Information Note on the Court’s case-law 16

March 2000

Martínez-Caro de la Concha Castañeda and Others v. Spain (dec.) - 42646/98, 42647/98, 42648/98 et al.

Decision 7.3.2000 [Section I]

Article 6

Civil proceedings

Article 6-1

Civil rights and obligations

Applicability of Article 6 to disputes concerning the expatriation allowance paid to civil servants from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs: inadmissible

The fi fteen applicants, high-ranking civil servants in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, submitted claims to various administrative authorities for review of the amount of special allowances they received because they resided abroad. The claims were refused. The applicants then brought administrative proceedings in the Audiencia nacional , which found against them on the basis of a Supreme Court judgment dealing with a similar case in which it had ruled on an appeal by counsel representing the Government against a decision contravening a statutory provision; the applicants had not been parties to that case and consequently had not been able to appear or make any submissions they might have had. In that judgment the court ruled against the view contended for by the a pplicants. The applicants lodged appeals ( recursos de amparo ) with the Constitutional Court based on various complaints relating to the fairness of the proceedings in the Audiencia nacional. The appeals were dismissed.

Inadmissible under Article 6 § 1 (app licability) and Article 14 taken together with Article 6 § 1 and with Article 1 of Protocol No. 1.

It had first to be determined whether Article 6 § 1 applied in the case in the light of the functional criterion identified in the Pellegrin judgment, which governed the applicability of Article 6 in the area of disputes raised by employees of the State over their conditions of service. That functional criterion involved ascertaining in each case whether the applicant’s post entailed – in the light of the nat ure of the duties and responsibilities appertaining to it – direct or indirect participation in the exercise of powers conferred by public law and duties designed to safeguard the general interests of the State or of other public authorities. If that was t he case, the dispute fell outside the scope of Article 6. In the instant case the applicants, employees of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in post in consulates and embassies abroad, had specific obligations “inherent in the public-service nature” of their duties, as their activities typified the specific duties of the public service set out above. In concrete terms it appeared that the applicants had had important responsibilities in connection with the State’s external relations; they had therefore direct ly participated both in the exercise of powers conferred by public law in the States where they were posted and in the performance of duties designed to safeguard the general interests of the State. The same reasoning applied to the two retired applicants as their application related to sums of money directly connected with the performance of their duties at a time when their special link with the public service still existed: incompatible ratione materiae .

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

Click here for the Case-Law Information Notes