The following is a translated summary from France´s www.29mai.eu -- a pro-referendum website from a lawyer who filed a case, together with 1100 Frenchmen at the European Court for Human Rights in Strasbourg, arguing that the ratification of the EU-Treaty is illegal. The following is the introduction to the official case document which can be found at: http://www.29mai.eu/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_download&gid=64&Itemid. It is in the process of being translated into English so that every citizen of Europe that wants to preserve democracy may join the lawsuit!

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A COLLECTIVE COMPLAINT TO FAVOR A REFERENDUM

TO THE STRASBOURG EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS

In France, the Lisbon Treaty has been ratified on February 13, 2007 (Journal Officiel of February 14, 2008). The political fight will continue in other European countries, notably in Ireland where a referendum is scheduled to take place. However, one has to be aware that even in the case Ireland rejects the Lisbon treaty, that doesn’t necessary mean the text will be discarded for ever: Ireland already rejected the Nice treaty and was forced to organise a second vote on the same text and finally adopted it. As they told it to be, there is no B-plan, no alternative.

However, it is possible to create a European battle of wills and to fight for a change of rules in the functioning of the European Union. How do we create a battle of wills? It is possible to collectively file a complaint at the Strasbourg’s Human Rights Court against this illegal ratification. It is very important to be numerous and operate internationally as to show that our complaint is based on real popular movement which is not restrained to France. For the moment, over a thousand people from France have each filed a complaint. We have established contacts with people in Denmark, Belgium and Ireland, but the complaints are not yet filed in these countries.

On which juridical foundation can the ratification of the Lisbon treaty be contested?

Article 3 of protocol 1, of the European Convention on Human Rights of the Council of Europe stipulates that the “Contracting Parties undertake to hold free elections at reasonable intervals by secret ballot, under conditions which will ensure the free expression of the opinion of the people in the choice of the legislature.”

Therefore, we first have to convince the judges of the Strasbourg Court that the Lisbon treaty has the same value as a French law. That is not very difficult, since the value of treaties overrule national legislation and the treaties are to be applied as laws. In addition, communitarian [EU] law has already been recognized by the Court in its jurisprudence in the sense of article P1-3 (European Human Rights Court, Matthews, 1999)

Then we have to prove to the court that the conditions under which the treaty was elaborated and ratified did not ensure the free expression of the opinion of the people in respect to the choice of its legislature.

First, it has to be stated that the Lisbon treaty is identical to the Treaty establishing a European Constitution (TEC). Since this treaty was rejected by the French and the Dutch, adopting the same text violates the freedom of democratic expression and the principle of parallelism of forms. (Code of Good Conduct in Electoral Matters, Venice Commission, January 2007).

Second, there exist indications showing that the Lisbon treaty has been written in a wilfully unreadable form and presented as something purely technical with the aim of avoiding the tenure of popular referendums for its ratification. The French President Nicolas Sarkozy even declared, on Sunday February 10, 2008: “To convince our partners to accept the new simplified European treaty that we are proposing and which is not any longer a Constitution, it appeared, if agreed upon, that we commit ourselves to approve it by way of parliaments [ratification]. If that condition was not fulfilled, no agreement would have been possible.” (Declaration of the French President of the Republic after the adoption of the law authorizing the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, Palais de l’Elysée, Sunday February 10, 2008, full speech available on the elysee.fr).

This public and official declaration shows that the ratification by way of the parliament was imposed on the other member states of the EU in order to prevent rejection of the text. This confirms what French journalist Michel Soudais of Politis has called “the secret clause of Lisbon”.

Lastly, the adopted procedure to adopt the Lisbon treaty does not ensure the free expression of the choice of the people of their legislature. The Intergouvernemental Conference (IGC) which adopted the treaty is not a legislative body elected by a universal suffrage.

The ulterior ratification by the national parliaments does not repair this fundamental vice. It is true that national parliaments are elected by universal suffrage. But they have absolutely no power to modify and even less the power to reject treaties which are submitted for ratification. They do not participate at the elaboration of the text. They simply have to ratify it. In case of refusal, the text is not rejected. It will be proposed again to the parliament till the right decision is obtained.

Hence, the ratification of the Lisbon treaty reveals the antidemocratic nature of the current way of functioning of the European Union. What we can do by filing this collective complaint on an international level, is to say that we wish another Europe which functions on the basis of the vote of the people.