113.  The Government of Cyprus submitted that the applicant's right to demonstrate under Article 11 of the Convention had been interfered with in an aggravated and serious manner. The acts of the respondent Government were a deliberate and provocative attempt to disrupt a lawful demonstration in an area which was subject to UN patrols and not even within the claimed jurisdiction of the “TRNC”. The  <mask> with the applicant's rights was not prescribed by law and was an excessive and disproportionate response to a peaceful and lawful demonstration. The respondent Government had not identified any legitimate aim that they were seeking to serve by assaulting the applicant.


54.  The Government asked the Court to reject the applicants’ arguments. They observed that the  <mask> in question was clearly prescribed by Articles 68 and 69 of the Constitution, which required political parties constituting centres of anti-constitutional activities, contrary to the principles of equality and of a secular, democratic republic in particular, to be dissolved by the Constitutional Court. They emphasised that one of the conditions for the dissolution of a political party, namely failure on its part to expel those of its members who had been convicted of criminal offences – a condition which had been added by the Law on the regulation of political parties to the definition of a “centre of anti-constitutional activities” – was no longer applicable in the case on account of changes to the Criminal Code. In other words, following the repeal of Article 163 of the Turkish Criminal Code, which concerned the dissemination of anti-secular ideas and the creation of associations for that purpose, the procedure laid down in section 103(2) of the Law on the regulation of political parties had become devoid of purpose. The Government submitted that for that reason section 103(2) was manifestly unconstitutional in that its application would have made it impossible to give full effect to the Constitution, and in particular Article 69 § 6 thereof, which gave the Constitutional Court sole power to rule that a political party constituted a centre of anti-constitutional activities.


99.  The applicant submitted that the Government's assertion that he did not participate in the demonstration, so that there was no  <mask> with his right to freedom of peaceful assembly, contradicted the findings of the domestic court, according to which he had allegedly behaved in an anti-social way during the demonstration of 7 April 2003. If he had blocked a street which had nothing to do with the demonstration, as the Government claimed, this fact would have been disclosed by the investigating authority and without any doubt would have been used in the administrative case against him.


112.  The applicants claimed that the  <mask> with the rights of the protesters had been two-fold: it had consisted of, first, the dispersal of the meeting, and, secondly, the arbitrary criminal prosecution of some of the protesters. The Government did not deny that there had been an interference with Article 11 rights, at least in so far as the dispersal was concerned.


27.  The Government contested this view. They noted that, in the applicant’s view, it was the police decision on non-competence that violated his right to freedom of assembly. However, the  <mask> in fact resulted from the original police measure declaring the area in question a “security operational zone”. Against such a measure, a distinct complaint might be filed with the police body in charge, and the latter’s decision could be appealed before the superior organ. The resulting administrative ruling was susceptible to judicial review, an effective remedy in the circumstances. However, the applicant’s case pursuing this legal avenue was still pending. In respect of the area closure, successful proceedings, including judicial review, had already take place (case no. 27.K.31.354/2010/9.); and the applicant should have completed his own similar case, failing which he had not exhausted domestic remedies.


103.  The Government of Cyprus submitted that the applicant’s right to demonstrate under Article 11 of the Convention had been interfered with in an aggravated and serious manner. The acts of the respondent Government were a deliberate and provocative attempt to disrupt a lawful demonstration in an area which was subject to UN patrols and not even within the claimed jurisdiction of the “TRNC”. The  <mask> with the applicant’s rights was not prescribed by law and was an excessive and disproportionate response to a peaceful and lawful demonstration. The respondent Government had not identified any legitimate aim that they were seeking to serve by assaulting the applicant.


67.  The applicant wanted to fly from Sheremetyevo airport to Samara to participate in the March of Dissent scheduled for the same day. The Government do not dispute that this was the purpose of his flight. Nor is there any doubt that participation in such a rally would have been an exercise of the applicant’s right to freedom of peaceful assembly. The applicant’s arrest and detention, and the seizure of his passport and ticket made it impossible for him to fly that day. Having been denied access to the Samara flight, at such short notice, there would have been no other way for him to make it to Samara in time for the rally. The applicant’s arrest and detention prevented him from attending the rally. There has, therefore, been an  <mask> with his right to freedom of assembly.


48.  The Government contended that, if Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 was at all applicable, what had occurred in the present case had to be considered as a control of the use of property falling within the scope of its second paragraph. They left it to the Court to decide whether an  <mask> giving rise to State responsibility had occurred. They submitted, however, that the alleged interference had been lawful. Furthermore, the wage monitoring system that followed from the Construction Agreement, and the costs to which the applicants were compelled to contribute, served not only the legitimate aim of protecting the rights and freedoms of others, but also pursued the general interest of the community, namely to uphold the legitimacy of the Swedish approach in the area of industrial relations.


27.  The Government argued that there had been no  <mask> with the applicants’ freedom of association, noting that the Ministry had not formally refused to register the association. Instead, it had merely returned the association’s foundation documents to the founders so that the latter could rectify the deficiencies and ensure that they complied with the requirements of the domestic law. The Government contended that, although “a refusal to register a public association might be regarded as a violation of the right to freedom of association, a delayed response to [an application for state registration] is not a violation of that right”. Even if the Ministry had committed procedural errors, they had not amounted to a violation of the applicants’ rights under Article 11.


35.  The applicant submitted that there was no justification for the  <mask> with its right to determine its membership. There was no interference with Mr Lee's freedom of expression as expulsion did not interfere with his right to express his political views. In any event any sanction was minimal and did not take priority over its right, and its members' rights, to exercise their own freedom of association and expression. Mr Lee never claimed that he suffered any detriment from exclusion. It referred to Article 17 to the effect that Article 10 would not protect some-one engaged in destroying other rights and freedoms. Since it was committed to opposing race discrimination, it would interfere with its rights, and its members, to be forced to admit into membership a person who was a member of such a right wing organisation. It did not accept that section 174 imposed a limited restriction, pointing out that it simply did not wish to associate with those whom they regarded as fascists or members of extreme right wing parties, whether active or not. It claimed that it had the right to dissociate itself from those whose political membership they abhorred. While Mr Lee's status as an activist might furnish greater reason to expel him, this did not touch on the fundamental issue. It would be acceptable if section 174 were framed so as to limit exclusion to membership of a party the objectives of which were contrary to the objectives of the trade union.


94.  The applicants argued that their detention had violated both their freedom of expression under Article 10 of the Convention and their freedom of peaceful assembly under Article 11 of the Convention. The  <mask> with those rights by their detention had not been justified. It had not been “prescribed by law” and had not pursued a legitimate aim for the reasons they set out in relation to Article 5 § 1 (see paragraph 57 above). In particular, it had been uncertain if, when and where the applicants would display the banners “Freedom for prisoners” and “Free all now”. Doing so would, furthermore, not have been an offence under the Criminal Code. The slogans could not have been understood as an incitement to a very uncommon crime but had had a different, more obvious meaning. With more than 1,000 demonstrators having been detained in connection with the G8 summit but only 100 detentions having been approved by the courts, there had been more than enough reason to criticise the deprivations of liberty that had taken place in connection with the summit.


106.  The Government submitted that no prior notification had been made to the competent authority about a march planned for 16 July 2006 along Nevskiy Avenue. The absence of such notification had rendered the march unlawful. Certain demonstrators had behaved in a “destructive manner”, thus manifestly breaching order and creating a real threat to their own and others’ safety. They had not stopped their unlawful actions and had not dispersed, despite the  <mask> by the police. Moreover, they had shown active resistance to the police. Some forty people had been arrested.


46. The Government submitted that the State’s  <mask> with the applicants’ freedom of association had been prescribed by law. They stated that Article 20 of the Constitution had provided for boundaries in exercising freedom of association. The same restrictions were set out in Article 4 of the Act. They asserted that the Constitutional Court, on the basis of these provisions, had found that the Association’s name and the ideology of Ivan Mihajlov which it pursued had encouraged and incited to national hatred and intolerance and had led to a denial of the free expression of the Macedonian national affiliation. They maintained that the affirmation of the ideas of the Movement, as a terrorist association, would in practice mean killings, terrorist activities and support of fascism and its ideology. That had caused disorder and public reactions, resulting in two incidents at the Association’s opening ceremony. They presented a number of documents concerning Ivan Mihajlov’s life and his activities; the activities of the organisation called the VMRO (Внатрешна Македонска Револуционерна Организација) under his leadership, in particular in the period 1924-1934, and his alleged alliance with the fascist regime during the Second World War. Referring to that material, they maintained that Ivan (Vančo) Mihajlov (Radko) was considered as a person who used terrorist methods to impose the fascist idea of denunciation of the Macedonian people’s identity and to promote the latter as a fictitious and non-existent people called “Macedonian Bulgarians” (Македонски Болгари). They stated that in pursuance of that idea, he and his followers had killed and massacred a considerable number of Macedonians who had fought for the national freedom of their people. The Government stated that the creation and operation of an Association, the name, platform and programme activities of which had been inspired by the name and image of Ivan Mihajlov, had irrefutably been directed towards incitement to national hatred or intolerance, contrary to Article 20 § 3 of the Constitution, something that could result in clashes between the Macedonian people and the citizens associated with the Association. They claimed that repudiation of the identity of the Macedonian people and its statehood had been at the heart of the Association’s activity. Accordingly, violent destruction of the constitutional order was the fundamental objective of the Association. As stated by the Government, the public reaction on the opening ceremony had been clear evidence that the Association would incite to national hatred. The Association’s members had had recourse to brutal physical force against their adversaries, causing injuries for which they had been subsequently convicted by a court and sentenced to imprisonment. The Government submitted that the existence of the Association should be considered as an abuse of freedom of association, as its aim had not been the expression of thoughts and beliefs, but negation of the identity of the Macedonian people through promotion of the fascist ideas of Ivan Mihajlov concerning the “Macedonian Bulgarians”, who were unknown in history, legal science and practice. The ultimate objective of the Association was to initiate national hatred, religious unrest and a revival of the terror that Ivan Mihajlov had practiced in his time, when he executed hundreds of opponents.


54.  The applicants submitted that they had no remedy for their complaints, which disclosed arguable claims of violations of provisions of the Convention. Domestic law provided at that time no remedy to test whether any  <mask> with their rights was unlawful. The case-law of the English courts indicated that the owner of a shopping centre could give a bad reason, or no reason at all, for the exclusion of individuals from its land. No judicial review would lie against the decision of such a private entity.


47.  The Government argued that there was no  <mask> with the applicants' freedom of association. Firstly, the Government noted that the Ministry did not refuse to register the association. Instead, it merely returned the association's foundation documents to the founders so that the latter could rectify the shortcomings and ensure that they complied with the requirements of the domestic law. The Government contended that, although “a refusal to register a public association might be regarded as a violation of the right to freedom of association, the delayed response to [an application for state registration] is not a violation of this right.”


86.  The Government submitted that the impugned  <mask>, if any, could be regarded as pursuing the legitimate aims of protection of the rights and freedoms of others and the protection of public order, within the meaning of Article 9 § 2, namely, by eliminating entities claiming to pursue religious ends but in fact striving only for financial benefits. The applicants contested this view.


18.  The applicant argued that, while having been prescribed by law, the  <mask> complained of had not pursued a legitimate aim. As regards its necessity, he argued that had the demonstration been authorised it would not have caused any disproportionate obstacle to the traffic. Venyige Street, with the service lane included, was wide enough to accommodate the expected number of participants, some 200; and the police could have secured access to the prison notwithstanding the on-going event. In sum, the applicant found abusive the Government’s reliance on the traffic hindrance argument.


71.  The applicant in the present case was arrested at the scene of a protest action against the President’s policies. She was part of a group of about forty people who forced their way through identity and security checks into the reception area of the President’s Administration building and locked themselves in one of the offices, where they started to wave placards and to distribute leaflets out of the windows. She was charged with participation in mass disorder in connection with her taking part in the protest action and remanded in custody for a year, at the end of which time she was convicted as charged and sentenced to three years’ imprisonment, suspended for three years. The Court considers that her arrest, detention and conviction constituted  <mask> with the right to freedom of expression.


70.  The Government submitted that the  <mask> with the applicant’s rights had been lawful. The Political Parties Act established a special authorisation procedure for registration of political parties. The requirement to obtain a registration authorisation was justified by the special status and role of political parties. The Political Parties Act did not differentiate between types of registration. The same rules therefore applied to the registration of a newly established political party and to the registration of any amendments to the information contained in the Register. In all cases a political party had to submit the documents specified in section 16 of the Political Parties Act (see paragraph 44 above) and the registration authority had competence to verify those documents and decide whether to authorise or refuse registration (see sections 15 § 5, 29 § 1 and 38 § 1 of the Political Parties Act in paragraphs 43, 45 and 53 above). The fact that those provisions allowed different interpretations was not contrary to the Convention. Many laws were inevitably couched in terms which, to a greater or lesser extent, were vague and whose interpretation and application were questions of practice. The role of adjudication vested in the courts was precisely to dissipate such interpretational doubts as remained, taking into account the changes in everyday practice (the Government referred to Rekvényi v. Hungary [GC], no. 25390/94, § 34, ECHR 1999‑III, and Gorzelik and Others v. Poland [GC], no. 44158/98, § 65, ECHR 2004‑I). The Government concluded that domestic provisions governing registration of political parties met the requirements of accessibility and foreseeability. In any event, the applicant had applied to the domestic authorities for instructions as to the registration procedure to be followed and had received detailed explanations. It was also significant that the lawfulness of the refusal of registration had been examined and confirmed by the domestic courts. Given that it was in the first place for the national authorities, and notably the courts, to interpret domestic law, it was not the Court’s task to substitute its own interpretation for theirs in the absence of arbitrariness (they referred to Tejedor García v. Spain, 16 December 1997, § 31, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1997‑VIII).


19.  The applicant submitted that the last-instance court had rejected the application for registration by relying only on the provisions of the association’s memorandum and its articles of association. He considered, however, that the finding that some provisions of the memorandum and articles of association could have amounted to activities specific to political parties had been mere speculation and did not amount to compelling reasons that could have justified the  <mask> with his freedom of association. In the applicant’s opinion, the goal of the association had certainly not been one that could have been attributed exclusively to political parties.


33.  The Government submitted that the  <mask> was prescribed by law. In particular, the applicant was convicted under Article 180.1 of the CAO for “violation of the prescribed rules for organising or holding assemblies, rallies, street marches and demonstrations”. These rules were prescribed by the USSR Law on Approving Decrees of the Chairmanship of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on Making Amendments and Supplements to Certain USSR Legal Acts of 28 October 1988 and were accessible and formulated with sufficient precision.


89.  The Government further contended that the  <mask> in the present case had been necessary given that the applicant had not only been convicted on account of participation in an illegal demonstration but also for throwing stones at the police. They noted that the applicant and the other demonstrators had been asked to disperse, but had refused to do so.


139.  The applicants placed particular emphasis on the deficiencies of the reasoning adduced by the domestic authorities. Both sides asked the Court to re-examine the proportionality of the “interference”, while raising a disagreement about certain circumstances having significance for such an assessment. The Court, for its part, is not satisfied that the reasons adduced by the national authorities to justify the “interference” under Article 11 of the Convention were sufficient for then sentencing four applicants to detention. Faced with the domestic courts’ failure to give reasons that would be both relevant and sufficient to justify the  <mask>, the Court finds that the domestic courts cannot be said to have “applied standards which were in conformity with the principles embodied in Article 11” or to have “based themselves on an acceptable assessment of the relevant facts” (see paragraph 131 above; see also Novikova and Others v. Russia, nos. 25501/07 and 4 others, § 152, 26 April 2016, and Terentyev v. Russia, no. 25147/09, § 24, 26 January 2017).


43.  The applicant argued that the domestic legislation regulating freedom of assembly did not comply with principles of foreseeability and precision: while the Constitution required only prior notification about a planned public assembly, the system of prior authorisation, which was applied in practice and stemmed from certain provisions of the Law on Freedom of Assembly of 13 November 1998, allowed for arbitrary  <mask> with freedom of assembly and permitted abusive banning or dispersal of public gatherings.


14.  The Government submitted that the  <mask> was prescribed by law, namely by the relevant provisions of the Assembly Act. Furthermore, it pursued the legitimate aim of securing the rights of others, that is, those of other road users. As to its necessity, the Government stressed that the police had had to balance the right to assembly and the right to free movement. Since in the present case the event was likely to cause inordinate traffic congestion in both Venyige Street and the neighbouring major thoroughfare, it was the police’s prerogative to restrict the applicant’s Article 11 rights: the measure was thus a necessary and proportionate restriction on the right to assembly.


31.  The applicants submitted that the authorities’ suggestion to change the venue of the “demonstration”, the forceful termination of the “demonstration”, their arrest and the fines imposed in the administrative proceedings constituted an  <mask> with their right of peaceful assembly under Article 11 of the Convention, considered in the light of Article 10. In the applicants’ view, the applicable legislation did not meet the quality of law required under the Convention because this legislation did not indicate the scope of a public authority’s discretionary power to change or restrict the location or time of a proposed gathering. The legislation did not determine the legal consequences of non-compliance with the authority’s alternative proposal regarding the venue and/or timing of the event. It was not clear whether failure to comply with the proposal entailed administrative liability.


97.  The Government claimed that the  <mask> in the form of dissolution of the applicant community had been justified, prescribed by law and had also pursued a legitimate aim. They referred to the Court's position to the effect that the State was “entitled to verify whether a movement or association carries on, ostensibly in pursuit of religious aims, activities which are harmful to the population” (Manoussakis and Others v. Greece, 26 September 1996, § 40, Reports 1996‑IV) and also “may legitimately consider it necessary to take measures aimed at repressing certain forms of conduct... judged incompatible with respect for the freedom of thought, conscience and religion of others” (Otto-Preminger-Institut v. Austria, 20 September 1994, § 47, Series A no. 295‑A).


36.  The Government submitted that at the relevant time the town centre was owned by a private company, Postel, and that it was Postel, in the exercise of its rights as property owner, which refused the applicants permission to use the Galleries for their activities. They argued that, in those circumstances, the State could not be regarded as bearing direct responsibility for any  <mask> with the applicants’ exercise of their rights. The fact that the land had previously been owned by the local authority was irrelevant.


95.  The applicants also claimed, in this connection, that the Audit Court, following the Court of Cassation judgment of 6 December 1995, had invalidated the collective agreements signed by the trade union Tüm Bel Sen and that civil servants belonging to the union had had to reimburse all the additional wages or allowances they had received as a result of the defunct agreements. This development, which in itself constituted  <mask> with the trade union’s activities, had also prevented the union from persuading other municipal authorities to sign new collective agreements.


198.  The Government submitted that there had been no  <mask> with the first and second applicants’ right to freedom of peaceful assembly. Before the domestic authorities, those applicants had explained their presence at the scene by curiosity rather than by a will to express their position through participation in an assembly. The Government referred to the applicants’ statements to the police on 28 May 2010 and to the District Court to the effect that they had been merely passing by the place of the events and had been attracted there by curiosity (see paragraphs 46, 47, 52 and 53 above). The Government stressed that, in contrast to such cases as Galstyan v. Armenia (no. 26986/03, §§ 100 and 116, 15 November 2007), in which the domestic authorities had punished the applicant for his conduct in the course of a demonstration, in the present case the domestic authorities had not referred to the applicants’ participation in an assembly but merely to their refusal to obey the police officers’ demands. Thus neither the applicants’ statements before the domestic authorities nor any decisions taken by those authorities had referred to their participation in an assembly.


102.  The Government of Cyprus submitted that the applicant’s right to demonstrate under Article 11 of the Convention had been interfered with in an aggravated and serious manner. The acts of the respondent Government were a deliberate and provocative attempt to disrupt a lawful demonstration in an area which was subject to UN patrols and not even within the claimed jurisdiction of the “TRNC”. The  <mask> with the applicant’s rights was not prescribed by law and was an excessive and disproportionate response to a peaceful and lawful demonstration. The respondent Government had not identified any legitimate aim that they were seeking to serve by assaulting the applicant.


42.  The Government considered that there had been no interference with the exercise of the applicants’ rights to peaceful assembly, and that in any event the penalty imposed on them, that is a RUB 500 fine, had not been disproportionate. They concluded that both the general measures taken in relation to the assembly as a whole and the individual measures taken against the applicants personally had been justified under Article 11 § 2 of the Convention. They considered that these measures complied with domestic law, were necessary “for the  <mask> or crime” and “for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others”, and remained strictly proportionate.


60.  The Government emphasised that the applicant had been able to exercise his right to freedom of assembly without any interference on several occasions in the past. The restriction on his rights which is at issue in the present case had been of an exceptional nature. It had been imposed because the information about terrorist attacks in places of mass gatherings had been received from the police. It had been necessary for the  <mask> and crime, that is to say terrorist attacks, and for the protection of the rights and freedoms of citizens who had had no intention of taking part in the meeting.


93.  The applicant submitted, firstly, that the requirements of minimum membership and regional representation were not justified under the second paragraph of Article 11. In particular, they were unreasonable and did not pursue any legitimate aim. The imposition of such requirements on political parties could not be justified by the interests of national security or public safety. Nor were they necessary for the  <mask> or crime or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.


48.  The Government’s submissions as regards the general measures implemented at Bolotnaya Square were identical to those in Frumkin (cited above, §§ 83-85). As regards the particular circumstances of the case, they considered that there had been no interference with the exercise of the applicant’s right to peaceful assembly, and that in any event this interference had not been manifestly disproportionate to the offence committed by her. The charges brought against the applicant had stemmed from a specific act of disobedience committed after the end of the authorised meeting, rather than from her disagreement with the decision to terminate it early. The Government pointed out that the applicant had been exempted from administrative liability and had incurred no sanctions. They concluded that both the general measures taken in relation to the protest as a whole and the individual measures taken against the applicant personally had been justified under Article 11 § 2 of the Convention. In particular, the measures had complied with domestic law, had been necessary “for the  <mask> or crime” and “for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others” and had remained strictly proportionate.


34.  The applicants argued that by refusing to register Ilinden the authorities had infringed their rights under Article 11 of the Convention. The refusal of the courts had been based on deliberately erroneous findings in respect of the relevant facts and a misconstruction of the applicable law. It was clear that freedom of association could not be subjected to restrictions other than those which were provided for by law for the protection of national security and public safety, for the  <mask> or crime, for the protection of health or morals or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.


50.  The Government considered that there had been no interference with the exercise of the applicants’ rights to peaceful assembly, and that in any event the penalty imposed on them, that is to say twenty-four hours’ administrative detention and a 700 Russian roubles (RUB) fine, had not been disproportionate. They concluded that both the general measures taken in relation to the protest as a whole and the individual measures taken against the applicants personally had been justified under Article 11 § 2 of the Convention. They considered that they had complied with domestic law, had been necessary “for the  <mask> or crime” and “for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others”, and had remained strictly proportionate.


45.  The Government were of the view that the interference pursued two legitimate aims, namely the protection of the rights and freedoms of others, in the present case those of the property owners and the  <mask>. They noted that the main aim of the applicant association was “to remove any buildings that it occupie[d] from the real-estate market and from speculation” and that active member status, with voting rights, was reserved only for those who occupied one of the three buildings.


94.  The Government considered that the interference with the applicant’s freedom of peaceful assembly had complied with domestic law and was necessary “for the  <mask> or crime” and “for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others”. They claimed that on all seven occasions the applicant had attempted to conduct unauthorised public gatherings, which the police had lawfully intercepted, and that the competent courts had justifiably found him guilty of administrative offences. They did not consider that on any of these occasions there had been special circumstances absolving the protestors from compliance with the requirement of prior notification of their assembly. They gave examples of other, lawful public events in which the applicant had participated without any interference. They challenged the applicant’s allegations that those assemblies had not caused any noise or nuisance, given the size of the groups at issue and the presence of the media. In particular, on 27 October 2012 (the fifth occasion) he held a march which had obstructed traffic and, contrary to what the applicant suggested, “it was unlikely” that some of the other events “did [not] produce any noise and cause any nuisance to the pedestrians” in view of the number of people participating, their locations and time (notably the first on 5 March 2012 and the last two on 27 February 2014). They also challenged the applicant’s submission that he did not obstruct traffic in the seventh episode.


39.  The Government further argued that the dispersal of the assembly had been necessary in the interests of national security, for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others and the  <mask> or crime, and had been proportionate to the aims pursued. They submitted in particular that the police had not intervened in the assembly until the moment when participants had started to disturb public order. Besides, the first applicant herself had admitted in the court proceedings that she had insulted public authorities during the protest.


88.  The Government concluded that both the general measures taken in relation to the assembly as a whole and the individual measures taken against the applicant personally had been justified under Article 11 § 2 of the Convention. They submitted that the measures in question had complied with domestic law, had been necessary “for the  <mask> or crime” and “for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others” and had remained strictly proportionate.


59.  The Government took the view that the interference pursued two legitimate aims, namely the protection of the rights and freedoms of others, in this case the owners of the buildings, and the  <mask>. The applicants disputed this assertion. They argued that the dissolution of the association had had no legal or factual effect on the possibility for the owners to exercise their property rights. Even assuming that the occupation of the buildings had breached public order, the applicants failed to see how the association’s dissolution remedied the problem.


83.  The Government stated that the demonstration at issue had been organised in breach of the Law on Meetings and Demonstration Marches (Law. No. 2911), and the interference had thus been “prescribed by law”. They also submitted that the interference had pursued the legitimate aim of, inter alia,  <mask> and crime and maintaining public order and that it had been “necessary in a democratic society”.


44.  The applicant contested the Government’s argument that the dissolution of the Association had pursued a legitimate aim in the interests of national security or public safety, that is, for the  <mask> and crime and the protection of the rights and freedoms of others within the meaning of Article 11 § 2 of the Convention. In his view, the courts had failed to establish any instances of actual disorder or any violation of the rights of others. He stressed that the domestic decisions had referred to a merely hypothetical danger whose prevention could not be seen as a legitimate aim under the Convention.


66.  The applicants accepted in principle that protection of public safety and the rights and freedoms of others and the  <mask> might depend on safeguarding the principle of secularism. However, they submitted that in pleading those aims the Government sought to conceal the underlying reasons which had led to Refah’s dissolution. In reality, they argued, this had been the aim of major business concerns and the military, whose interests were threatened by Refah’s economic policy, involving a reduction of the national debt to zero.


96.  The Government considered that neither Article 10 nor Article 11 of the Convention had been breached. The interference with the applicants’ freedom of expression and freedom of assembly by their detention had been justified. It had been based on section 55(1), paragraph 2 (a), of the PSOA, a provision which had been sufficiently precise to be foreseeable in terms of its application to the applicants. It had pursued legitimate aims, as the applicants’ detention had been in the interest of public safety and for the  <mask>.


82.  The Government maintained that the interference pursued one or more legitimate aims: the  <mask>, in so far as the first applicant’s own safety was concerned by the bomb threats, and the interests of national security with regard to all the applicants. In each case the interference was moreover “necessary” for the achievement of the legitimate aim or aims pursued.


97.  The Government further argued that the interference had been “necessary in a democratic society” for the purposes of Article 10 § 2 and Article 11 § 2. They stressed that there had not been a less restrictive measure than the applicants’ detention available in order to achieve the said legitimate aims. In particular, it had not been sufficient to seize the banners in question, as the applicants could easily have drawn up new, comparable banners at any time and could have used them immediately during the demonstrations in Rostock. It had also been proportionate to detain the applicants. There had been riots in Rostock city centre the day before. The applicants, who had shown themselves to be prepared to use violence, had been on their way to Rostock to participate in the demonstrations. There had been reason to fear that the applicants’ banners would have incited other violent demonstrators to liberate by force prisoners detained in the prisoner holding pens in Rostock. In these circumstances, the public interest in maintaining public order and in the  <mask> had outweighed the applicants’ interest in participating in the demonstrations.


52.  The Government did not argue that there had not been an interference with the applicant’s right to freedom of assembly other than to submit that the case was not within the scope of Article 11. Even assuming that the applicant’s acts had fallen within the scope of Article 11, they submitted that the State authorities’ acts and decisions had had the legitimate aims of protecting national security, territorial integrity, public safety and public order as well as the  <mask>. They argued that interfering with the demonstrations in question, which had incited people to violence and which had been organised by members of the PKK, a terrorist organisation, had corresponded to a pressing social need and had been necessary in a democratic society. They stressed that the applicant had not been convicted for taking part in a funeral.


106.  The Government of Cyprus submitted that the applicant had been wrongly tried for acts which did not amount to offences under national or international law, and which in any event failed to meet the standards of foreseeability and  <mask> required by the Convention (see G. v. France, 27 September 1995, Series A no. 325-B), in violation of Article 7 of the Convention.


92.  The Government of Cyprus submitted that the applicant had been wrongly tried for acts which did not amount to offences under national or international law, and which in any event failed to meet the standards of foreseeability and  <mask> required by the Convention (see G. v. France, 27 September 1995, Series A no. 325-B), in violation of Article 7 of the Convention.


38.  The applicants contested the Government’s submissions. They argued that the interference was not prescribed by law, did not pursue a legitimate aim and was disproportionate. They further submitted that the Association was not a religious organisation and had not engaged in any religious activity. They also noted that although Article 1 of the Law on Non-Governmental Organisations excluded religious organisations from the ambit of the Law, it lacked clarity and  <mask>.


98.  The Government of Cyprus submitted that the applicant had been wrongly tried for acts which did not amount to offences under national or international law, and which in any event failed to meet the standards of foreseeability and  <mask> required by the Convention (see G. v. France, 27 September 1995, Series A no. 325-B), in violation of Article 7 of the Convention.


110.  The Government of Cyprus submitted that the applicant had been wrongly tried for acts which did not amount to offences under national or international law, and which in any event failed to meet the standards of foreseeability and  <mask> required by the Convention (see G. v. France, 27 September 1995, Series A no. 325-B), in violation of Article 7 of the Convention.


70.  The Government submitted that the interference with the applicant’s rights had been lawful. The Political Parties Act established a special authorisation procedure for registration of political parties. The requirement to obtain a registration authorisation was justified by the special status and role of political parties. The Political Parties Act did not differentiate between types of registration. The same rules therefore applied to the registration of a newly established political party and to the registration of any amendments to the information contained in the Register. In all cases a political party had to submit the documents specified in section 16 of the Political Parties Act (see paragraph 44 above) and the registration authority had competence to verify those documents and decide whether to authorise or refuse registration (see sections 15 § 5, 29 § 1 and 38 § 1 of the Political Parties Act in paragraphs 43, 45 and 53 above). The fact that those provisions allowed different interpretations was not contrary to the Convention. Many laws were inevitably couched in terms which, to a greater or lesser extent, were vague and whose interpretation and application were questions of practice. The role of adjudication vested in the courts was precisely to dissipate such interpretational doubts as remained, taking into account the changes in everyday practice (the Government referred to Rekvényi v. Hungary [GC], no. 25390/94, § 34, ECHR 1999‑III, and Gorzelik and Others v. Poland [GC], no. 44158/98, § 65, ECHR 2004‑I). The Government concluded that domestic provisions governing registration of political parties met the requirements of  <mask> and foreseeability. In any event, the applicant had applied to the domestic authorities for instructions as to the registration procedure to be followed and had received detailed explanations. It was also significant that the lawfulness of the refusal of registration had been examined and confirmed by the domestic courts. Given that it was in the first place for the national authorities, and notably the courts, to interpret domestic law, it was not the Court’s task to substitute its own interpretation for theirs in the absence of arbitrariness (they referred to Tejedor García v. Spain, 16 December 1997, § 31, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1997‑VIII).


95.  The Government of Cyprus submitted that the applicant had been wrongly tried for acts which did not amount to offences under national or international law, and which in any event failed to meet the standards of foreseeability and  <mask> required by the Convention (see G. v. France, 27 September 1995, Series A no. 325-B), in violation of Article 7 of the Convention.


37.  The Government further argued that the interference with the applicant’s rights to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly, if any, was prescribed by law. The applicant’s conviction had been based on Article 220 § 7 of the Criminal Code and the wording of that provision met the  <mask> and foreseeability requirements within the meaning of Articles 10 and 11 of the Convention. The interference in question had the legitimate aims of protecting national security and public order as well as preventing crime.


109.  The Government of Cyprus submitted that the applicant had been wrongly tried for acts which did not amount to offences under national or international law, and which in any event failed to meet the standards of foreseeability and  <mask> required by the Convention (see G. v. France, 27 September 1995, Series A no. 325-B), in violation of Article 7 of the Convention.


100.  The Government of Cyprus submitted that the applicant had been wrongly tried for acts which did not amount to offences under national or international law, and which in any event failed to meet the standards of foreseeability and  <mask> required by the Convention (see G. v. France, 27 September 1995, Series A no. 325-B), in violation of Article 7 of the Convention.


46.  The applicant also pointed out that the exceptions set out in Article 11 § 2 were to be construed narrowly: only convincing and compelling reasons could justify restrictions on  <mask>. However, in the present case, the domestic courts had not adduced sufficient and relevant reasons for the restriction, since they had failed to demonstrate how the activities of the Association were capable of provoking conflicts or either supporting or promoting violence and the destruction of democracy. Indeed, the Association’s activities had merely been aimed at enabling the discussion of unresolved social problems such as the security of vulnerable people and the extraordinarily high crime rate.


141.  The applicants further complained that the refusal to recognise the applicant Church was preventing it from acquiring legal personality, thus depriving it of its right of access to a court, as guaranteed by Article 6 of the Convention, so that any complaint relating to its rights, and in particular its property rights, could be determined. In addition, they alleged that the refusal to recognise, coupled with the authorities’ stubborn persistence in holding to the view that the applicants could practise their religion within the Metropolitan Church of Moldova, infringed their  <mask>, contrary to Article 11 of the Convention.


47.  The Government argued that there was no interference with the applicants'  <mask>. Firstly, the Government noted that the Ministry did not refuse to register the association. Instead, it merely returned the association's foundation documents to the founders so that the latter could rectify the shortcomings and ensure that they complied with the requirements of the domestic law. The Government contended that, although “a refusal to register a public association might be regarded as a violation of the right to freedom of association, the delayed response to [an application for state registration] is not a violation of this right.”


51.  The applicant parties alleged that their dissolution had entailed a violation of their right to  <mask>. Describing Institutional Law no. 6/2002 on political parties (“the LOPP”) as an ad hoc law, they argued that it was neither accessible nor foreseeable and complained that it had been applied retrospectively. Stating that the purpose of their dissolution had been to eliminate political debate in the Basque Country, they complained that the measure had had no legitimate aim. They argued that it could not be considered necessary in a democratic society and considered it to be in violation of the principle of proportionality. The relevant parts of Article 11 provide:


69.  The applicants submitted that they had exhausted all remedies relating to their first and second attempts to re‑register UMO Ilinden – PIRIN, which formed the subject matter of the present case. While the third attempt to re‑register the party could, if successful, have put an end to the continued breach of their right to  <mask>, it was unconnected with the first and second attempts. In those proceedings, the applicants had used all available avenues of appeal. In any event, even the third re‑registration attempt was unsuccessful.


30.  The applicant disputed the Government’s contention that the present case involved a tax and not a membership fee and that therefore the negative aspect of the right to  <mask> had not been violated. While the Government recognised that a tax was a compulsory payment to the State to be used by the State in accordance with decisions taken in the public interest by the State, they failed to appreciate that the industry charge did not have these characteristics but was a payment to the FII collected on its behalf by the State. It was the FII which decided how to spend the funds it accrued in this way, guided by its policies and views and without regard to the views of the applicant and others who were obliged by law to contribute to its financing. For the reasons set out in particular in the opinion of the dissenting member of the Supreme Court, the applicant had been obliged through the compulsory payment of charges to be a member of the FII and/or to associate himself with others within the FII. Notwithstanding the compulsory character of the industry charge and the fact that FII members could have their charges deducted from their membership fees, the FII had reserved the right to deny the applicant and others like him membership.


31.  The Government submitted that the right to  <mask> was not absolute and might be subject to restrictions, as provided by Article 11 § 2 of the Convention. They reiterated that, in accordance with the norms and principles of public international law, the right to strike could also be restricted. For instance, Article 8 § 2 of the ICESCR (see paragraph 19 above) allowed the banning of strikes by members of the police, army and State administration, and permitted restrictions on the right to strike of other people when it was necessary in a democratic society.


62.  The Government accepted that, in light of the recent case-law of this Court, the right under Article 11 to join a trade union normally implied the ability to strike. But this was by no means an absolute right – it could be subject to conditions and restrictions in accordance with Article 11 § 2 that were within the State’s margin of appreciation. Nor did the Government consider secondary action an essential element of  <mask>, finding no support for such a proposition in the relevant case-law of the Court, none of which concerned secondary action.


34.  The applicant submitted that fundamental rights must be effective and available from the first day of employment. While he understood that it might be appropriate to allow an employer a certain time in which to assess the conduct or capability of an employee, he argued that this should not apply in relation to discrimination on protected grounds. In fact, he submitted that  <mask> would be illusory if it could only be exercised after a certain period of service.


44.  The applicant company alleged that the negative aspect of its right to  <mask> was interfered with because it was obliged to contribute to the Social Welfare Fund in the same way as a member of one of the employers’ associations, but without having any competence to control the protection of its own interests within the organisation. This exerted a significant pressure on the applicant company to become a member of one of the employers’ associations, in order to defend its interests.


31.  The applicants complained that the criminal proceedings before the Ankara National Security Court were unfair, that that court was not independent and impartial, and of infringements of their freedom of expression and  <mask>; they also asserted that in the enjoyment of the rights thus breached they had been the victims of discrimination on the ground of their political opinions.


14.  The applicant complained that the failure by the Ministry of Justice to register the public association in a timely manner constituted an interference with her  <mask>. As the Ministry evaded registering the organisation by significantly delaying the examination of the founders' registration requests and breaching the statutory time-limit for the official response, her association could not acquire legal status. This allegedly constituted a violation of her right to freedom of association, as provided in Article 11 of the Convention, which reads as follows:


78.  The applicants disagreed with the Chamber and stressed that the refusal had been an extreme measure that amounted to a prior, unjustifiable restraint on their  <mask> and could not be reconciled with the principles governing a democratic society. It had been based on entirely unfounded suspicions as to their true intentions and on speculation as to their future actions. In the applicants' opinion, there was always a hypothetical risk that a particular association might infringe the law or engage in activities incompatible with the aims it proclaimed. Yet the mere possibility of that happening could not justify a preventive blanket ban being imposed on its activities.


59.  The Government accepted that in the registration proceedings, which had not involved an interpretation of the applicant association’s doctrinal sources, the refusal of the domestic authorities to register the applicant association had amounted to an interference with the applicants’  <mask> and religion. However, that interference had been in accordance with the law and had pursued a legitimate aim, namely that of the protection of the rights and freedoms of others. Furthermore, it had been proportionate to the aim sought to be achieved and the reasons adduced by the authorities had been relevant and sufficient.


49.  The applicant claimed 5,000 euros (EUR) in respect of non‑pecuniary damage. He argued that the decision of the last-instance court had prevented him from founding a non-profit, non-governmental organisation and from pursuing his calling as an environmental activist by developing new projects in that field. The decision of the last-instance court had caused him feelings of uncertainty about the possibility of carrying out activities benefiting the community and had infringed his right to dignity and honour in so far as his desire to help the community had been met by the authorities’ suspicion that he had intended to breach the law. The authorities had also continued to disregard his right to  <mask>, in spite of the Court’s repeated findings of a violation of Article 11 in Romanian cases. The clemency showed by the Court in previous cases, when it had considered that the mere finding of a violation amounted to sufficient just satisfaction for an applicant, had failed to improve the authorities’ behaviour.


33.  The Government accepted that section 174 represented an interference with rights under Article 11 § 1 in interfering with the autonomy which a trade union would otherwise possess in the matter of determining its membership. The restrictions imposed in respect of membership of a political party were, however, justified as necessary and proportionate. They relied on the importance of the countervailing rights of trade union members and prospective members to freedom of expression and  <mask> which would be engaged by expulsion from a trade union. Those rights were at the very foundation of democratic society, not least as the case concerned sanctions in respect of membership of a political party. They also claimed that a wide discretion remained for trade unions to expel or exclude on grounds of political activities. Section 174 only imposed a limited restriction on expelling those with views inimical to the trade union's objectives; it was only the applicant's own error in approach that led to a problem as there was ample conduct by Mr Lee, going beyond mere membership of the BNP, which the applicant could have relied on in order to found an entirely lawful decision to expel him.


39. The applicants maintained that the State’s interference had not been justified and necessary in a democratic society. They stated that there had been no legitimate aim justifying the dissolution of the Association, nor had the reasons given by the Constitutional Court been relevant or sufficient. Having regard to the Court’s case-law, they argued that the Court had found restrictions imposed on freedom of expression and  <mask> by the Contracting States necessary only in two types of cases: in cases of threats of use of violence and in cases of justification of the use of violence.


36.  The applicant did not consider its role as a trade union was significant as alleged, since the collective bargaining that it was involved in applied to all, not just its members. There was nothing to suggest that Mr Lee lost any benefit in his working life from exclusion from ASLEF. Finally the applicant denied that there was a wide margin of appreciation as this was a situation where domestic law ran counter to  <mask> and considered that the Court was not precluded from examining the proportionality of the measure and ensuring a fair balance was struck.


38. The applicants complained under Article 11 of the Convention that the Constitutional Court’s decision declaring the Association’s Articles and Programme null and void had violated their  <mask>, in that it led to the dissolution of the Association and deprived its members of the possibility jointly to pursue the purposes they had laid down in its Articles and Programme. In so far as relevant, Article 11 of the Convention provides:


29.  The applicants complained that the failure by the Ministry of Justice to register their organisation in a timely manner constituted an interference with their  <mask>. As the Ministry evaded registering the organisation by significantly delaying the examination of their registration requests and breaching the statutory time-limits for the official response, their association could not acquire legal status. This allegedly constituted a violation of their right to freedom of association, as provided in Article 11 of the Convention, which reads as follows:


98.  The Government further submitted that  <mask> was not absolute. Political parties had an obligation to respect domestic law and the authorities were entitled to watch over their activities to ensure that they were compatible with statutory requirements. As the applicant had breached the requirements of minimum membership and regional representation, and had thereby violated the rights and interests of those parties that complied with the requirements, it had been necessary to dissolve it. The dissolution had not been automatic as the applicant had been given a choice between bringing the number of its members and regional branches into compliance with the amended law to retain its status as a political party or reorganising itself into a public association. However, it had failed to make use of that choice and had therefore become subject to dissolution. It was also noteworthy that the applicant had not been dissolved or banned on account of extremist activities. It was therefore possible for it to establish a new party under the same name. The applicant’s members could either establish a new party or join another existing party.


21.  The applicant complained that the failure by the Ministry of Justice to register the public association in a timely manner had constituted an interference with his  <mask>. As the Ministry evaded registering the organisation by significantly delaying the examination of the founders' registration requests and breaching the statutory time-limit for the official response, his association had not been able to acquire legal status. This allegedly constituted a violation of his right to freedom of association, as provided in Article 11 of the Convention, which reads as follows:


74.  The Government replied to Liberty’s observations, observing that the latter addressed broader, background issues that were not relevant to the facts of the present case. While accepting that the structure of the labour market had evolved over the past two decades, the Government disagreed that this had generally hindered the enjoyment by the workers concerned of the benefits of trade-union rights. Practice actually showed that trade unions were capable of acting effectively in such circumstances – the three examples referred to by Liberty were in fact instances of the successful resolution of an industrial dispute via trade-union involvement (the three examples were: one involving airline catering staff, one concerning bus drivers in London during the 2012 Olympics, and one involving fuel lorry drivers). The charge that workers were prevented from taking action against the party that really determines their terms and conditions was no more than a hypothesis – no actual examples had been given. Nor had there been any decline in the number of days lost to strike action each year for the past twenty years, which tended to refute Liberty’s view that domestic law had increasingly restricted trade-union freedom. In this respect, the United Kingdom was close to the European Union and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development average. As to the assertion that the threshold of twenty-one employees represented a loophole that employers could easily exploit in order to avoid having to recognise a trade union, the Government did not see its relevance to the facts of the case. Even so, there were safeguards in place to prevent employers from circumventing their statutory duty. Only genuine small firms were excluded, and that was for valid policy reasons. Finally, the Government submitted that there was no explicit support in the Court’s case-law for the proposition that the right to take secondary action is an essential element of  <mask>, or that the ban could not be justified under Article 11 § 2.


113.  The Government of the Republic of Moldova submitted that the Chamber had not struck a sufficient balance between the  <mask> claimed by the applicant union and the freedom of religion and right to autonomy of the Orthodox Church. They contended that Article 11 of the Convention could not be construed as imposing a positive obligation on the State to recognise a secular association within a religious community where such recognition would be at variance with the State’s duty of denominational neutrality.


41.  The applicants submitted that they were not required to file an additional cassation complaint before lodging the present application with the Court, because the Plenum of the Supreme Court was not an effective remedy. They also maintained that their complaint about the Ministry's unlawful “evading the registration of the non-governmental organisation” constituted a substantive complaint about a violation of their  <mask>.


65.  The Government submitted that political parties, as indispensable elements of democratic political life, were under an obligation to expose their activities, including their financial activities, to public scrutiny for purposes of “clarity”, which could only be achieved through supervision of their finances. The Constitutional Court, which was tasked by the Constitution with this duty of supervision, had accordingly inspected the applicant party’s financial accounts for the years 2007, 2008 and 2009 and had found some of its expenses to be in violation of the Political Parties Act, leading to the registration of the party’s assets as revenue with the Treasury in amounts equivalent to the unlawful expenditure. The amounts in question were, however, relatively low in comparison with the applicant party’s income for the years under review. Moreover, most of the applicant party’s income came from State funding. In the light of those factors, the impugned decisions of the Constitutional Court did not constitute an interference with the applicant party’s right to  <mask>.


43.  The Government argued that there had been no interference with the applicant's  <mask>, noting that the Ministry had not formally refused to register the association. Instead, it merely returned the association's foundation documents to the founders so that the latter could rectify the deficiencies and ensure that they complied with the requirements of the domestic law. The Government contended that, although “a refusal to register a public association might be regarded as a violation of the right to freedom of association, a delayed response to [an application for state registration] is not a violation of this right”.


51.  The applicant party’s dissolution undoubtedly represented an interference with both its and the other applicants’ (who were its chairman, vice‑chairman and secretary – see paragraph 1 above)  <mask> (see United Communist Party of Turkey and Others, cited above, p. 19, § 36, Socialist Party and Others, cited above, p. 1252, § 30, Freedom and Democracy Party (ÖZDEP) v. Turkey [GC], no. 23885/94, § 27, ECHR 1999‑VIII, Yazar and Others, cited above, § 33, Dicle for the Democratic Party (DEP) of Turkey, cited above, § 31, Refah Partisi (The Welfare Party) and Others v. Turkey, [GC], nos. 41340/98, 41342/98, 41343/98 and 41344/98, § 50, ECHR 2003‑II, and Socialist Party of Turkey (STP) and Others v. Turkey, no. 26482/95, § 25, 12 November 2003).


40.  The Government submitted that, at the time of lodging of their application with the Court, the applicants had not exhausted the available domestic remedies. In particular, they had not filed an additional cassation complaint with the Plenum of the Supreme Court. Moreover, the Government contended that the applicants complained to the domestic courts only about the allegedly unlawful actions of the Ministry of Justice, and did not specifically raise a complaint that these actions amounted to a violation of their right to  <mask>.


13.  The applicant complained under Article 11 of the Convention of a violation of his right to  <mask>, arguing that the rejection by the domestic courts of the application for registration of the association founded by him and four other associates had not been necessary in a democratic society and that the courts had failed to provide relevant and sufficient reasons for that restriction. The relevant part of the aforementioned Article reads as follows:


51.  The applicants claimed 9,000 euros (EUR) in respect of the non‑pecuniary damage flowing from the alleged breach of their right to  <mask>. They submitted that that amount was justified in view of the systemic and persistent nature of the breach, which continued in spite of a number of earlier judgments by the Court with which Bulgaria failed to comply. The applicants further claimed EUR 2,000 in respect of the alleged breach of their right to a fair trial, and EUR 3,000 in respect of the alleged breach of their right not to be discriminated against. They requested that any amounts awarded under those heads be paid into the bank account of the fifth applicant.


65.  The Government considered that there was no interference with the applicant's right to  <mask> because it had not been liquidated and retained the full capacity of a legal entity. On 10 August 2002 it had been entered on the Unified State Register of Legal Entities and continued its religious activities. In refusing the Moscow Justice Department's action for dissolution, the Nikulinskiy District Court founded its judgment of 30 April 2002 on the evidence showing that the applicant had on-going financial and economic activities, such as the applicant's balance sheets and permission to stage events in municipal districts of Moscow. The Government maintained that the applicant could not claim to be a “victim” of any violation solely because it was not willing to bring its founding documents in compliance with the existing law.


29.  The Government, admitting that the refusal to register the applicant as an association amounted to interference to its right to  <mask>, considers nevertheless that this interference was prescribed by law, pursued a legitimate aim and was necessary in a democratic society. In this respect, they referred to Government Ordinance no. 26/2000 which provides that if the legal requirements for the setting up of an association are not satisfied, the request to register is dismissed. The refusal to register the applicant association in the instant case pursued the legitimate aim of protecting public order and the rights and liberties of the others, namely the rights of those who use the services of lawyers to represent their interests.


49.  The applicant replied that an association’s statute was the law for the association and its members, and that therefore the rights arising from the statute were rights recognised under domestic law. Furthermore, the proceedings he complained about had not exclusively concerned violations of the statute; they had also concerned a violation of his  <mask>, which must be respected also by associations themselves.


19.  The applicant submitted that the last-instance court had rejected the application for registration by relying only on the provisions of the association’s memorandum and its articles of association. He considered, however, that the finding that some provisions of the memorandum and articles of association could have amounted to activities specific to political parties had been mere speculation and did not amount to compelling reasons that could have justified the interference with his  <mask>. In the applicant’s opinion, the goal of the association had certainly not been one that could have been attributed exclusively to political parties.


49.  The Government conceded that the Zagreb County Court’s judgment of 8 April 2005 (see paragraph 19 above) prohibiting the applicant union from holding a strike on 11 April 2005, which had been upheld by the Supreme Court’s judgment of 27 April 2005 (see paragraph 23 above), had constituted an interference with the applicant union’s  <mask>. The Court, having regard to its case-law according to which strike action is protected under Article 11 of the Convention (see Enerji Yapı-Yol Sen v. Turkey, no. 68959/01, § 24, 21 April 2009, and National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers v. the United Kingdom, no. 31045/10, § 84, ECHR 2014), sees no reason to hold otherwise.


68.  The applicant party alleged that the financial sanctions imposed by the Constitutional Court had deprived it of the means to perform some of its political activities and had thus constituted an interference with its  <mask>. It maintained that since the amounts imposed as sanctions in relation to its 2007, 2008 and 2009 accounts had all been paid in 2013, it had been forced to cut back on the expenditure envisaged for that year, which had resulted in the postponement or cessation of some of its political activities and put it in a disadvantageous position vis-à-vis its competitors.


36.  The Government accepted that the dissolution of the Association amounted to an interference with the applicants’ right to  <mask>. The Government maintained that the interference was prescribed by domestic law, which was both accessible and foreseeable. In this connection, they relied on Article 31 of the Law on Non-Governmental Organisations and Article 59 of the Civil Code, noting that those provisions provided for liability of a non-governmental organisation and the possibility of interference with its activities. The Government submitted that the interference pursued the legitimate aims of “protection of public safety”, “protection of the rights and freedoms of others” and “prevention of crime”.


32.  The applicants complained under Article 11 of the Convention that UMO Ilinden – PIRIN had been declared unconstitutional and as a result dissolved. They submitted that this interference with their  <mask> had not been prescribed by law, as in its interpretative judgment no. 7 of 1996 the Constitutional Court had held that restrictions of freedom of speech – which, in the applicants’ view, applied mutatis mutandis to freedom of association – would only be justified if the speech in issue posed an immediate threat of violent overturning of the constitutional order and democracy. The applicants further submitted that the interference had not been necessary in a democratic society, as the Constitutional Court had failed to adduce relevant and sufficient reasons for declaring the applicant party unconstitutional.


106.  The Government argued that no separate issues arose under either Article 10 or Article 11 in the circumstances of the present case in so far as the first, second, fourth and fifth applicants were concerned. They had not been the subject of personnel security checks. The information on them held by the Security Police was apparently never consulted by third parties. In fact, it seemed only to have been released to the applicants themselves following their own requests for access. Furthermore, their suspicions that the Security Police were holding information on them – suspicions that were confirmed when information was indeed released to them – appeared not to have had any impact on their opportunities to exercise their rights under either Article 10 or Article 11. They had at all times been free to hold and express their political or other opinions. It was not supported by the facts of the present case that their opportunities to enjoy  <mask> had in any way been impaired. Therefore, the Government maintained that there had been no interference with their rights under Articles 10 and 11 and requested the Court to declare their complaints under these provisions inadmissible as being manifestly ill-founded.


31.  The applicant further submitted that the disputed obligation to pay the industry charge adversely affected his enjoyment of his positive right to  <mask>. Article 11 § 1 protected the right to freedom of association with others, including the right to form and join a collective entity or association for the furtherance of the common interests of the members of the group. The imposition of the industry charge reduced the resources available to the applicant and others to form and to fund associations which promoted their views and interests. At the very least, there had been an interference with the positive right of the applicant, and others, voluntarily to associate with others in the promotion of their common interests and views. In this regard, the applicant relied on paragraphs 339 to 342 of the Digest of Decisions and Principles of the Freedom of Association Committee of the Governing Body of the ILO (see paragraphs 23 and 24 above). Any discrimination of the kind mentioned in those paragraphs, including favourable or unfavourable treatment of a given organisation as compared with others, jeopardised the rights of individuals to establish and join organisations of their own choosing.


23.  The Government further submitted that there was no interference with the applicant's  <mask>. The Government noted that the Ministry had not refused to register the association. Instead, it merely returned the association's foundation documents to the founders so that the latter could rectify the deficiencies and ensure that they complied with the requirements of the domestic law.


33.  The applicant submitted that for an employee to lose his job for exercising his right to  <mask> struck at the “very substance” of that right. Consequently, he contended that the Government had a positive obligation under Article 11 of the Convention to enact legislation which would have afforded him protection from the termination of his employment by Serco on the ground of his involvement with the BNP. However, since he had less than one year’s qualifying service, he was unable to bring a claim for unfair dismissal under the Employment Rights Act 1996.


40.  The applicants submitted that the right to union membership “for the protection of his interests” under Article 11 necessarily involved the rights of every employee (1) to be represented by his or her union in negotiations with the employer, and (2) not to be discriminated against for choosing to avail him- or herself of the right to be represented. In this connection, the applicants referred to the findings and recommendations of the Committee of Experts under the European Social Charter and of the ILO's Committee on  <mask> (see paragraphs 32-33 and 37 above), that the right of union representation is inherent in the right of union membership (as provided for in Article 5 of the Charter and in the ILO convention).


78.  The applicant party contended that the interference with its right to  <mask> had not been “prescribed by law” within the meaning of Article 11 of the Convention. It stated that the interference in question was based principally on Article 69 § 3 of the Constitution, which provided that “the income and expenditure of political parties shall be consistent with their objectives”. There was, however, no guidance in the law or elsewhere to clarify what expenses could be lawfully incurred within the scope of the “objectives of a political party” or what would be considered to constitute “political activities”. Moreover, section 74(1) of the Political Parties Act, which entrusted the Constitutional Court with the duty of inspecting the “lawfulness” of the finances of political parties, was also framed in imprecise terms, thereby leaving that court at liberty to adopt an overly formalistic and restrictive interpretation of the vague requirements of the Act. That uncertainty as regards the exact nature of the expenditure requirements, coupled with the lack of precision regarding the scope and extent of the Constitutional Court’s authority, had made it impossible to foresee the possible consequences of the expenses incurred. By way of example, it had had no way of knowing that travel expenses, legal fees or court costs, gifts and flowers presented at weddings, or official dinners connected to the party’s political activities could not lawfully be charged as party expenses.


26.  The Government also argued that by reviewing the compliance of the application for registration with the relevant domestic rules regulating that field, the domestic courts had simply exercised their power to review the lawfulness of the application and to reject any ambiguous or misleading clause that could have potentially led to an abuse of the law. They also contended that the dismissal of the association’s application for registration under Government Ordinance no. 26/2000 had not deprived the organisation of the possibility of submitting another application for registration as a political party under Law no. 14/2003 on political parties. The fact that the domestic courts had decided that the latter legislation had been applicable in respect of the association’s application for registration could not have been considered an infringement of the applicant’s right of  <mask>, as the applicant had not been free to choose the domestic rules applicable to his association.


41.  The applicants went on to argue that the only reason for the violation of their right to  <mask> had been their Macedonian ethnicity. That was evident from the broader context, and in particular, two elements. The first was the systematic restrictions of their rights under Article 11 of the Convention, as well as the rights of other ethnic Macedonians, during the past two and a half decades, and the second element was the Bulgarian State’s policy of denying the existence of a Macedonian ethnic identity in Bulgaria (see Kiril Ivanov v. Bulgaria, no. 17599/07, §§ 66-67, 11 January 2018).


34.  The applicants argued that by refusing to register Ilinden the authorities had infringed their rights under Article 11 of the Convention. The refusal of the courts had been based on deliberately erroneous findings in respect of the relevant facts and a misconstruction of the applicable law. It was clear that  <mask> could not be subjected to restrictions other than those which were provided for by law for the protection of national security and public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.


262.  The applicant contended that she had been invited to attend a meeting to be held on 20 June 1997, which had been organised by a radio station on the side of the line controlled by the Cypriot Government. The applicant and her daughter had applied, in advance, to the “TRNC” regime's Foreign Ministry for permission to cross over to that side. Permission had been refused without any reason being given but journalists from the northern side had been granted permission to go. This impugned measure had constituted an unjustified interference with her right to  <mask> under Article 11 of the Convention.


43.  The applicant union replied that they had complained before the Court of a violation of their  <mask> on account of the Zagreb County Court’s judgment of 8 April 2005 (see paragraph 19 above) prohibiting it from holding a strike on 11 April 2005 – against which they had appealed and lodged a constitutional complaint (see paragraphs 22 and 24 above) – and not on account of non-observance by the State of the obligations stemming from the Annex. Therefore, the violation complained of could not have been remedied by bringing the civil actions suggested by the Government.


49.  The Government further submitted that the complaint regarding secondary strike action should be rejected as manifestly ill-founded. They considered that there had been no violation of, or even interference with, the applicant union’s right of  <mask> since Article 11 did not confer any right to take secondary action. Instead, it was plain from the very wording of that provision that it contemplated collective action by workers to protect their own interests. Sympathy strikes, which were no more than a show of solidarity with another group of workers, lacked the requisite nexus between collective action and the direct interests of the persons taking part in it. It did not appear from the facts adduced that the situation of the RMT members employed by Hydrex had any real bearing on the situation of their union colleagues employed by Jarvis. Had any similar threat to the latter’s interests materialised, it would have been open to them to take strike action, just as the Hydrex members had done.


51.  The applicants argued that the delays in responding to their registration requests, which were significantly beyond the time-limits set by the domestic law, constituted an interference with, and a violation of, their right to  <mask>. The applicants maintained that such delays were in breach of the domestic law. Moreover, the applicants noted that the Ministry cited a new, different deficiency in the association's foundation documents each time it returned the documents to the founders. However, under the domestic law, the Ministry was obliged to identify all the deficiencies after the first registration request, and after these deficiencies had been rectified by the founders upon their second registration request, the Ministry was obliged to issue a final decision, i.e. either register the association or issue an official refusal to register it.


65.  The applicants also complained that the levying of the monitoring fees on their wages had violated their right to negative  <mask> under Article 11 of the Convention, since the fees had been tantamount to forced membership of the Union and had contributed to the general union activities. Moreover, under that Article, read in conjunction with Articles 9 and 10 of the Convention, they claimed that, through the payment of the fees, they had come to support the Union’s political and ideological programme. Finally, under Article 14 of the Convention in conjunction with Article 11 and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1, they asserted that they had been discriminated against in relation to members of the Union as well as members of other trade unions.


40.  The applicants maintained that Article 11 of the Convention encompassed a negative right to  <mask> on an equal footing with the positive right and that consequently the Danish Protection against Dismissal due to Association Membership Act of 9 June 1982, as amended on 13 June 1990, violated that Article. In effect, it allowed an employer to require an employee to be a member of a trade union or a specific trade union in order to obtain employment.


49.  The Government further submitted that the duty to contribute to the Social Welfare Fund did not in any way take away the applicant company’s right to establish an association, to promote it or to join an existing association. In so far as the applicant company claimed to be deprived of the necessary financial means on account of having to pay contributions to the Social Welfare Fund, the Government emphasised that the duty to pay contributions was offset by entitlements against the Social Welfare Fund. In that regard, it submitted that the applicant company had applied for a reimbursement for holiday pay it had paid to its employees in the amount of EUR 100,000. The reimbursements claimed by the applicant were offset against the contributions owed. The Government also submitted that there was no direct link between the payment of contributions and the alleged restriction of the applicant company’s right to  <mask>.


62.  The applicant Rasmussen was born in 1959 and had worked as a gardener for many years. He had been a member of SID in the mid-1980s but resigned his membership and joined the Christian Trade Union instead. Following a period of unemployment, on 17 May 1999 he commenced his current employment at a nursery after rejoining SID, this being one of the conditions for the job. It is impossible to know whether he would have remained unemployed had he not at the relevant time accepted his current job which included obligatory membership of SID. It is speculative whether, if he were to resign his membership of SID, he could find employment elsewhere with an employer who had not entered into a closed-shop agreement. It is certain, however, that should the applicant Rasmussen resign from SID, he would be dismissed without the possibility of reinstatement or compensation since the dismissal would be in accordance with the Danish  <mask> Act. Moreover, although closed‑shop agreements do not extend to the entire horticultural sector, they are nevertheless very common (see paragraphs 22, 26, 30 and 32 above). In these circumstances, the Court is satisfied that the applicant Rasmussen can be considered to be individually and substantially affected by the application of the closed‑shop agreement to him.


46. The Government submitted that the State’s interference with the applicants’  <mask> had been prescribed by law. They stated that Article 20 of the Constitution had provided for boundaries in exercising freedom of association. The same restrictions were set out in Article 4 of the Act. They asserted that the Constitutional Court, on the basis of these provisions, had found that the Association’s name and the ideology of Ivan Mihajlov which it pursued had encouraged and incited to national hatred and intolerance and had led to a denial of the free expression of the Macedonian national affiliation. They maintained that the affirmation of the ideas of the Movement, as a terrorist association, would in practice mean killings, terrorist activities and support of fascism and its ideology. That had caused disorder and public reactions, resulting in two incidents at the Association’s opening ceremony. They presented a number of documents concerning Ivan Mihajlov’s life and his activities; the activities of the organisation called the VMRO (Внатрешна Македонска Револуционерна Организација) under his leadership, in particular in the period 1924-1934, and his alleged alliance with the fascist regime during the Second World War. Referring to that material, they maintained that Ivan (Vančo) Mihajlov (Radko) was considered as a person who used terrorist methods to impose the fascist idea of denunciation of the Macedonian people’s identity and to promote the latter as a fictitious and non-existent people called “Macedonian Bulgarians” (Македонски Болгари). They stated that in pursuance of that idea, he and his followers had killed and massacred a considerable number of Macedonians who had fought for the national freedom of their people. The Government stated that the creation and operation of an Association, the name, platform and programme activities of which had been inspired by the name and image of Ivan Mihajlov, had irrefutably been directed towards incitement to national hatred or intolerance, contrary to Article 20 § 3 of the Constitution, something that could result in clashes between the Macedonian people and the citizens associated with the Association. They claimed that repudiation of the identity of the Macedonian people and its statehood had been at the heart of the Association’s activity. Accordingly, violent destruction of the constitutional order was the fundamental objective of the Association. As stated by the Government, the public reaction on the opening ceremony had been clear evidence that the Association would incite to national hatred. The Association’s members had had recourse to brutal physical force against their adversaries, causing injuries for which they had been subsequently convicted by a court and sentenced to imprisonment. The Government submitted that the existence of the Association should be considered as an abuse of freedom of association, as its aim had not been the expression of thoughts and beliefs, but negation of the identity of the Macedonian people through promotion of the fascist ideas of Ivan Mihajlov concerning the “Macedonian Bulgarians”, who were unknown in history, legal science and practice. The ultimate objective of the Association was to initiate national hatred, religious unrest and a revival of the terror that Ivan Mihajlov had practiced in his time, when he executed hundreds of opponents.


45.  The Government maintained that the interference with the applicants’  <mask> was prescribed by the domestic law, which was both accessible and foreseeable. The Association’s acts and omissions, which had led the Ministry of Justice to issue its warnings, were clearly in breach of the legal requirements applicable to non-commercial legal entities, including public associations. The possibility of an association’s dissolution, as a consequence of such breaches, was also prescribed in the domestic law and was foreseeable. In this connection, the Government noted that, in the event of an association’s continuing failure to bring its activities into compliance with the domestic law following at least three warnings by the Ministry of Justice issued within one calendar year, forced dissolution was the only sanction available under the domestic law applicable at the relevant time.


47.  The Government disputed that there had been any interference with the negative aspect of the applicant’s right to  <mask>, as provided for in Article 11 of the Convention. It submitted that the applicant company was merely under the obligation to pay contributions to the Social Welfare Fund which were used to pay benefits to employers and employees in the building industry. The applicant company did not become, nor was it obliged to become, a member of the Social Welfare Fund on account of the declaration of general applicability of the VTV, nor of the employers’ associations which concluded the VTV. It was not threatened with sanctions or other disadvantages if it did not join. There was, therefore, no compulsion that the applicant company join an association.


57.  The applicants complained under Articles 11 and 46 of the Convention that the first and the second refusals of the courts to enter UMO Ilinden – PIRIN in the register of political parties had been in breach of their right to  <mask> and of the Bulgarian State’s duty to abide by the final judgment of the Court in the case of United Macedonian Organisation Ilinden – PIRIN and Others (cited above).


26.  The applicants alleged that the Court of Cassation had, through its case-law, previously granted association status to trade unions founded by civil servants. In the instant case, Tüm Haber Sen had been stripped of that status. Its dissolution, following its conclusion of a collective-bargaining agreement, amounted to a violation of its right to  <mask>, guaranteed by the international treaties to which Turkey was a party.


126.   The applicants pointed out that all the domestic courts to which they had applied – the Baltiyskiy District Court of Kaliningrad, the Kaliningrad Regional Court and the Justice of the Peace of the Baltiyskiy District – had uniformly refused to examine the merits of their complaint concerning a violation of their right to  <mask> and discrimination, on the grounds that it could be determined only in criminal proceedings (see paragraphs 45, 47 and 49 above). The applicants indicated that civil proceedings differed fundamentally from a criminal prosecution, in that the latter protected the public interests of society as a whole, while the former were called upon to afford redress for encroachments on individuals' private interests. Since, in the present case, it was precisely the private rights of the applicants which were at stake, the refusal of the domestic courts to examine their discrimination complaint in civil proceedings had deprived them of an effective remedy. In any event, the prosecutor's office had also refused the applicants' request to start a criminal investigation in connection with an alleged infringement of the equality principle and had not taken any steps to establish whether the applicants' complaints were well-founded.


56.  The applicant union urged the Court to reject any narrow concept of trade-union  <mask> that would be limited to the protection of the strictly personal interests of individual workers. Such an interpretation would impoverish the substance of Article 11. In the many cases it had decided involving strikes, the Court had never attached any significance to what was at stake for the workers in the dispute. It was entirely legitimate for unions to pursue broader, common objectives. Trade unionism was fundamentally about solidarity among union members and among workers more generally, and the wording of Article 11 of the Convention should be construed in keeping with this. Workers should be able to take industrial action to protect those who may be prevented from doing so, or who, on their own, lack the collective strength to defend their interests at work. This broad concept of freedom of association was espoused by the two most eminent international bodies in the field of trade-union rights, the ILO Committee of Experts and the ECSR. Both had repeatedly criticised the United Kingdom for its ban on secondary action, which they deemed to be incompatible with the relevant international legal standards. These had been interpreted to mean that the only acceptable condition that could be attached to secondary action was that the primary dispute itself be lawful. The applicant union urged the Court to adopt the same position. If that were overbroad, a criterion of proximity might be envisaged, that is to say, a requirement of a link of some sort between workers engaged in primary action and those striking in sympathy with them. Such a link was present here, since the group of workers concerned had originally been Jarvis employees and continued to perform the same work at the same sites after the transfer. A worsening in their terms and conditions could have had negative consequences for all workers in that sector. In the modern economy, the workforce was becoming increasingly fragmented through the transfer of undertakings or part of them, the creation of complex corporate structures, agency work, privatisation, the contracting-out of services leading to further sub-contracting, non-genuine self-employment, and so forth. This led to a situation in which persons performing the same job at the same place of work could have different employers, meaning that they could not legally support one another in time of industrial conflict.


47.  The applicant union replied that the Government had been aware all along of the existence of the complaint to the Committee on  <mask>, having submitted its official reply to the ILO in July 2011. That reply had in fact referred to the existence of the present application before the Court, noting – correctly – that the RMT had given clear priority to the Convention proceedings. This was because the United Kingdom had simply ignored the criticism voiced by the relevant ILO bodies, whereas it would be bound to execute a judgment in the applicant union’s favour. The withdrawal of the complaint to the ILO, before any decision was taken by the Committee on Freedom of Association, meant that the prospect of a plurality of international proceedings relating to the same case had been dispelled.


20.  The applicants complained that the failure by the Ministry of Justice to register their association in a timely manner constituted a violation of their right to  <mask>. As the Ministry had evaded registering the organisation by significantly delaying the examination of their registration request and breaching the statutory time-limit for the official response, their organisation could not acquire legal status. Moreover, they complained that the founders’ failure to include the description of the association’s activity in its name, as well as to sign its charter, could not be a ground for refusal to register the association. Article 11 of the Convention provides as follows:


58. The Government stated that the legal basis of the measure complained of lay in Article 20 § 3 of the Constitution, which defined the boundaries of exercising the  <mask>. The same restrictions were set forth in Article 4 of the Associations of Citizens and Foundations Act (see “Relevant domestic law”, cited above). The applicants did not contest this assertion.


31.  The applicants complained of interference with their  <mask> on account of the acts directed against them, the participation of the clergy and municipal authorities in those acts, and the inactivity of the police when a group of demonstrators broke into and ransacked the party headquarters. They relied on Article 11 of the Convention, which reads as follows: