The cooperating NGOs Greek Helsinki Monitor (GHM) and Minority Rights Group-Greece (MRG-G) consider that Judgment 1448/2009 of the Fourth Political Division of the Supreme Court (Areios Pagos - published on 11 June 2009), rejecting the request for cassation by the “Home of Macedonian Civilization” against Decision 243/2005 of the Court of Appeal of Western Macedonia, is contrary to international law. The judgment is available in Greek on line at: http://cm.greekhelsinki.gr/. The Court of Appeal had rejected an appeal by that Macedonian minority association against Judgment 243/2003 of the Florina Single-Member Court of First Instance. The Court of First Instance had rejected the initial application for recognition of the “Home of Macedonian Civilization” filed on 24 July 2003.
MRG-G and GHM consider that this confirms, once again, Professor Nikos Alivizatos’ comment on some similar Supreme Court judgments on the non recognition and/or dissolution of certain Turkish minority associations, which had led three unanimous convictions of Greece by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR): “It is deeply regretful that, in 2005, neither the Prosecutor of the Supreme Court, nor the Plenum of the Supreme Court suspected that our country is a part of Europe.” («Ta Nea» daily, 28 March 2008 http://www.tanea.gr/).
MRG-G and GHM reckon that, once more, the Supreme Court issued a - quite literally – “historical” judgment, as its reasoning was in fact a history essay. The Supreme Court blatantly disregarded the damning ECtHR Sidiropoulos judgment of 10 July 1998 convicting Greece for the previous non-recognition of the same association by the Greek courts. (Sidiropoulos and Others v Greece, available at http://cmiskp.echr.coe.int/). Moreover, the Supreme Court used a ‘suitably censored’ excerpt of another ECtHR decision (on a request for the granting of voting privileges in favor of a minority association that could be attained via its recognition)!
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