Brussels, 30/09/2010 (Agence Europe) - Ruling on the Kadi case on Thursday 30 September, the General Court of the EU annulled Regulation 1190/08 adopted by the Commission in November 2008 to maintain the freeze on funds controlled by Yassin Abdullah Kadi, a Saudi Arabian national who, in 2001, was placed on the list of those connected with terrorist organisations, and who has since then fought a long, legal battle against measures taken against him. The General Court took the view that the Commission regulation had been adopted in breach of rights of defence and that it is therefore an unjustified restriction on Kadi's right to property. The Commission spokesman has not said whether the Commission will appeal against the ruling.
The decision reached by the General Court is the result of a long, legal battle further to the Kadi ruling by the Court of Justice in September 2008 (“Kadi” affair, see EUROPE 9733), which ruled that Community jurisdiction was competent for controlling measures adopted by the Community in implementation of the United Nations Security Council resolutions, and had cancelled an earlier regulation on freezing Kadi's funds, considering above all that it had been adopted in violation of Kadi's rights of defence.
In the present judgement, the General Court takes the view that, in the light of the Court's 2008 verdict, its task is to ensure in this case a full and rigorous review of the lawfulness of the Commission regulation and that this review should indirectly also concern the substantive assessments of the sanctions committee itself and the evidence underlying them. The General Court considered that Kadi's rights of defence had only been observed in the most formal and superficial sense and that Kadi had not really been able to make his point of view known to the relevant authorities. Furthermore, in the context of the Commission procedure, Kadi did not have even the most minimal access to the evidence against him despite his express request, and the Commission struck no balance between Kadi's interests on one hand and the need to protect the confidential nature of the information in question, on the other. Yassin Abdullah Kadi was therefore unable to effectively challenge the allegations made against him with regard to his alleged participation in terrorist activity, and the Commission made no real effort to refute the exculpatory evidence advanced by the accused, even in the few cases in which the allegations against him were sufficiently precise to permit him to know what was being raised against him. On the basis of all these elements, the General Court acknowledged patent violation of the principle of proportionality and undue and considerable restriction of Kadi's rights to hold property. The General Court therefore annulled the regulation in so far as it concerns Yassin Abdullah Kadi. (F.G./transl.jl)