considering the action of the Community institutions with regards to inscription to the list.” He concludes: “The Council obviously has felt the speed of wind and has realized that the time period for taking arbitrary decisions are over”.
In its press releases, the court notes: PMOI was founded in 1965 and set the objective of replacing the regime of the Shah of Iran and then that of the mullahs’, by a democracy."
The article 2 of the judgment specifies: “the decision of the Council of December 21, 2005 about limiting some individuals and organizations is annulled.” The court in paragraph 35 states: “If the court annuls a decision, it is retroactive as if it never existed before. ” Therefore, the ruling of the CFI clearly cancels the Council’s Decision to include PMOI in the terror list and freeze its assets. This judgment is retroactive and the enlisting of People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran is considered from its inception stripped of any legal base. The court concludes that “the general principle of observance of the right to a fair hearing was not applied”.
The court says that the process of decision-making by the Council did not respect the minimum requirements. The court adds that no reason was given by the Council. It did not even specify which qualified national authority was the first to decide to include PMOI in the list.
The CFI specifies that the decision of the Union must be based on a decision by a national authority. United Kingdom is the noted authority in this case. However the CFI raises states that neither the Council, nor the United Kingdom were able to provide the court with any evidence that indicates how this procedure. Thus it shows that this issue is not about a simple problem related to procedures.
Out of tens of cases which relates to inscriptions on the various terrorist lists by the European Union, this is the only one that has clearly been settled by the European judges. However, the council acts as if the ruling by the court had not taken place. It does not draw any practical and legal conclusions from the ruling of the First Instance court of the European Communities.
To justify its decision, the Council refers to the March 29, 2001 decision by the former British Foreign Minister Jack Straw. In January 2006, Straw stated that the decision to inscribe PMOI in the British terrorist list was taken at the request of the mullahs. As a result, 35 members of British Parliament, under the leadership of Lord Robin Corbett, from the Labor Party filed a complaint with the judicial system about the inclusion of PMOI in the list.
Lord Waddington, the former conservative British Minister of Interior, and Lord Peter Fraser, former prosecutor general of Scotland who supervised the investigation into the Lockerbie attack were among those Member of Parliament.
The ruling of CFI enables PMOI to end the judicial procedures in different countries, in particular in France. Indeed the inscription of PMOI has the basis of the charges and reports by DST since the police operation of June 17, 2003 against the offices of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) in Auver-sur-Oise. It is true that the removal of the PMOI from the European list makes this file completely empty of any charges. We know that this file has been a political dossier since the beginning. The concern is closing a file upon which many contracts with Iranian mullahs are based on. This fact has persuaded the French foreign ministry to take the astonishing position of disregarding one of the highest legal authorities in Europe, if not the highest.
According to legal authorities, the history of European Community’s legal disputes has changed dramatically after the ruling on PMOI against the Council of the European Union. We must thank People’s Mojahedin of Iran whose struggle to free their nation has also allowed the progress of legal ruling in Europe.
Everyone knows that the inscription of PMOI is a result of the policy of appeasing the mullahs in order to moderate their behavior. Today this illusion does not exist any more. Most special interest groups in Europe (including in France) are not able to ignore the benefits of the contracts signed with the religious dictatorship in Iran.
The decision of the French foreign ministry and the European Ministers of Economics is an obstacle to establishment of freedom and democracy in Iran. But more serious is that this irresponsible decision encourages a regime that is promoting terrorism and chaos in the Middle East particularly in Iraq and is endangering the world peace.
Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran is right to stress that: “This is far more than injustice. The refusal of the Council of the European Union is an arbitrary act which represses justice and tramples the law, democracy and the human rights”.