CONCURRING OPINION OF JUDGE THÓR VILHJÁLMSSON

I agree with the other members of the Court, but I prefer the following arguments to those set out in paragraph 61 of the judgment, subparagraphs 2 to 4:

It should be noted that the 1964 Act, which formed the basis of the impugned revocation decision, does not in itself amount to discrimination contrary to Article 14 (art. 14) of the Convention. In fact, the applicants have not alleged that the legislation as such is discriminatory. What they challenge is its implementation.

Implementation measures in the field of nature conservation take many forms and will often have to continue for years. By their very nature they may cause inconvenience to certain people since equal treatment of all persons in similar situations may not only be impractical but also impossible. It is for the Government of Sweden and not for our Court to say whether the aim of the nature conservation legislation should be realised by the closing of one or several gravel pits or if no such measures should be taken. The extent and speed of the implementation of conservation measures is guided not only by the desire to protect the environment, but also by other factors and financial and economic considerations may have a heavy impact. It seems to be worthwhile to underline this argument with a reference to the Sunday Times judgment of 26 April 1979 (Series A no. 30). There the applicants argued that the restrictions imposed by the English courts on their right to publish certain material were in violation not only of Article 10 (art. 10) of the Convention, on which point the majority of the Court agreed, but also of Article 14 (art. 14) because other and allegedly similar press publications were not subject to restraints of the kind suffered by the applicants. The Court did not find it necessary to deal with this argument at length. It unanimously stated as follows in paragraph 71 of its judgment (p. 43):

"The fact that no steps were taken against other newspapers, for example the Daily Mail, is not sufficient evidence that the injunction granted against the Times Newspapers Ltd. constituted discrimination contrary to Article 14 (art. 14)."

It seems to me that the above example well illustrates the kind of situations where a certain difference of treatment cannot be avoided.

Accordingly, I am of the opinion that in cases like the present one the Government in question has a wide margin of appreciation. It is, however, at the same time bound by the Convention. Taking into account what has been stated above, and also the well established principles relevant to the application of Article 14 (art. 14), it cannot be said that the alleged difference of treatment lacked an objective and reasonable justification: it had a legitimate aim (see paragraphs 48 and 50 of the judgment) and the revocation decision itself was not disproportionate to this aim. Accordingly, I find no violation of Article 14 taken in conjunction with Article 1 of the First Protocol (art. 14+P1-1).

[*]  The case is numbered 29/1989/189/249.  The first number is the case's position on the list of cases referred to the Court in the relevant year (second number).  The last two numbers indicate the case's position on the list of cases referred to the Court since its creation and on the list of the corresponding originating applications to the Commission.

[*]   As modified by Article 11 of Protocol No. 8 (P8-11), which entered into force on 1 January 1990 .

[*]    The amendments to the Rules of Court which entered into force on 1 April 1989 are applicable to this case.

[*]  Note by the Registrar:  For practical reasons this annex will appear only with the printed version of the judgment (volume 192 of Series A of the Publications of the Court), but a copy of the Commission's report is obtainable from the registry.