Staatkundig Gereformeerde Partij v. the Netherlands, dec., No. 58369/10, ECtHR (Third Section), 10 July 2012

Obligation for a highly traditional protestant political party to open its lists of candidates for election to representative bodies to women.

Art. 9 ECHR
Art. 11 ECHR
Art. 14 ECHR
Art. 3 Prot. No. 1 ECHR

1. Democracy is the only political model contemplated in the Convention and the only one compatible with it. The only necessity capable of justifying an interference with any of the rights enshrined in Articles 8, 9, 10 and 11 ECHR is one that may claim to spring from a “democratic society”.

2. Provided that the means used are legal and democratic and the changes proposed are themselves compatible with fundamental democratic principles, a political party animated by the moral values imposed by a religion cannot be regarded as intrinsically inimical to the fundamental principles of democracy as set forth in the Convention.

3. The advancement of the equality of the sexes in the member States of the Council of Europe prevents the State from supporting views of the man’s role as primordial and the woman’s one as secondary.

4. Since the possibility to exercise the right to stand for election goes to the core of the State’s democratic functioning, it is unacceptable that a political party excludes women from its governing bodies or its lists of candidates for election to public office, regardless of the deeply-held religious beliefs on which it is based.
(The Court found manifestly ill-founded the application lodged by the Dutch Reformed Protestant Party. The applicant complained about a judgment delivered by the Netherlands Supreme Court to the effect that the State should take action to terminate the party’s practice of not admitting women to its governing bodies or to its lists of candidates for elections, that practice being motivated by a sincere belief based on certain passages of the Bible. According to the ECtHR, the applicant’s position on the role of women in politics blatantly contradicted the fundamental values of the Convention, regardless of the fact that no woman had ever expressed a wish to stand as a candidate for such party).