Kalifatstaat v. Germany , dec., No. 13828/04, ECtHR (Fifth Section), 11 December 2006

Ban on a religious association aiming to restore the caliphate and create a worldwide Islamic regime based on sharia law.

Art. 11 ECHR

1. Pursuant to the Convention, the banning of associations or parties deemed as a concrete and current threat to the principles and fundamental rights of the democratic constitutional order and to the rule of law is legitimate.

2. It cannot be excluded that an association, invoking the rights enshrined in articles 9 and 10 as well as in article 11 ECHR, may attempt to derive the right to exercise activities aimed at the destruction of the rights or freedoms recognized under the Convention and, therefore, to the end of democracy. However, nobody is allowed to rely on the Convention provisions in order to undermine or destroy the ideals and values of a democratic society.

3. With regard to parties and associations, the exceptions set out in Article 11 ECHR require only compelling and imperative reasons which justify restrictions on their freedom of association and, in particular, the application of a measure as severe as the dissolution of a religious association.

4. Sharia law is incompatible with the fundamental principles of democracy, as they result from the Convention.
(In the present case, the Court unanimously declared inadmissible the application lodged by a religious association banned on the grounds that it aimed to establish a State system based on sharia law by openly advocating the use of violence in order to achieve such goal and considering democracy to be harmful to Islam and incompatible with it).