Yazar, Karatas, Aksoy and the People’s Labour Party (HEP) v. Turkey, Nos. 22723/93, 22724/93, 22725/93, ECtHR (Fourth Section), 9 April 2002

Banning of a political party on the ground that its activities are likely to undermine the territorial integrity of the State and the unity of the nation. Right to self-determination and recognition of Kurdish language rights.

Art. 11 ECHR

1. A political party may campaign for a change in the law or the legal and constitutional structures of the State on two conditions: firstly, the means used to that end must be legal and democratic; secondly, the change proposed must itself be compatible with fundamental democratic principles. As a consequence, a party whose leaders incite to violence or put forward a policy which does not comply with one or more of the rules of democracy or which is aimed at the destruction of democracy and the flouting of the rights and freedoms recognised in a democratic society cannot lay claim to the Convention’s protection against penalties imposed on those grounds.

2. If merely by advocating the right of self-determination and recognition of language rights a political grouping were held to be supporting acts of terrorism, this would reduce the possibility of dealing with related issues within the framework of a democratic debate. Even where proposals informed by such principles are likely to clash with the main strands of government policy or the convictions of a majority of the public, the proper functioning of democracy requires political groupings to be able to introduce them into public debate.

3. The dissolution of a political party cannot reflect a pressing social need where such party did not advocate any policy which could have undermined the country’s democratic regime and did not urge or sought to justify recourse to force.

(In the present case, the Turkish Constitutional Court banned a political party for “seeking to divide the Turkish nation in two, with Turks on one side and Kurds on the other, with the aim of setting up separate States” and for “seeking to destroy national and territorial integrity”).

The ECtHR unanimously found that the dissolution of the applicant party, which had not advocated any policy that could have undermined the country’s democratic regime and had not urged or sought to justify recourse to force, breached article 11 of the Convention.