Bonum Certa Men Certa

From Saint-Germain-en-Laye to Strasbourg, Even the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) Might Side With Nicolas Sárközy's Thug at the EPO

English [PDF] | French [PDF]

ECHR on EPO case



Summary: "The ECHR in practice denying staff of IO's [International Organisation] fundamental rights," SUEPO reports/recalls this week

A FEW days ago, on the very last day of April, the staff union of the EPO (also known as "SUEPO") cited an old paper from Robin Silverstein. We're guessing that it relates to the case against EPO management ('mini' Sárközy and his Vice-Presidents), to possibly be taken up by ECHR (we covered it several times last year). Yesterday SUEPO cited another old or undated document, this time the words of ECHR President Guido Raimondi, who is based in Strasbourg. We might soon cover another Battistelli scandal, this time in relation to Strasbourg itself. There's also another Battistelli scandal in Saint-Germain-en-Laye (to be covered here next week).



All these French connections do matter and are certainty relevant to the EPO; there's a reason why it took nearly a decade to hold Nicolas Sárközy accountable for pretty serious crimes. Sárközy is said to be the person who helped put Battistelli in charge of the EPO.

"We might soon cover another Battistelli scandal, this time in relation to Strasbourg itself. There's also another Battistelli scandal in Saint-Germain-en-Laye (to be covered here next week)."Will ECHR hear and deal with EPO abuses? The "[p]osition of ECHR President Guido Raimondi on the case law of the European Court of Human Rights on international Civil Service law," says SUEPO, includes phrases like the above, including: "In a neighbouring register, the Klausecker case did not lead to a much happier solution for the applicant. In this case, he had been disabled since the age of 18 as a result of an accident that caused him to lose one eye, one hand and part of the fingers of the other hand. Having graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering, he worked as a research assistant at a university. After applying to work at the European Patent Office in Munich and passing the examinations to become a patent examiner there, he was not admitted to the post in 2005 on the grounds that he was not physically fit. He lodged an appeal against this decision with the European Patent Office and then with the Administrative Tribunal of the International Labour Organisation, which were rejected in 2005 and 2007 respectively in so far as candidates for a post are not entitled to lodge appeals of this type. Since the European Patent Organisation (EPO, of which the European Patent Office is a member) enjoys immunity from jurisdiction before the German civil and labour courts, the person concerned brought the case directly before the Constitutional Court, which, in 2006, ruled that his appeal was inadmissible and declared that it lacked jurisdiction to judge it. Subsequently, the European Patent Office proposed to the applicant to have the dispute decided by an arbitral tribunal, an option it refused in 2008 on the ground that this procedure would infringe essential procedural guarantees, in particular the right to a public hearing within a reasonable time. The applicant then brought the case before the Strasbourg Court on the basis of Article 6(1) of the ECHR.

"As regards the lack of access to German courts, the Court finds, first of all, that granting the EPO immunity from jurisdiction before the German courts was intended to ensure the proper functioning of that international organisation and thus pursued a "legitimate aim". In determining whether limiting the applicant's access to German courts was proportionate to that objective, the Court considers it decisive to determine "whether there was any other reasonable means of effectively protecting his rights under the Convention". However, it considers that the applicant did have another means at his disposal, since he had been offered participation in arbitration proceedings. The Court notes in particular that, under the arbitration contract proposed by the EPO, the arbitrators would have decided the dispute on the basis of the rules which the ILO Administrative Tribunal would have applied had it been competent. In its view, the mere non-public nature of the hearing before the arbitral tribunal - where the parties could be represented by counsel - did not make the arbitration procedure a "poor substitute for proceedings before a national court".

"Since the applicant had another reasonable way to protect his rights under the ECHR, the limitation of his access to the German courts was proportionate; this first part of the application is therefore rejected for manifest lack of foundation.

"All these French connections do matter and are certainty relevant to the EPO; there's a reason why it took nearly a decade to hold Nicolas Sárközy accountable for pretty serious crimes.""Turning then to the complaint concerning a lack of access to the procedures of the European Patent Office and the ILO Administrative Court and the shortcomings of those procedures, the Court notes that, in the light of its traditional case-law, Germany could be held liable in the present case only if the protection of fundamental rights offered by the EPO to the applicant had been "manifestlydeficient". However, by offering Mr. Klausecker to participate in an arbitration procedure, the EPO had provided him with another reasonable means of having his complaint examined on the merits. Consequently, the Strasbourg Court considers that the protection of fundamental rights within the EPO has not "manifestly failed" in this case and therefore also declares inadmissible the second part of the application."

There's a lot more in there (10 pages in the translation of the original). Assuming SUEPO's site is resilient (with Battistelli leaving the Office in less than 2 months), we haven't chosen to make local copies. Battistelli is soon going to Strasbourg, which is where his next employer is based, not just ECHR. Incidentally, Strasbourg is also where Battistelli's 'bulldog' (Željko Topić) faces legal ordeals. The case was filed in Strasbourg because Croatia's courts are notoriously unresponsive and the system served to cover up Topić's abuses (because they go all the way to the top, i.e. the national government). Can a 'French' court in Strasbourg be expected to deliver justice in a case which implicates so many powerful people in France, perhaps also a former President, a Parisian Mayor and so on?

Recent Techrights' Posts

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has Un-cancelled the Best People, Just in Time for the Big 4-0
Mr. Oliva should have been there all along (since 2019)
Most "Modern" Technology Makes You Slower and Dumber
Because proprietary software makes you worse off
"What Comes After Free Software?" Wrongly Insinuates We've Reached the Goal (Prison is Not the Goal)
The oil tycoons use similar tactics against environmentalists, giving them fake "wins"
Making More Work Space
I learned the hard way that less is more in circumstances where more means distraction
MAHA is a Lie, Public Officials Never Valued Citizens' Health (They Still Value Private Businesses, Their Sponsors)
Reject demagogues
New Techrights Turns 2
Today starts the third year of the SSG-based Techrights
What Scares Them the Most is Independent News Sites That They Cannot Control and Censor
Wikileaks was a good example of this
If You Don't Control Your Online Platform, Then Someone Else is Controlling You
be (or become) independent
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Has a Policy on Racism and Sexism
In then future we'll show the misogyny and racial slurs
Links 22/09/2025: Murdochs Might Join Fentanylware (TikTok) 'Investors' (Masters), United Kingdom Recognises Palestinian Statehood
Links for the day
 
The Complaint About Brett Wilson LLP - Part II - UK SLAPPs for Americans, SLAPPs for Profit
Brett Wilson LLP has a track record of this kind
Mayday: Optus emergency calling crisis
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 23/09/2025: Massive Data Breach, Slop Versus Productivity, and Vista 11 Update Breaks Things Again
Links for the day
Code of Censorship
Extortion is peace
Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has a New Press Kit for the Weekend After Next Weekend (40th Anniversary)
miles better than social [sic] media [sic] quips, moderated by narcissists and oil tycoons.
Microsoft Had Two Waves of Mass Layoffs This Month (That We Know of) and It'll Get Worse for Microsoft Soon
Will the axe fall again by month's end?
Gemini Links 23/09/2025: Happy Equinox, Photronic Arts, and Perception Cognition
Links for the day
Lessons We've Learned After 17 Years of American Hosting
GAFAM is "all-in" with the "Trump agenda"
Back to Normal Now, We Plan to Do More In-Depth Series (or Multi-part Stories)
Articles (or series thereof) that contain philosophy are important to us
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, September 22, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, September 22, 2025
Microsoft Media is Panicking Amid Mass Layoffs Every Month, H-1B Fees, and "Seattle’s Tech Scene in Trouble"
In "late stage Microsoft", copyleft becomes proprietary
The Next Wave of IBM/Red Hat Layoffs Being Discussed Already
Red Hat is sort of disappearing the way Tivoli did
Oracle Started This Year With Slop. Then It Stopped.
Passing fads are like this
Distros That Run on PCs Made 20 Years Ago and Don't Use Systemd
Betas for now
The Complaint About Brett Wilson LLP - Part I - Abusing British Women on Behalf of American Men Who Abuse American Women
Transparency is important to us, so we've decided to make this series
Slopwatch: Google News and the Evident Slopfarm Infestation
This is what people get about Linux when they query Google for Linux
Gemini Links 22/09/2025: Esperanto Music History and Apps For Android
Links for the day
Links 22/09/2025: More American 'Censorship' (Retaliation for Journalism), Cheeto "Might Be Losing His Race Against Time"
Links for the day
The Blob Slop
Give me more words, give me some text
The 50-Pound Note Experiment and the "War on Cash"
Britain is actually seeing a rebound in cash payments, and it's not a temporary phenomenon
Slopwatch: Blaming the Victims for Microsoft's Failures and Plagiarising Phoronix
That's what Google has been reduced to: slop and slopfarms
Links 22/09/2025: Breaches, Windows TCO, and Arrests
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/09/2025: Rabbit Hole and DeGoogling Fairphone
Links for the day
Links 22/09/2025: Russian War Planes Invade NATO Airspace While Dihydroxyacetone Man Escalates Attack on Free Speech Because of Critics
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, September 21, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, September 21, 2025
Links 21/09/2025: "Hey Hi" (Hype) Under Fire, Fakes Identified; Tesla Burns Family
Links for the day
Google's Software is Malware and Malware in Mobile Devices
Originally posted by Rob Musial
Links 20/09/2025: Hegemony Coming to a Close, Luigi Mangione Ruled Not Terrorist
Links for the day
Gemini Links 21/09/2025: "Charlie Kirk Was a Hateful Piece of Shit" and Slop Code Attempted by Microsofter
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, September 20, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, September 20, 2025