TOMAS PRINGLE V. IRELAND, C-370/12

EL RACIONAMIENTO DE LA JUSTICIA

"Si pretendemos conservar nuestra democracia, debe existir un mandamiento: no racionarás la justicia"

(Juez Learned Hand, Speech a la Sociedad de Ayuda Legal de Nueva York, 1951)

“If we are to keep our democracy, there must be one commandment: Thou shall not ration justice.”

HOLMES, HAND, DWORKIN, TAXES

En su trabajo "Roland Dworkin-un solitario entre los juristas" (¡Ay, Europa!), Habermas cita la siguiente anécdota que Dworkin conocía por Hand:

"En una ocasión , en la época en que era juez del Tribunal Supremo, Holmes llevo al juzgado en su coche al joven Learned Hand.Al llegar a su destino, Hand descendió del coche y se despidióagitando la mano y gritando alegremente hacia el coche que ya se alejaba: ¡cuide usted de la justicia, juez Holmes!".Holmes pidó al conductor que detuviese el coche y diese marcha atrás en dirección al sorprendido Hand, para asomarse por la ventanilla y decirle: "That’s not my job".A continuación el coche volvió a girar y condujo a Holmes a su trabajo, que supuestamente no consitía en cuidar de la justicia."

La anécdota no oculta la complejidad de Holmes.Una frase suya del  caso tributario "COMPANIA GENERAL DE TABACOS DE FILIPINAS v. COLLECTOR OF INTERNAL, 275 U.S. 87 (1927)" es la que consta inscrita en el edificio del Internal Revenue Service: "Taxes are what we paid for civilized society" (ver fotografía).La frase a su vez tampoco deja de ser compleja porque "civilized society" sería un requisito que debería cumplirse para la legitimación tributaria.

En el mismo, Holmes votó con la minoría:

"Mr. Justice HOLMES (dissenting). 

This is a suit to recover the amount of a tax alleged to have been illegally imposed. The plaintiff is a Spanish corporation licensed to do business in the Philippine Islands and having an office in Manila. In 1922 from time to time it bought goods and put them into its Philippine warehouses. It notified its head office in Barcelona, Spain, of the value of the goods and that office thereupon insured them under open policies issued by a company of London. From time to time also the Philippine branch shipped the goods abroad for sale and secured insurance upon the shipments in the same manner, the premiums being charged to it in both cases. By section 192 of the Philippine Insurance Act No. 2427, as amended by Act No. 2430, where owners of property obtain insurance directly with foreign companies the owners are required to report each case to the Collector of Internal Revenue and to 'pay the tax of one per centum on premium paid, in the manner required by law of insurance companies.' The defendant Collector collected this tax on the above mentioned premiums from the plaintiff against its protest. The plaintiff bases its suit upon the contentions that the statute is contrary to the Act of Congress of August 29, 1916, c. 416, 3 (the Jones Act), 39 Stat. 545, 546, 547, as depriving it of its property without due process of law, and also as departing from the requirement in the same section that the rules of taxation shall be uniform. The Supreme Court of the Philippines upheld the tax. A writ of certiorari was granted by this Court. 271 U.S. 655 , 46 S. Ct. 486. [275 U.S. 87, 100]   The plaintiff's reliance is upon Allgeyer v. Louisiana, 165 U.S. 578 , 17 S. Ct. 427, in which it was held that a fine could not be imposed by the State for sending a notice similar to the present to an insurance company out of the State. But it seems to me that the tax was justified and that this case is distinguished from that of Allgeyer and from St. Louis Cotton Compress Co. v. Arkansas, 260 U.S. 346 , 43 S. Ct. 125, by the difference between a penalty and a tax. It is true, as indicated in the last cited case, that every exaction of money for an act is a discouragement to the extent of the payment required, but that which in its immediacy is a discouragement may be part of an encouragement when seen in its organic connection with the whole. Taxes are what we pay for civilized society, including the chance to insure. A penalty on the other hand is intended altogether to prevent the thing punished. It readily may be seen that a State may tax things that under the Constitution as interpreted it can not prevent. The constitutional right asserted in Allgeyer v. Louisiana to earn one's livelihood by any lawful calling certainly is consistent, as we all know, with the calling being taxed.

Sometimes there may be a difficulty in deciding whether an imposition is a tax or a penalty, but generally the intent to prohibit when it exists is plainly expressed. Sometimes even when it is called a tax the requirement is shown to be a penalty by its excess in amount over the tax in similar cases, as in St. Louis Cotton Compress Co. v. Arkansas. But in the present instance there is no room for doubt. The charge not only is called a tax but is the same in amount as that imposed where the right to impose it is not denied.

The government has the insured within its jurisdiction. I can see no ground for denying its right to use its power to tax unless it can be shown that it has conferred no benefit of a kind that would justify the tax, as is held with regard to property outside of a State belonging to one within it. Frick v. Pennsylvania, 268 U.S. 473, 489 , 45 S. Ct. 603, 42 A.L.R. 316. [275 U.S. 87, 101]   But here an act was done in the Islands that was intended by the plaintiff to be and was an essential step towards the insurance, and, if that is not enough, the government of the Islands was protecting the property at the very moment in respect of which it levied the tax. Precisely this question was met and disposed of in Equitable Life Assurance Co. v. Pennsylvania, 238 U.S. 143, 147 , 35 S. Ct. 829

The result of upholding the government's action is just. When it taxes domestic insurance it reasonably may endeavor not to let the foreign insurance escape. If it does not discriminate against the latter it naturally does not want to discriminate against its own.

The suggestion that the rule of taxation is not uniform may be disposed of in a few words. The uniformity required is uniformity in substance not in form. The insurance is taxed uniformly, and although in the case of domestic insurance the tax is laid upon the company whereas here it is laid upon the insured, it must be presumed that in the former case the company passes the tax on to the insured as an element in the premium charged.

For these reasons Mr. Justice BRANDEIS and I are of opinion that the judgment of the Supreme Court of the Islands should be affirmed."

A la vista del caso, mi primera impresión es que el Juez Taft llevaba razón con la mayoría y el tributo exigido a la compañía española era en parte constitucional y en parte no.Ello también proporciona una idea adecuada de la complejidad de la "vida civilizada" y de la simplificación de las "frases hechas".

Quizás otra frase de Holmes compañera de la cita de Hand, Dworkin y Habermas sea ésta:

"I always say, as you know, that if my fellow citizens want to go to Hell I will help them. It's my job."

Letter to Harold J. Laski (March 4, 1920); reported in Mark DeWolfe Howe, ed., Holmes-Laski Letters (1953), vol. 1, p. 249.

Pero lo que Learned Hand, a su vez, dijo, como ciudadano, de las esperanzas sobre la libertad, también puede decirse de las esperanzas sobre los tributos en la medida que afectan a la organización de la libertad en una sociedad civilizada:

 "¿Qué queremos decir cuando decimos que lo primero que buscamos es la libertad?.A menudo me pregunto si no ponemos demasiadas esperanzas sobre las constituciones, las leyes y los tribunales.Estas son falsas esperanzas, creédme, son esperanzas falsas. La libertad reside en los corazones de las mujeres y los hombres, y cuando muere allí, ninguna constitución, ninguna ley, ni ningún tribunal puede hacer mucho por ayudar.Mientras reside allí no necesita cosntitución, ni ley, ni tribunal para salvarla."

 Learned Hand ( "I am an American Day", Speech delivered at Central Park, May 21 1944)
 

Heráclito ya afirmó que "el pueblo debe combatir más por la ley que por los muros de su ciudad"

TEDH: ASUNTO MANZANAS MARTIN CONTRA ESPAÑA

Case of manzanas martin v. spain spanish translation from Guillermo Ruiz Zapatero

TEDH: MANZANAS MARTIN CONTRA ESPAÑA

El TEDH mediante Sentencia de fecha 3 da Abril de 2012 (demanda 17966/10) ha declarado la infracción por España de los artículos 14 del CEDH y 1 del Protocolo 1 de Convenio por el distinto tratamiento dado en la normativa de pensiones a los sacerdotes católicos y a los pastores evangélicos.

El recurso de amparo previo ante el Tribunal Constitucional fue inadmitido por falta de especial trascendencia cosntitucional del mismo.

El caso plantea la peculiar situción de nuestro sistema de amparo, como consecuencia del cual el TEDH tiene que pronunciarse sobre casos que nuestro Tribunal Constitucional considera que no tiene obligación de examinar, alterando el sistema institucional del CEDH, en el que el TEDH solo actúa como consecuencia de enjuicimaientos previos de los Tribunales de los Estados miembros.

El artículo 13 del CEDH exige un recurso nacional efectivo y resulta que nuestro sistema de amparo no cumple actualmente el misno como consecuencia del requisito de "especial trascendencia constitucional" introducido por primera en 2007 y que plantea dudas de constitucionalidad y, desde luego, de compatibilidad con las obligaciones internacionales asumidas por el Estado español como consecuencia del artículo 13 del CEDH.

Estos son los apartados de la STEDH que declaran la infracción:

"55. Ninguna de estas posibilidades ofrecidas a los sacerdotes católicos para que sean computados, a efectos de pensión de jubilación, los años anteriores a su integración al régimen de la Seguridad Social se concede a los pastores evangélicos en la legislación española. El Tribunal considera, por lo tanto, probado, habida cuenta de las circunstancias del caso, que esta diferencia normativa desfavorable constituye una diferencia de trato al demandante, basada en la confesión religiosa, no justificada en relación al trato reservado a los sacerdotes católicos, en la medida en que el demandante no dispone de ningún medio para que se tengan en cuenta, a efectos de el cálculo de su pensión de jubilación, sus años de actividad pastoral como pastor evangélico antes de su integración en el régimen de la Seguridad Social. El Tribunal aprecia, por tanto, una desproporción en el hecho de que el Estado español, que había reconocido en 1977 (párrafo 17 anterior) la integración de los Ministros de Iglesias y confesiones religiosas distintas a la católica en el Régimen general de la Seguridad Social, no esté dispuesto a reconocer, pese a la integración de los pastores evangélicos efectuada veintidós años más tarde, los efectos de tal integración en cuanto a la pensión de jubilación en las mismas condiciones que los previstos para los sacerdotes católicos, en particular, por lo que se refiere a la posibilidad de completar las anualidades que falten para alcanzar el período mínimo de cotizacón mediante el pago por el demandante del capital-coste que corresponda a los años de cotización reconocidos. Si bien las razones del retraso en la integración de los pastores evangélicos al Régimen general de la Seguridad Social están incluidas en el margen de apreciación del Estado (apartado 53 arriba), el Gobierno no justifica, sin embargo, las razones por las cuales, una vez efectuada dicha integración, se mantuvo una diferencia de tratamiento entre situaciones similares, basada solamente en razones de confesión religiosa.

56. Por lo que se refiere a la afirmación del Gobierno según la cual los Reales Decretos de 1998 contemplan el caso del cese de la actividad religiosa de los sacerdotes católicos por razones personales o de secularización, y no el supuesto de jubilación, por edad, como ocurre en el presente asunto, el Tribunal considera, habida cuenta de lo que precede, que tal diferencia no es relevante en la medida en que la diferencia de trato, a efectos de la pensión de jubilación, entre los sacerdotes católicos y los pastores evangélicos, desfavorable a estos últimos, no se limita a los decretos citados por el Gobierno. En cualquier caso, ni el Juez de lo Social de Barcelona cuando estimó la demanda, ni el Tribunal Superior de Justicia, cuando rechazó la pensión, hicieron referencia a este hecho para justificar el diferente tratamiento otorgado a los sacerdotes católicos y a los pastores evangélicos, en situaciones similares de falta de años de cotización que causan derecho a la pensión de jubilación. En efecto, estas resoluciones no excluyeron, en ningún caso, al demandante de las condiciones establecidas in abstracto por la discutida legislación que establecía la posibilidad de completar las anualidades de cotización efectiva a la Seguridad Social.

57. En consecuencia, el Tribunal concluye que en el presente caso existe una violación del artículo 14 del Convenio en relación con el artículo 1 del Protocolo n 1.

(...)

 A. Daño

1. Reparación solicitada
62. El demandante reclama 64 797,44 € en concepto de daños materiaes sufridos. Esta suma se divide del siguiente modo: por una parte, 30 360,44€ correspondientes al importe de las pensiones mensuales no percibidas desde la fecha en que solicitó la pensión de jubilación ante los órganos jurisdiccionales nacionales, el 22 de julio de 2004, y la interposición de la demanda ante el Tribunal, el 31 de marzo de 2010, calculada en razón de la suma de 398,44€ mensuales, fijada en la sentencia de 12 de diciembre de 2005 por el Juez de lo Social y, por otra parte, 34.436,86€ correspondientes al capital-coste requerido para garantizar a una persona de la edad y el sexo del demandante una pensión mensual actualizada al 31 de marzo de 2010 en función de su esperanza de vida (se adjunta cálculo actuarial).

63. El demandante reclama también 3.000€ en concepto de daños morales.

64. Por lo que se refiere al perjuicio material solicitado, el Gobierno alega que la restitutio in integrum sería posible y que la satisfacción equitativa sólo tiene un carácter subsidiario. Ningún obstáculo podría oponerse al pago del importe de la pensión debida. Considera, por el contrario, que el importe que corresponde al coste del capital requerido pro futura no puede ser compensado, por cuanto que no es, por el momento, un perjuicio real y efectivo. El Gobierno considera que, en cualquier caso, como reconoció la sentencia dictada por el Juez de lo Social de Barcelona dictada en el asunto, dichos importes sólo serían exigible a condición de pagar el capital correspondiente a los años de cotización reconocidos.

65. Por lo que se refiere al daño moral, el Gobierno considera que no está justificada su existencia, ni la suma reclamada por el demandante por este concepto.

2. Conclusión del Tribunal

a) Daño material

66. Habida cuenta de las circunstancias del caso, el Tribunal no se considera suficientemente ilustrado sobre los criterios que deben aplicarse para evaluar el perjuicio material sufrido por el demandante, en la medida en que no tiene ninguna información sobre los importes que el demandante debería pagar para cumplir el período mínimo de cotización exigido para el reconocimiento de la pensión en cuestión.

Considera que, por lo que respecta a la indemnización del daño material no se encuentra en situación de resolver, por lo que se reserva su pronunciamiento, considerando la posibilidad de un acuerdo entre el Estado demandado y el demandante.

b) Daño moral

67. El Tribunal considera que el demandante sufrió, debido a la violación constatada, un daño moral que no puede ser reparado por el mero reconocimiento de la violación. Resolviendo en equidad, tal como prevé el artículo 41 del Convenio, el Tribunal concede al demandante la suma de 3.000€, por daños morales.

B. Gastos y costas

68. El demandante solicita, aportando justificantes de la minuta de honorarios y factura, 3 976,48€ por los gastos y costas sufridos ante los órganos jurisdiccionales internos y 4.000€ correspondientes al procedimiento ante el Tribunal. Aporta los justificantes de estas cantidades.

69. El Gobierno considera excesiva la suma reclamada por el demandante.

70. Según la jurisprudencia del Tribunal, un demandante únicamente puede obtener el reembolso de sus gastos y costas en la medida en que se acredite su realidad, su necesidad y el carácter razonable de su cuantía. En el presente caso, y habida cuenta de los documentos en su posesión y de los criterios previamente mencionados, el Tribunal considera razonable la suma de 6.000 € por el concepto de gastos y costas efectuados en el marco del procedimiento nacional y ante el Tribunal, y la reconoce al demandante."

TEDH: VISTINS AND PEREPJOLKINS V. LATVIA

En esta relevante sentencia del TEDH (demanda nº 71243/01), la Gran Sala estimó (25 de octubre de 2012) la demanda de los recurrentes, a pesar de la desestimación previa de la misma por la la Sala de la Sección 3ª.Lo que es más importante, la sentencia se separa de la doctrina contenida en el caso previo de "Jahn and others v. Germany" en la que el Tribunal consideró que, dada la situación de transición del régimen legal en la antigua RDA, no había exisitido una infracción del artículo 1 del Protocolo 1 del CEDH en relación con una "expropiación legislativa".

Este es el resumen de esta importante STEDH:

"Article 1 of Protocol No. 1

The Court acknowledged that the disputed expropriation had been carried out on the basis of the Law of 30 October 1997 on expropriation, for the needs of the State, of land within the Free Commercial Port of Riga. The Court noted that in Latvian law the formal decision on expropriation was taken not by the executive but by Parliament in the form of a special law. The Court observed that this was a feature of the Latvian legal system, dating back to 1923, and enshrined in the Constitution in 1998. It found that the general principles and objectives of the expropriation system set up by Latvian law did not, as such, raise any issue of lawfulness within the meaning of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1.

However, the Court noted that on 5 August 1997 the Cabinet had adopted a regulation ordering the expropriation of all the properties at issue in the present case, and that, together with the Law of 30 October 1997 by which it was confirmed, the regulation had been interpreted by the domestic courts as providing for a derogation from the General Expropriation Act of 1923. It had thus been possible to disregard the usual expropriation procedure in the applicants’ case and to limit the amount of the compensation by reference to Article 2 of the Supreme Council’s decision of 1992. Prior to the adoption of the regulation and the enactment of the special Law, the applicants could have expected that any expropriation of their property would be carried out in accordance with the 1923 General Expropriation Act. The Court had doubts as to whether the expropriation at issue had been carried out “subject to the conditions provided for by law”, having regard in particular to the derogation applied to the applicants and to the procedural safeguards that were – or were not – attached to it.

The Court reiterated that an interference with the right to the peaceful enjoyment of possessions always had to strike a “fair balance” between the demands of the general interest and the protection of the individual’s fundamental rights.

The Court observed that the value of the properties at issue had been assessed on three separate occasions. It took the view that the Latvian authorities had been justified in deciding not to compensate the applicants for the full market value of the expropriated property and that much lower amounts could suffice to fulfil the requirements of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1. Nevertheless, the Court noted an extreme disproportion between the official cadastral value of the land and the compensation received by the applicants: the sum received by Mr Vistiņš was less than one thousandth of the cadastral value of his land, and Mr Perepjolkins had received a sum some 350 times lower than the total cadastral value of all his properties. In the Court’s view, such disproportionate awards were virtually tantamount to a complete lack of compensation.

The Court further noted that shortly after being deprived of their properties, the applicants had received significant amounts from the Free Commercial Port of Riga for the rent arrears due to them. Those amounts – calculated this time on the basis of the current value, and not that of 1940 – were respectively 95 times higher than the compensation granted to Mr Vistiņš and 40 times higher than that granted to Mr Perepjolkins. In any event, the disproportion between the rent arrears and the compensation awarded confirmed that the compensation had been unreasonably low.The Government had failed to show that the legitimate aim relied on, namely that of optimising the management of the port infrastructure in the general context of the State’s economic policy, could not be fulfilled by less drastic measures than expropriation compensated for by purely symbolic sums. In that connection the Court dismissed the Government’s argument that the expropriation had been carried out in a particular historical context. It took the view that, as the events at issue had taken place well after the end of the period of historic upheaval, the legislature could nevertheless have been expected to uphold the principle of legal certainty and to refrain from imposing excessive burdens on individuals.

The authorities could have calculated the compensation on the basis of the cadastral value of the land at the date on which the applicants had actually lost their title, instead of using the cadastral value from 1940. Even though Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 did not,in the present case, require the reimbursement of the full cadastral or market value of the expropriated properties, the Court considered that the disproportion between their current cadastral value and the compensation awarded was too significant for it to find that a “fair balance” had been struck between the interests of the community and the applicants’ fundamental rights.

The Court concluded that the State had overstepped the margin of appreciation afforded to it and that the expropriation complained of by the applicants had imposed on them a disproportionate and excessive burden, upsetting the “fair balance” to be struck between the protection of property and the requirements of the general interest. Accordingly, there had been a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1.

Article 14 taken together with Article 1 of Protocol No. 1

The Court was of the view that the inequality of treatment of which Mr Vistiņš and

Mr Perepjolkins claimed to be victims had been sufficiently taken into account in its

assessment leading to the finding of a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1. It thus

found that there was no need for a separate examination of the same facts under

Article 14 of the Convention.

Just satisfaction (Article 41)

The court held that the question of the application of Article 41 of the Convention was

not ready for decision and reserved it in its entirety for future consideration.

Separate opinion

Judges Bratza, Garlicki, Lorenzen, Tsotsoria and Pardalos expressed a joint partly

dissenting opinion, which is annexed to the judgment.

En el asunto "Jahn and others v. Germany" (demandas nº 46720/99,72203/01 and 72552/01), el juez alemán George Ress ya disintió de la opinión mayoritaria con la opinión siguiente:

DISSENTING OPINION OF JUDGE RESS

(Translation)

"1.  I share the dissenting opinion of Judges Costa and Borrego Borrego joined by Judge Botoucharova, except regarding a violation of Article 14. I still find the reasoning of the Chamber, which adopted a judgment on 22 January 2004 in the present case holding unanimously that there had been a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 on the ground that the State had compelled the applicants to assign their property to the State without any compensation, more convincing than the Grand Chamber's judgment.

2.  The applicants had not acquired property rights illegally, but entirely legally under the Law of 6 March 1990. It would be possible to speak of an illegal acquisition or – as the Grand Chamber has done – a “windfall” if the former laws and regulations of the GDR were taken as a decisive criterion. Such was not the intention of the legislature or the purpose of the Law of 6 March 1990, however. The legislature had to create true ownership in the sense of a free market economy to prepare the GDR for the signing of economic, currency and social union with the FRG, which was finally done on 18 May 1990. It is far-fetched to consider that there is a loophole in that Law concerning the question of ownership of heirs to that land and to see in that a whole series of uncertainties regarding their legal position. Although the Law of 6 March 1990 is very short, or even succinct, all the issues were discussed by the parliamentary commission and were therefore known to the legislature. There is no evidence of a loophole in the structure of that Law. Otherwise, it would be possible to find all sorts of loopholes in short laws if the results of the law appear unsatisfactory. Naturally the legislature can correct those results in such a case, but in doing so it must respect the individual rights it has created. Furthermore, from the Law of 6 March 1990 until the 1992 Act, the applicants were able to exercise their property rights in good faith for two years. Considering that the period during which the Italian authorities left Mr Beyeler in the dark as to whether he had become the lawful owner (see Beyeler v. Italy [GC], no. 33202/96, § 119, ECHR 2000-I) was just over four years, I think that in the present case the applicants, whose property rights were not called into question, were also entitled to compensation for the legitimate expectation created by the State.

3.  My biggest reservation concerns the reference to the “unique” context of the unification of Germany and the “exceptional circumstances” of this case. As my colleagues Judges Costa and Borrego Borrego have rightly pointed out, this expression should not be misused. The unification of Germany is no more “unique” than the dissolution of the USSR or of Yugoslavia or the change of political regime that occurred in many countries after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

If a State like the FRG is bound by the Convention, such events cannot in general justify a vague interpretation or less strict application of the Convention. Ilaşcu and Others v. Moldova and Russia ([GC], no. 48787/99, ECHR 2004-VII), the context of which could also have been described as “unique” following the dissolution of the USSR, is a good example of this firm approach on the part of the Court. With the notion of “exceptional circumstances”, the Court could have arrived at different results in that case as well. It seems to me that the Court has been less firm in its decision in Von Maltzan and Others v. Germany ((dec.) [GC], nos. 71916/01, 71917/01 and 10260/02, §§ 77 and 111-12, ECHR 2005-V), in which it did not acknowledge the applicants' legitimate expectation of compensation (as a property right), even though the Federal Constitutional Court had in principle recognised that right of property, and in the present case.

4.  The introduction of the concept of “exceptional circumstances” as a ratio decidendi justifying an exception under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 is a very dangerous step in the development of the interpretation of the Convention. The Court has used it very rarely, for example in The former King of Greece and Others v. Greece ([GC], no. 25701/94, § 89, ECHR 2000-XII), where it did nonetheless award just satisfaction. If the Court accepts that exceptional circumstances may justify interferences by the State with the individual's rights, this is a State-orientated concept that is a far cry from the concept of human rights protection. In James and Others, which has been mentioned as a case in which a parallel can be drawn (James and Others v. the United Kingdom, judgment of 21 February 1986, Series A no. 98), the rights of private individuals were weighed against each other. In that case it could be said that there was not a fair balance between the persons concerned because the tenants had already invested so heavily in the buildings that the right of the formal owner could justifiably be overridden. In that case as well, however, the Court did not rule out just satisfaction even if it was less than the market value. That particular case concerned a situation in which the State could be considered as the just arbitrator between competing private interests. In the present case, the State itself engineered the interference on the ground that the Modrow Law had created inequalities in society. The situation is far from being comparable to James and Others and I do not understand how the Court could have overlooked that profound difference.

The concept of “exceptional circumstances” is one that does not lend itself to generalisations. Moreover, if an attempt is made to generalise the notion of “exceptional circumstances” as a ratio decidendi, the Court will lose its status as an organ of justice. It will no longer be possible to determine when and in what circumstances the Court will accept that there were “exceptional circumstances”. Is the fight against terrorism an exceptional situation? Does such an exceptional situation justify interferences with human rights with the result that there is no longer a violation? From what I can see of past rulings, the Court has never justified such an interference with human rights to the State's benefit on account of “exceptional circumstances”. On the contrary, the Court has justified, in for example D. v. the United Kingdom (judgment of 2 May 1997, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1997-III), an extension of the protection of individuals in “exceptional circumstances”, which is more in keeping with the protection of human rights, even if the justification can hardly be generalised.

5.  That a law creates inequalities is not an exceptional situation. There are many such laws and the legislature can be required to correct the inequality. However, the correction must be done while respecting human rights. Such a correction is not an “exceptional situation”. It is in itself an entirely normal situation in which the legislature – under political pressure or because of constitutional objections – corrects an error by the legislature that has led to unacceptable consequences for society. But all that is done at a political level and such considerations should not be brought into play through the notion of an “exceptional situation” when interpreting the Convention.

6.  What is exceptional in a transitional period? There may be greater possibilities of mistakes by the legislature, which future legislatures would be inclined to correct, but does this give carte blanche to commit violations of human rights or to regard violations as non-violations? The Court has also referred to the nature of the right or rather to its unclear nature and character and introduced a classification of weak and normal or strong rights. That distinction makes things even less clear. One of the big mistakes of the Court was to turn to the law of the GDR, which of course was not bound by the Convention. The starting-point for the Court should have been the Unification Treaty, when the Convention also came into force on the territory of the former GDR. The Unification Treaty included the Modrow Law as part of the federal legislation and, as the Government have confirmed, established the full property rights of the applicants. It was not only futile to refer to the legal situation in the GDR but also unjustified to go back further than the entry into force of the Convention on the territory of the GDR.

7.  The Court also regarded as an exceptional circumstance the fact that the Modrow Law was passed by a regime that did not have democratic legitimacy and no one could therefore have confidence in the legal stability of such a law. The decisive moment, however, was the Unification Treaty and the incorporation of the Modrow Law into FRG law by the fully democratically elected German parliament, which makes that argument futile. The fact that the German legislature reacted promptly, within less than two years, to correct the so-called unacceptable consequences of the Modrow Law does not justify referring to “exceptional circumstances”. On the contrary, a parliament which promptly corrects errors that have become evident is not in an “exceptional situation” and this does not justify concluding that interferences may not be violations of human rights. To sum up, the whole argumentation is rather circular. The situation has nothing in common with Rekvényi v. Hungary ([GC], no. 25390/94, ECHR 1999-III) where the restriction of the right to vote was justified by the argument that otherwise the whole election process could be jeopardised. In the present case, the Government did not advance the idea that they had to protect individual property rights but, on the contrary, the State thought of a solution from which it could derive the greatest advantage from the taking of property.

8.  The Chamber did not rule on the question of the amount of just satisfaction, but confirmed the principle that a disproportionate interference with the right of property would in principle entitle the victim to redress. All the considerations relating to the nature of the applicants' rights and their legitimate expectations might play a role in the application of Article 41, as the Chamber pointed out, but not in the interpretation and application of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1.

If the Court is now going to say that a kind of expropriation is proportionate because the State has an interest in correcting errors, that is not very far from the defence plea rejected in Streletz, Kessler and Krenz v. Germany ([GC], nos. 34044/96, 35532/97 and 44801/98, ECHR 2001-II), in which the applicants relied on the raison d'état (the State concerned was the GDR) to justify the interferences. If the Court is going to accept that there may be reasons for the State to disregard human rights (whether it calls them exceptional or whatever), who then will protect the individual against interferences with these rights?"

Fotografía de George Ress

TEDH: APLICACION DEL PROCEDIMIENTO PILOTO

La aplicación del procedmiento piloto permite al TEDH ejercer un mayor control sobre aquellos problemas estructurales que representan incumplimientos reiterados por los Estados del Convenio Europeo de Derechos HUmanos.

Así se aprecia en la reciente STEDH de 30 de Octubre de 2012 en el caso Glykantzi v. Greece:

"In today’s Chamber judgment in the case of Glykantzi v. Greece (application no. 40150/09), which is not final1, the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been:

a violation of Article 6 § 1 (right to a fair hearing within a reasonable time) in conjunction with Article 13 (right to an effective remedy) of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The case concerned the length of pay-related proceedings in the civil courts that lasted more than twelve years.

The Court found that the excessive length of proceedings in the civil courts, and the lack of a remedy by which to complain about this issue, had arisen from failings in the Greek legal system. It requested Greece to put in place, within one year, an effective remedy that could provide appropriate and sufficient redress in such cases of excessively lengthy proceedings. The Court has now adjourned, for that period, its examination of all cases which solely relate to the length of civil proceedings in the Greek courts. Over 250 applications against Greece in which at least part of the complaints are about the length of judicial proceedings are currently pending before the Court, including 70 that specifically concern civil cases.

(...)

Whilst the present case could be distinguished from the pilot cases examined previously by the Court, in so far as individuals in Ms Glykantzi’s situation did not belong to a “precise category of citizen” and also as this case was not the first to highlight the structural problem at issue, the Court nevertheless found that it was appropriate to apply the pilot judgment procedure, particularly in view of the persistent nature of the problems in question, the significant number of individuals concerned and the urgent need to provide them with swift and appropriate redress at national level."

Sentencia Glykantzi v. Greece

 

 

LA FALTA DE RUMBO DE LA POLITICA EUROPEA

Probablemente Jürgen Habermas ha sido uno de los más certeros analistas de los problemas europeos desde antes incluso de la detonación de la presente crisis.Sus planteamientos alternativos son a la vez exigentes y claros y ponen de relieve que básicamente hay dos dinámicas en curso.La primera, a la que estamos asistiendo, es, como pone de relieve en su último libro, "un tipo de federalismo ejecutivo en el que un Consejo Europeo de los 17 -que se faculta a sí mismo- proporcionaría el marco para un ejercicio post-democrático de la autoridad política".Frente a él, la oposición de los defensores del Estado nación (incluso de los nuevos Estados nación) y de un Estado federal europeo.

Habermas sostiene que el Estado nación no sirve-responde a un estadio superado del sistema internacional- y que el modelo de Estado federal es equivocado para la democracia transnacional europea.En su lugar, propone que el error de diseño europeo exige una revisión del Tratado basada en los dos sujetos fundadores y constituyentes: los ciudadanos y los pueblos de Europa.Democracia transnacional frente a federalismo post-democrático y ejecutivo.

Tampoco oculta que dicha dinámica depende del poder transnacional de los ciudadanos y pueblos de Europa.Hasta ahora secuestrado por sus élites políticas:

"ellas ya no están preparadas para una situación en que las fronteras establecidas se han desplazado, y que no puede ser dominada por los mecanismos administrativos establecidos y la encuestas de opinión, sino que en su lugar exige un nuevo modo de política capaz de transformas las mentalidades"

El último libro (Una respuesta) es una detallada fundamentación de la propuesta divulgativa (de formación de opinión) realizada en el mes de agosto y que, a diferencia de otras noticias, no ha perdido actualidad.Responde a una dinámica todavía no agotada, pero peligrosamente más inclinada cada día que pasa a la post-democracia:

"La escalada de la crisis pone de manifiesto que los enfoques que hasta el momento se han ensayado para solucionarla han sido insuficientes. Por tanto, hay que temer que la Unión Monetaria, sin un cambio fundamental de estrategia, no sobrevivirá largo tiempo en su forma actual. El punto de partida para un replanteamiento conceptual es un diagnóstico claro de las causas de la crisis. El Gobierno alemán parece partir de que los problemas, en lo esencial, han sido causados por una deficiente disciplina fiscal en el plano nacional y que hay que buscar la solución, en primera instancia, en una política consecuente de ahorro de cada uno de los países. Institucionalmente, este enfoque debe asegurarse mediante normas fiscales más estrictas y, de forma complementaria, a través de unos paraguas de rescate limitados y sujetos a condiciones, que obliguen a los países afectados a una drástica política de austeridad.

De hecho, esta política debilita la capacidad económica e incrementa el desempleo. Hasta ahora, los países con problemas —pese a una política de ahorro extraordinariamente estricta en una comparación internacional y a múltiples reformas estructurales— no han conseguido limitar a un nivel tolerable sus costes de refinanciación. Los desarrollos de los últimos meses, por tanto, apuntan a que el diagnóstico y la terapia del Gobierno alemán fueron excesivamente unidimensionales desde el principio. La crisis no es atribuible en exclusiva a que los países hayan actuado de forma equivocada, sino, en gran medida, a problemas sistémicos. Y estos no pueden solucionarse mediante esfuerzos en el plano nacional; requieren una respuesta sistémica.

El agravamiento de la crisis demuestra que la estrategia impuesta por el Gobierno alemán es equivocada.

(...)

 La alternativa

Solo hay dos estrategias coherentes en sí mismas para solucionar la crisis actual: el retorno a las monedas nacionales en toda la UE, que expondría a cada uno de los países a las oscilaciones imprevisibles de unos mercados de divisas altamente especulativos, o el afianzamiento institucional de una política fiscal, económica y social común en la zona euro, con el objetivo ulterior de recuperar la perdida capacidad de acción de la política frente a los imperativos de los mercados en el plano transnacional. De una perspectiva que trascienda la crisis actual depende también la promesa de una “Europa social”. Porque solo un núcleo europeo políticamente unido tiene la posibilidad de revertir el proceso, ya avanzado, de transformación de una democracia social y estatal de ciudadanos en una fachada de democracia sometida a los mercados. Aunque solo fuera por el engarce en esta perspectiva más amplia, ha de preferirse la segunda opción.

(...)

Mientras los Gobiernos no digan a las claras qué es lo que, de hecho, están haciendo, seguirán vaciando aún más los débiles fundamentos democráticos de la Unión Europea. El grito de batalla de la lucha por la independencia de EE UU (“no taxation without representation” [ningún impuesto sin representación) encuentra hoy una inesperada lectura: tan pronto como creemos en la Eurozona el espacio para políticas con efectos redistributivos que trasciendan las fronteras nacionales, deberá haber también un legislador europeo que represente a los ciudadanos (directamente por encima del Parlamento Europeo e indirectamente sobre el Consejo) y que pueda decidir respecto a esas políticas. De otro modo conculcamos el principio de que el legislador que debe decidir sobre la distribución de los presupuestos estatales sea idéntico al legislador democráticamente elegido que recaude los impuestos que nutren esos presupuestos.

Llegados a este punto, Alemania debe tomar la iniciativa de decidir la convocatoria de una asamblea constituyente:

(...)

 Los mercados no pueden ser ahora aplacados con constructos complicados y poco transparentes mientras los Gobiernos aceptan en silencio que se eche sobre sus pueblos un poder ejecutivo emancipado. Llegados a este punto, los propios pueblos deben tomar la palabra. La República Federal Alemana, como representante del mayor “país donante” en el Consejo, debe tomar la iniciativa para que se decida convocar una asamblea constituyente. Solo por esta vía podría superarse el inevitable desfase temporal entre las medidas económicas a tomar con carácter inmediato, imprescindibles, pero revocables, y la legitimación que, llegado el caso, debería recobrarse. Si los referendos tuvieran un resultado positivo, las naciones de Europa podrían recuperar, en un plano europeo, la soberanía que “los mercados” hace tiempo que les han robado.

La estrategia de modificación de los Tratados apunta a la fundación de una zona monetaria políticamente unificada que constituya el núcleo europeo, abierta al acceso de otros países de la UE, en especial a Polonia. Esto requiere claras ideas político-constitucionales acerca de cómo debe ser una democracia supranacional que permita un Gobierno común sin adoptar la forma de un Estado federal. El Estado federal es un modelo erróneo y excede el grado de solidaridad admisible por pueblos europeos históricamente independientes. La profundización, hoy necesaria, de las instituciones podría ser regida por la idea de que un núcleo europeo democrático ha de representar a la totalidad de los ciudadanos de los Estados miembros de la Unión Monetaria Europea, pero a cada uno de ellos en su doble cualidad de ciudadano directamente participante de la Unión reformada, por un lado, y, por otro, como miembro indirectamente participante de una de las naciones europeas participantes.

(...)

En el mundo poscolonial, el papel de Europa no solo ha cambiado en lo que respecta a la cuestionable reputación de las antiguas potencias imperiales, por no hablar del Holocausto. También las proyecciones estadísticas auguran a Europa el destino de un continente de población menguante, peso económico decreciente e importancia política en disminución. Las poblaciones europeas deben aprender que, en este momento, solo de forma conjunta pueden afirmar su modelo de sociedad apoyado en un Estado social y la diversidad de Estados nacionales de sus culturas. Deben aunar sus fuerzas si quieren seguir siendo influyentes en la agenda de la política mundial y en la solución de los problemas globales. La renuncia a la unificación europea sería una despedida de la historia mundial."

(fragmentos del Artículo publicado originalmente en el Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung el 4 de agosto.

Traducción: Jesús Alborés Rey

http://internacional.elpais.com/internacional/2012/08/10/actualidad/1344624171_292393.html)

Book - Jurgen Habermas - The Crisis of the European Union: A Response

Why early sovereign default could save the euro

Esta es una versión poco usual de los problemas, alternativas y consecuencias:

Redistributive battles

The Eurozone has so far studiously avoided the default option, with the exception of the half-hearted Greek restructuring, where denial of the problem was no longer possible. Instead it has embarked on two transfer strategies that will worsen the Eurozone crisis.

• The first consists in public bailout schemes, such as the EFSF or the ESM, which replace private credit with public credit of the still-solvent states.

The debt overhang problem of some countries thereby becomes the debt overhang problem of all the others, without any net relief for the Eurozone as a whole. Needless to say: private investors do not have any confidence that this strategy will work for the Eurozone. But they support it enthusiastically, for it allows them to transfer their credit risk to Eurozone taxpayers. Substantial policy pressure from the US, UK, and China supports such a risk transfer in pursuit of investor interests.

• The second futile policy consists of central bank purchases of distressed sovereigns’ bonds.

The declared goal of this programme is to reduce yields on outstanding debt with such purchases and thus reduce the cost of issuing new debt. But this argument contradicts the cold reality of bond valuation. As long as distressed sovereigns continue to issue new debt, they will still have to pay a large default premium. This premium is augmented by the ECB’s seniority. Investors anticipate that if the issuer defaults, the central bank would always be first in the recovery queue. ECB bond buying will therefore have no lasting positive effect on sovereigns’ financing costs.

Why are bond purchases so strongly advocated by southern countries in the Eurozone? It is essentially a 21st century version of beggar-thy-(Eurozone)-neighbour: Through massive bond buying, the ECB will accumulate considerable sovereign default risk which is then shared by all Eurozone members. Ironically, rather than reducing the risk of sovereign default, the ECB’s bond buying will eventually produce the opposite effect. The larger the scale of sovereign debt transfers from domestic investors to the ECB, the less will there be domestic resistance against default. ECB policy might delay sovereign default, but does not make it less likely.

Early debt restructuring as a policy alternative

While many central bankers and policymakers are still in denial, time is running out to address the real problem of Europe's debt overhang. The Greek example has shown how sovereign debt can be restructured without the market upheaval and contagion predicted by many (Landon 2012). The legal instruments can be put in place for Spain, Portugal, Italy, or other countries to undertake exchange offers of existing debt with new debt which include reductions of the principal and postpone interest payments. With primary deficits near zero, such debt restructuring is a real policy alternative. It has proven workable in previous cases, such Uruguay in 2003 (Buchheit and Pam 2004). The historical evidence from the large number of previous sovereign default episodes tends to show that the economic costs are short-lived (Borensztein and Panizza 2009).

Ultimately, the Eurozone will have to choose between sovereign default through debt restructuring and default on the real value of government bonds through inflation. Debt restructuring has many advantages if it is undertaken at an early stage.

• Through orderly default, investors take responsibility for their investment decisions. This is not the case if they are bailed out via debt socialisation. Debt restructuring in the Eurozone would typically come with onerous conditions for borrowers, whereas excess inflation provides an easy windfall to all debtors. Thus, moral hazard for creditors and for debtors is attenuated.
• Debt restructuring puts a much larger fraction of the financial burden on financial investors outside the Eurozone, whereas debt mutualisation bails out financial investors worldwide at the cost of Eurozone taxpayers.
• Given the extremely high concentration of financial wealth, losses in any sovereign default will fall mostly on wealthy investors (as bank shareholders or bond investors typically are). By contrast, when debt is mutualised, middle-class taxpayers, the main source of tax revenues in the Eurozone countries, will have to bear a much larger fraction of the burden (Hau 2011).
• Bailout schemes, as in the case of Greece, Portugal, Ireland, and soon Spain, come with politically sensitive external monitoring over an extended period of time. Orderly sovereign default in the Eurozone is likely to be linked to external conditions as well, but by reducing the transfers from over-indebted countries to their creditors, it removes one of the most poisonous elements of this process.

 Harald Hau, Ulrich Hege© voxEU.org , 8 September 2012

Why early sovereign default could save the euro | vox