Information Note on the Court’s case-law 51

March 2003

SARL du Parc d’activités de Blotzheim and SCI Haselaecker v. France (dec.) - 48897/99

Decision 18.3.2003 [Section II]

Article 6

Civil proceedings

Article 6-1

Civil rights and obligations

Proceedings relating to annulment of a decree amending a bilateral treaty: Article 6 inapplicable

The applicants are companies involved in a proposed industrial estate withi n the territory of the municipality of Blotzheim (forming part of an industrial development area Zone d’Activité Concertée – “ZAC”)), near Basle-Mulhouse international airport. The first applicant, the promoter of the proposed industrial estate, purchased land within the industrial development area in order to carry out development work connected with the project. The second applicant was the main contractor responsible for building industrial units on the industrial estate. At the same time, the management board of Basle-Mulhouse airport adopted a confidential development plan entailing the use of the same land. The decrees of the Prefect recognising the general interest of the aforementioned development plan and formally directing Blotzheim district counci l to take account of the plan (which had the effect of preventing the applicants’ proposed industrial estate from being implemented) were annulled by the Strasbourg Administrative Court, on the ground that the proposed extension decided upon by the airport management board exceeded the limits laid down in the France-Swiss Convention of 1949 governing the operation of the airport. Subsequently, by an exchange of notes in 1996, the Swiss and French Governments amended that convention in such a way as to allow the proposed extension (construction of a new runway) to be carried out. In May 1996, a decree publishing that agreement was adopted. The applicants lodged an application with the Council of State for annulment of that decree, maintaining that the amendme nt of the 1949 Convention could only be approved by a law. The Council of State dismissed the application by a judgment of December 1998.

Inadmissible under Article 6 § 1 (applicability): the proceedings before the Council of State gave rise to a “real an d serious” “dispute”: first, the Council of State examined the merits of one of the pleas put forward by the applicants; second, the remaining pleas did not appear to be manifestly ill-founded, even though the Council of State did not find it necessary to adjudicate on the merits of those pleas. As regards the outcome of the proceedings, it was capable of affecting the applicants’ financial position and their economic activities. However, the subject-matter of the legal action was not economic in nature and was not based on an alleged interference with pecuniary rights. The agreement and the contested decree neither referred to the applicants’ economic activities nor governed their rights and had “no direct legal effect” on their situation, so that the outco me of the action brought by the applicants was not “directly determinant” for the rights in question. Furthermore, the legal action was aimed exclusively at annulment of the decree and argument was confined to the legality of the decree in abstracto . As th ere was no dispute over a “civil right” enjoyed by the applicants, Article 6 § 1 did not apply: incompatible ratione materiae .

Inadmissible under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 and of that article in conjunction with Article 14.

© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.

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