To The European Court

This note appeared on Berria yesterday:

Law of Political Parties prompts BAC Government to go to the European Court

They allege that the Constitutional Court’s judgement has infringed certain articles of the Convention on Human Rights

Ivan Santamaria – GASTEIZ (Vitoria)

The Government of the BAC (Basque Autonomous Community of Araba, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa) is to file a suit against Spain with the European Court of Human Rights because of the Law of Political Parties. The cabinet of the BAC Government adopted the decision yesterday and will be filing the suit with the Strasbourg court today or tomorrow. Believing that the Law of Political Parties contravened certain basic principles of the Constitution, the BAC Government took it to the Spanish Constitutional Court. This Court rejected the BAC Government’s appeal in a resolution dated March 12, 2003.

The BAC Government has argued that both the Law of Political Parties and the judgement of the Constitutional Court infringe certain rights established by the European Convention on Human Rights. In view of this, it has requested the court to sanction Spain and oblige it to take the necessary steps to suspend not only the law and the judgement, but also all the actions based on them.

The arguments to be put forward by the BAC Government in Europe to defend its appeals are as follows: there was no impartial judge and the trial was not fair; both the principle of criminal legality and the right to free association have been broken. These rights are in fact enshrined in Articles 6, 7 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

In the BAC Government's view, Batasuna [the outlawed left-wing Basque nationalist political party] did not get a fair trial, because the Spanish Constitutional Court did not accept the objection filed by the BAC Government against Manuel Jimenez de Parga, the Constitutional Court’s Presiding Judge. The BAC Government is of the opinion that there was a “public and clear” lack of impartiality in order to decide on the Law of Political Parties. In this respect the appeal recalls that five judges of the Constitutional Court were in favour of accepting the objection.

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