Information Note on the Court’s case-law 36

November 2001

Fédération chrétienne des témoins de Jéhovah de France v. France (dec.) - 53430/99

Decision 6.11.2001 [Section II]

Article 34

Victim

Association complaining about a parliamentary report on sects which it claims provoked a policy of repression and a law to prevent and repress sects: inadmissible

The applicant association is responsible for the representati on and legal protection of the 1149 local associations established in France for the purpose of practising the Jehovah’s Witnesses religion, which, according to the association, is the country’s third Christian religion. Since Jehovah’s Witnesses were firs t registered as a cultural association at a prefecture in 1906, they had practised their religion unhindered on French territory. In 1995 the National Assembly set up a committee to investigate sects. The investigative committee published a report in 1995 (the Gest/Guyard report). The authors of that report, basing their information on a census by the central department of the Intelligence Service, drew up a list of a certain number of movements which it described as sects and classified as dangerous. Jehov ah’s Witnesses were included in the list. The report was very widely circulated, both to the public authorities and the public at large. In 1998 a second parliamentary committee was set up to continue the investigations undertaken by the first one. It conc entrated its study on an examination of the financial and tax position of the sects and their ownership of property. It published a report in 1999 (Guyard/Brard report) containing, according to the applicant association, inaccurate and defamatory statement s about the association and, in particular, allegations of tax evasion. The association unsuccessfully requested the President of the National Assembly to have certain passages of the report removed. The applicant complained that the content of the reports had given rise to hostile reactions to Jehovah’s Witnesses (hostile press campaign, creation of defence associations, organisation of public debates on sects etc.) or measures, such as decisions by the civil and administrative courts, infringing rights an d liberties. Examples of such measures were the refusal to grant or renew permits, and tax and social-security inspections by the URSAFF singling out Jehovah’s Witnesses. In June 2001 an Act was adopted “reinforcing the prevention and repression of sectari an movements infringing human rights and fundamental freedoms”. It provides, inter alia , for the possibility of dissolving, subject to certain conditions, a legal entity governed by a sectarian movement and also puts in place a prosecution procedure.

Inadm issible under Articles 6 § 1, 9 and 13, taken separately and combined with Article 14: The Court’s examination of the complaints would be confined to the 1999 report and the 2001 Act because the complaints relating to the 1995 report were out of time given that the application had been lodged in December 1999. It had not been established that the applicant could claim to be directly affected by the impugned measures as a federal body governing all Jehovah’s Witnesses and responsible for protecting their int erests. In any event, the impugned measures allegedly resulting from the publication of the investigative report of 1999 were not, in some cases, based on the report in question, and even when reference to the report was made, it was merely obiter dictum , which could not in any circumstances be considered as the underlying intention of the measure. Furthermore, a parliamentary report had no legal effect and could not serve as a basis for any criminal or administrative proceedings. The court decisions referr ed to had been, inter alia , civil-law decisions and had concerned facts falling within the trial courts’ unfettered discretion; the administrative decisions relating to licenses had concerned individual situations and could have been appealed against in th e administrative courts. With regard to the inspections by the URSAFF, they were measures which could have been taken in respect of anyone subject to the law of the land and the applicant had not shown how they had had the purpose or effect of violating it s rights under the Convention. With regard to the Act adopted in 2001, since the Court could not rule on legislation in abstracto , it could not express an opinion on the compatibility of its provisions with the Convention; according to that Act, sects coul d be dissolved only following court proceedings and where certain conditions were met, such as where the sects or their leaders had been convicted by a final judgment of offences (which were exhaustively listed), which should not give the applicant cause f or concern. An argument based on assumptions about the legislation and bent on solving a burning issue of society was not a demonstration of probability of a risk incurred by the applicant. Furthermore, the applicant could not, without contradicting itself , rely on the fact that it was not a movement which infringed freedoms and at the same time claim to be a victim of the application of that Act. Accordingly, the applicant could not claim to be a “victim” within the meaning of Article 34 of the Convention.

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

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