Dissenting opinion of Judges Fuhrmann, Loucaides and Sir Nicolas Bratza in the case of Refah Partisi and Others v. Turkey, Nos. 41340/1998 and other 3, ECtHR (Third Section), 31 July 2001

Dissolution of a religiously-oriented political party on the basis of the statements made and the stances adopted by its chairman and some of its members. Political activities against the secular and democratic nature of the national legal order.

Art. 11 ECHR

Art. 9 ECHR

1. The dissolution of the applicant party and the confiscation of its property, as well as the ancillary orders made against the individual applicants were in violation of article 11 ECHR in the absence of any compelling or convincing evidence to suggest that the party, whether before or after entering Government, took any steps to realise political aims being incompatible with the Convention, to destroy or undermine the secular society, to engage in or to encourage acts of violence or religious hatred, or otherwise to pose a threat to the legal and democratic order in Turkey.

2. Particularly convincing and compelling reasons must be shown to justify a decision to dissolve an entire political party. This is all the more so where the acts or statements complained of were not linked in terms of time or place but were isolated events occurring in very different contexts over a period covering some years and in certain cases long before such party came to power.

The Grand Chamber’s judgment Refah Partisi and Others v. Turkey of 13 February 2003 marks an important overruling of the ECtHR’s case law concerning the dissolution of political parties in the Turkish legal order. In the previous cases, where the parties were dissolved primarily on the grounds that the statements in their Constitution or programme or public statements made on behalf of the party served to undermine the integrity or unity of the Republic of Turkey, the ECtHR had always found a violation of article 11 of the Convention.