AIR CANADA v. THE UNITED KINGDOMPARTLY DISSENTING OPINION OF MR. H. DANELIUS
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Document date: November 30, 1993
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PARTLY DISSENTING OPINION OF MR. H. DANELIUS
I have voted against the Commission's conclusion that there has
been no violation of Article 6 of the Convention, for the following
reasons.
I accept that no criminal charge was involved in the present
case. However, the decision to return the aircraft against the payment
of £50,000 must be considered to have concerned the applicant company's
civil rights (cf. Application No. 12954/87, Raimondi v. Italy, Comm.
Report of 21 October 1992, paras. 113-115). The applicant company
cannot be considered to have acted voluntarily when it accepted to pay
this amount since the alternative with which it was faced was the much
more serious prospect of having the aircraft forfeited (cf. the
situation of constraint in the Deweer case, Eur. Court H.R., judgment
of 27 February 1980, Series A No. 35).
The question which remains to be answered is therefore whether
the applicant company could have obtained a determination by a court
of whether or not the condition relating to the payment of £50,000 was
reasonable and appropriate. The determination of this question involves
the exercise of discretion and general legal appreciation rather than
considerations of a purely legal character. In these circumstances, I
cannot find it established, on the basis of the two court cases
referred to in paras. 25 and 26 of the Report, that judicial review
proceedings would have offered the applicant company a sufficient
remedy to satisfy the requirements of Article 6 of the Convention.
Moreover, no other judicial remedy would seem to have been available.
For these reasons, I conclude that Article 6 of the Convention
has been violated in the present case.
(Or. Eng.)