European Court of Human Rights

Press release issued by the Registrar

JUDGMENT IN THE CASE OF SERIF v. GREECE

(Attn: The text of the judgment is not yet in the website)

In a judgment [fn-footnote] delivered at Strasbourg on 14 December 1999 in the case
of Serif v. Greece, the European Court of Human Rights held unanimously
that there had been a violation of Article 9 (freedom of thought,
conscience and religion) of the European Convention on Human Rights. Under
Article 41 (just satisfaction) of the Convention, the Court awarded the
applicant 2,700,000 Greek drachmas in respect of pecuniary and
non-pecuniary damage.

1. Principal facts

The applicant, Ibraim Serif, a Greek national, was born in 1951 and lives
in Komotini (Greece).

Although Greek law provided for the election of the Muslim religious
leaders (muftis) by the members of the minority in Thrace, when the Mufti
of Rodopi died, the President of the Republic, following standard
practice, proceeded to the appointment of a replacement without any elections. When
two independent Muslim Members of Parliament requested the State to
organise elections, as it was in their view obliged to do under the 1913
Treaty of Athens between Greece and others and the Ottoman Empire, the law
was changed so as to provide for the appointment of the muftis by the
President of the Republic. In December 1990 a number of Muslims attending
Friday prayers proclaimed the applicant as the Mufti of Rodopi. The
applicant was subsequently convicted under Articles 175 and 176 of the
Criminal Code of usurping the functions of a minister of a "known
religion" and of publicly wearing the robes of such a minister without being
entitled to do so. His conviction was upheld by the Court of Appeal and the Supreme
Court.

2. Procedure and composition of the Court

The application was lodged with the European Commission of Human Rights on
29 September 1997. Following the entry into force of Protocol No. 11 to
the Convention on 1 November 1998, the case was transferred to the Court. It
was assigned to the Second Section. A hearing on the admissibility and
merits of the case was held on 26 January 1998. On the same date the Court
declared the application partly admissible.

Judgment was given by a Chamber of seven judges, composed as follows:

Marc Fischbach (Luxemburger), President,
Christos Rozakis (Greek),
Benedetto Conforti (Italian),
Peer Lorenzen (Danish),
Margarita Tsatsa-Nikolovska (FYROMacedonia),
Andras Baka (Hungarian),
Egils Levits (Latvian), Judges,

and also Erik Fribergh, Section Registrar.

3. Summary of the judgment

Complaints

The applicant complained that his rights to freedom of religion and
expression guaranteed under Articles 9 and 10 of the European Convention
on Human Rights had been violated.

Decision of the Court

Article 9 of the Convention

The Court considered that the applicant's conviction under Articles 175
and 176 of the Criminal Code, making certain acts against ministers of "known
religions" criminal offences, amounted to an interference with the
applicant's right under Article 9 § 1 of the Convention "in community with
others and in public, to manifest his religion in worship and teaching".
The Court did not consider it necessary to rule on the question whether
the interference was "prescribed by law". Given that the applicant was not the
only person claiming to be the religious leader of the local Muslim
community, the Court considered that the interference in question pursued
a legitimate aim under Article 9 § 2 of the Convention, namely "to protect
public order".

As regards the question of whether the interference was necessary in "a
democratic society" the Court noted that, although Article 9 of the
Convention did not require States to give legal effect to religious
weddings and religious courts' decisions, under Greek law, weddings
celebrated by ministers of "known religions" were assimilated to civil
ones and the Muftis had competence to adjudicate on certain family and
inheritance disputes between Moslems. In such circumstances, it could be
argued that it was in the public interest for the State to take special
measures in order to protect from deceit those whose legal relationships
could be affected by the acts of religious ministers.

The Court noted in this connection that, despite a vague assertion that
the applicant had officiated at wedding ceremonies and engaged in
administrative activities, the domestic courts that convicted him did not
mention in their decisions any specific acts by him, which purported to
produce legal effects. The domestic courts convicted the applicant because
he had issued a message about the religious significance of a feast,
delivered a speech at a religious gathering, issued another message on the
occasion of a religious holiday and appeared in the clothes of a religious
leader. Moreover, it had not been disputed that the applicant had the
support of at least a part of the Moslem community in Rodopi.

In the Court's view, punishing a person for the mere fact that he acted as
the religious leader of a group that willingly followed him could hardly
be considered compatible with the demands of religious pluralism in a
democratic society. Moreover, the Court did not consider that, in
democratic societies, the State needed to take measures to ensure that
religious communities remained or were brought under a unified leadership.
The Court recognised that it was possible that tension was created in
situations where a religious or any other community became divided.
However, it considered that this was one of the unavoidable consequences
of pluralism. The role of the authorities in such circumstances was not to
remove the cause of tension by eliminating pluralism, but to ensure that
the competing groups tolerated each other.

The Court noted that, apart from a general reference to the creation of
tension, the Government did not make any allusion to disturbances among
the Moslems in Rodopi that had actually been or could have been caused by the
existence of two religious leaders. Moreover, the Court considered that
nothing was adduced that could warrant qualifying the risk of tension
between the Moslems and Christians or between Greece and Turkiye as
anything more than a very remote possibility.

In the light of all the above, the Court considered that it had not been
shown that the applicant's conviction under Articles 175 and 176 of the
Criminal Code was justified in the circumstances of the case by "a
pressing social need". As a result, the interference with the applicant's right, in
community with others and in public, to manifest his religion in worship
and teaching was not "necessary in a democratic society for the protection
of public order" under Article 9 § 2 of the Convention.

Article 10 of the Convention

The Court did not consider it necessary to examine whether Article 10 was
also violated.

Article 41 of the Convention

The Court awarded the applicant as compensation for pecuniary damage the
equivalent of the fine that he had had to pay as a result of his conviction, namely

700,000 Greek drachmas. It also awarded him 2,000,000 Greek drachmas for

non-pecuniary damage. The applicant, who had legal aid in the proceedings