European Court of Human Rights
In February 1984 Funke applied to the ECtHR. He complained that his conviction for a refusal to produce documents was a breach of his right to a fair trial (Article 6-1), the initial demand was a violation of the right not to give evidence against oneself and the subsequent proceedings against him were an attempt to compel him, when the French government could have sought other means to obtain any documents. Funke also held that the trial was not held within a reasonable time (6-1) and did not regard the presumption of innocence (6-2). He also claimed that the search was a breach of his right to respect for his privacy (Article 8).
In the interim Funke refused to pay the pecuniary penalty for non-compliance and in January 1985 a garnishment notice was served to retrieve 10,750 FRF from Funke's bank account, covering fines for May-December 1984. He contested this decision at the Strasbourg District Court in March 1985. That court upheld the notice but Funke appealed. In February 1989 the Colmar Court of Appeal reversed the decision of the district court and removed the notice. The custom authorities appealed this decision on points of law to the Court of Cassation, which upheld the decision that a garnishment notice could not be used for customs penalties.
Read more about this topic: Funke V. France
Famous quotes containing the words european, court, human and/or rights:
“Of course, in the reality of history, the Machiavellian view which glorifies the principle of violence has been able to dominate. Not the compromising conciliatory politics of humaneness, not the Erasmian, but rather the politics of vested power which firmly exploits every opportunity, politics in the sense of the “Principe,” has determined the development of European history ever since.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)
“At court I met it, in clothes brave enough
To be a courtier, and looks grave enough
To seem a statesman.”
—Ben Jonson (1572–1637)
“In all the wide gamut of human experience, nothing plays so important a part as faith.... Faith that is as broad as the heavens and as wide as the earth. Faith that comprehends in its vast sympathies everything human as well as divine, and carries one with the swift sure wings of the angels directly to his goal.”
—Alice Foote MacDougall (1867–1945)
“The freedom to share one’s insights and judgments verbally or in writing is, just like the freedom to think, a holy and inalienable right of humanity that, as a universal human right, is above all the rights of princes.”
—Carl Friedrich Bahrdt (1740–1792)