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Warning to Greece by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe

15.03.2017
The Committee of Ministers shall take a second interim decision if Greece does not take a step until September 2017 so as to achieve tangible progress for the implementation of ECtHR judgments

The Council of Europe held its first meeting of the year on 7-10 March 2017, in keeping with the supervisory role of the Committee of Ministers on the implementation of European Court of Human Rights(ECtHR) judgments. As a result of the review carried out at its 1280th meeting on 7 March 2017, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe criticized Greece for not achieving any results in the implementation of the three ECtHR judgments on violations of freedom of association of the Western Thrace Turks. The Council decided to prepare an interim decision about Greece in case a tangible progress is not secured until the review to take place in September 2017.

The Committee of Ministers asked Greece to take legislative steps for the re-opening on the merits of the proceedings of the three associations

ECtHR in its first verdict of October 2007 related to the case of Evros Minority Youth Association (case of Bekir Ousta and others) decided that Athens breaches the article 11 of the European Convention of Human Rights on freedom of association and assembly. And on 27 March 2008 ECtHR ordered that Greece breaches the right to assembly and association regarding the case of Xanthi Turkish Union (case of Xanthi Turkish Union and others) where the association was closed because of the word "Turkish" in its name and the case of Cultural Association of Turkish Women of Rhodope where the mentioned association was not registered by relevant courts (case of Emin and others).

The Committee of Ministers has been following implementation of three ECtHR judgments on freedom of association by Greece under the name of cases of Bekir Ousta and his group since 2008. Owing to the fact that Greece does not implement the decisions persistently an interim decision was made in June 2014 and ECtHR requested from Greek authorities to present a concrete calendar for implementation of ECtHR judgments.

At the last review held on March 7th, the Committee of Ministers discussed recent developments regarding Bekir Ousta group of cases. The Committee of Ministers noted with interest the establishment of the mechanism for the implementation of the European Court’s judgments. Nevertheless, the Committee of Ministers criticized Greece that, apart from the establishment of this mechanism, no further tangible results have been achieved in the implementation of the individual measures in this group of cases since its last examination by the Committee of Ministers in March 2016.

In consideration of the time elapsed following the ECtHR judgments in all three cases, the Committee of Ministers asked from Greek authorities to take legislative measures in the context of the new mechanism, either by allowing the re-opening of proceedings in civil matters or by changing the procedure for registration of associations. The Committee of Ministers asked Greece to take legislative measures to allow the reopening of proceedings in civil matters which would allow to re-examination on the merits in light of the Court’s judgments.

For the related decision of the Committee of Ministers please follow the link https://search.coe.int/cm/pages/result_details.aspx?ObjectId=09000016806faaa2.
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