Pressemitteilung  

Der Kanzler des Europäischen Gerichtshofs für Menschenrechte

08/06/06 Gerichtshof –Kammerurteil im Fall Wos gegen Polen [en]

EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS

332
8.6.2006

Press release issued by the Registrar

CHAMBER JUDGMENT
WOŚ v. POLAND

The European Court of Human Rights has today notified in writing its Chamber judgment¹ in the case of Woś v. Poland (application no. 22860/02).

The Court found that Article 6 § 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights was applicable to proceedings brought by victims of forced labour under former Nazi Germany, before the Polish-German Reconciliation Foundation, under the so-called first compensation scheme.

The Court further held unanimously that there had been a violation of Article 6 § 1 (access to court).

Under Article 41 (just satisfaction) of the Convention, the Court awarded the applicant 5,000 euros (EUR) for non-pecuniary damage. (The judgment is available in English and in French.)

1.  Principal facts

The applicant, Bronisław Woś, is a Polish national who was born in 1928 and lives in Cielcza (Poland).

The applicant was subjected to forced labour during the Second World War on the territory of occupied Poland. In February and March 1941 he worked on a German farm near Cielcza and from April 1941 to April/May 1944, as a forest labourer in Cielcza. He was finally relocated to an area situated 200 kilometres from his home, where he was required to reinforce German defences from May/June 1944 to 26 January 1945.

On 20 October 1993 the applicant applied to the Polish-German Reconciliation Foundation (the Foundation) (Fundacja Polsko-Niemieckie Pojednanie) for compensation from funds contributed by the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany under an agreement with Poland of 16 October 1991.

On 2 February 1994 the Foundation’s Verification Commission (Komisja Weryfikacyjna) established that the applicant had been subjected to forced labour from February 1941 to January 1945 and awarded him PLN 1,050 in compensation. The issue of deportation was apparently not addressed in the decision. The applicant’s appeal against that decision was dismissed by the Appeal Verification Commission (Odwoławcza Komisja Weryfikacyjna).

In 1999 the Foundation’s Management Board (Zarząd Fundacji) adopted Resolution no. 29/99, which introduced a deportation requirement for claimants who had been forced labourers except for those who had been forced to work aged under 16. As a result the applicant was granted a supplementary payment of PLN 365, but only for the time up until he had reached 16 (February 1944).

He appealed unsuccessfully to the Appeal Verification Commission, the Ombudsman and the Supreme Administrative Court. The domestic courts found that the Foundation was not a public authority and that, as entitlement to receive a benefit from the Foundation did not fall within the scope of civil law, claims concerning entitlement could not be raised before a civil court.

On 21 November 2000 the applicant applied unsuccessfully to the Polish Foundation for compensation under the scheme for slave and forced labourers (the second compensation scheme).

2.  Procedure and composition of the Court

The application was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 23 May 2002 and declared partly admissible on 1 March 2005.

Judgment was given by a Chamber of seven judges, composed as follows:

Nicolas Bratza (British), President,
Josep Casadevall (Andorran),
Giovanni Bonello (Maltese),
Kristaq Traja (Albanian),
Stanislav Pavlovschi (Moldovan),
Lech Garlicki (Polish),
Ljiljana Mijović (citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina), judges,

and also Michael O’Boyle, Section Registrar.

3.  Summary of the judgment²

Complaint

The applicant complained under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention that he did not have access to a court concerning his claims raised before the Polish-German Reconciliation Foundation under the first compensation scheme.
Decision of the Court

Article 6 § 1

Applicability of Article 6 § 1
As it had already held in its admissibility decision in the case³, the Court found that, in the specific circumstances of the applicant’s case, the Foundation’s actions in respect of both compensation schemes were capable of engaging Poland’s responsibility. The Court considered that the Government had at its disposal substantial means of influencing the Foundation’s operation, having regard to the manner in which the Foundation’s governing bodies were created, the wide scope of regulatory powers exercised by those governing bodies in respect of the benefits paid under the first compensation scheme and those governing bodies’ powers regarding the appointment and dismissal of the Foundation’s adjudicating bodies. The Court also had regard to the supervisory powers which were exercised in respect of the Foundation by the competent Minister. The Court further held that, while the Polish State did not have direct influence over the decisions taken by the Foundation in respect of individual claimants, the State’s role was nonetheless crucial in establishing the overall framework in which the Foundation operated.

The Court reiterated that there was no general obligation under the Convention for States to compensate wrongs inflicted in the past under the general cover of State authority. If such a compensation scheme were to be established, substantive regulations which determined the eligibility criteria for any compensation would in principle fall outside the Court’s jurisdiction, unless the relevant criteria were manifestly arbitrary or blatantly inconsistent with the fundamental principles of the Convention. On the other hand, once a compensation scheme had been put in place by a Government or with a Government’s consent, and regardless of the nature of the respective benefits, issues of compliance with Article 6 § 1 or Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 might arise, although, in principle, no challenge to eligibility criteria as such was allowed.

The Court considered that Article 6 § 1 was applicable in all cases where an issue related to the assessment of the facts arose in which there appeared to be reasonable grounds to believe that the Foundation’s assessment of the facts was questionable and had a direct bearing on the applicant’s eligibility for compensation. The outcome of the relevant proceedings before the Foundation was decisive for the applicant since it concerned the scope of his right to obtain compensation in respect of the overall period of his forced labour. The Court reiterated that the relevant Foundation’s regulations, regardless of their characterisation under domestic law, could be considered to create a right for a victim of Nazi persecution to claim compensation payment from the Foundation. Accordingly, the Court found that, if a claimant complied with the eligibility conditions stipulated in those regulations, he/she had a right to be awarded compensation payment by the Foundation. Finally, the Court considered that the applicant could claim, at least on arguable grounds, the right to receive compensation payment from the Foundation in respect of the overall period of his forced labour.

The Court concluded that the right to claim compensation on account of Nazi persecution from the Polish-German Reconciliation Foundation could be considered “civil” for the purposes of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention and that Article 6 § 1 was therefore applicable in the applicant’s case.

The Court also noted, among other things, the Government’s arguments that the right to claim a benefit from the Foundation was not recognised under German or Polish law or under the 1991 Agreement. However, it considered that the 1991 Agreement and the Foundation’s rules concerning the award of such payments could be regarded as a source of such claims.

The Court concluded that Article 6 § 1 was applicable to the proceedings before the Foundation concerning the first compensation scheme.

Access to court
The Court found that the Foundation’s adjudicating bodies – the Verification Commission and the Appeal Verification Commission – could not be considered as tribunals conforming to the requirements of Article 6 § 1. For example, members of the Verification Commission and the Appeal Verification Commission were appointed and dismissed by the Foundation’s Management Board and the Foundation’s Supervisory Board respectively. The Foundation’s governing bodies were in turn appointed and dismissed by the Government Minister at his or her full discretion. Furthermore, a degree of control and supervision over the Foundation was exercised by the Government Minister. It appeared that the members of the Verification Commission and the Appeal Verification Commission did not have tenure. Thus, the Court considered that the independence of the Foundation’s adjudicating bodies was open to serious doubt. As regards procedural guarantees, it appeared that the adjudicating commissions had no clear and publicly-available rules of procedure and did not hold public hearings.

In order for the situation facing the applicant to be in compliance with Article 6 § 1, the decisions of the Foundation’s adjudicating bodies had therefore to be subject to review by a judicial body with full jurisdiction. However, the Supreme Administrative Court had excluded judicial review by administrative courts. The Supreme Court’s case-law also clearly indicated that judicial review by civil courts of the Foundation’s decisions in individual cases was excluded. The Court furthered observed that the Government had not provided a single example of a civil court judgment to sustain their argument that such cases could be reviewed by those courts.

The Court did not find it established that there was, as yet, a generally-recognised international practice within Europe of excluding judicial review in matters pertaining to individual claims arising out of war persecution. Furthermore, the applicant’s case did not concern the issue of State immunity or any other form of immunity recognised in international law or generally accepted by the signatory States which could be regarded as a proportionate restriction on the right of access to a court, but a compensation scheme which derived from an international agreement. The applicant’s claim before the Foundation was asserted on the basis of specific eligibility criteria laid down in its regulations and had only a tenuous connection, if any, with Germany, which had originally inflicted the damage on the applicant.

The Court further noted that, by excluding judicial review of the individual decisions rendered by the Foundation, the domestic courts left the applicant with no possibility of having the Foundation’s decisions reviewed by a “tribunal”. It would not be consistent with the rule of law in a democratic society, or with the basic principle underlying Article 6 § 1 – namely that civil claims had to be capable of being submitted to a judge for adjudication – if a State could remove from the jurisdiction of the courts a whole range of civil claims or confer immunities from civil liability on large groups or categories of persons. In addition, the domestic courts’ interpretation appeared not to give enough effect to the right to a fair hearing of one’s case, enshrined in Article 45 of the Polish Constitution.

In respect of the proportionality of the impugned limitation on the applicant’s right of access to a court, the Court also attached importance to the fact that the applicant did not have available to him any other reasonable alternative means of redress.

The Court concluded that the absolute exclusion of judicial review in respect of the decisions issued by the Foundation under the first compensation scheme was disproportionate to the legitimate aim pursued and impaired the very essence of the applicant’s “right of access to a court”. There had therefore been a violation of Article 6 § 1

***

The Court’s judgments are accessible on its Internet site (http://www.echr.coe.int).

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The European Court of Human Rights was set up in Strasbourg by the Council of Europe Member States in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights.