Brussels, 23/11/2011 (Agence Europe) - The General Court of the EU has rejected the claim for damages made by Jose Maria Sison, who heads the armed branch of the New People's Army (NPA), following the Council's illegal freezing of his funds (EUROPE N.9988). In its ruling T-341/07, on Wednesday 23 November, the Court said that the infringement of European law resulting from the Council's decision to, wrongly, include the person concerned on the list of suspected terrorists and freeze that person's assets “is not sufficiently serious to incur the non-contractual liability of the Community to Mr Sison”.
The General Court had, however, twice annulled acts of the Council ordering the freezing of the funds of Jose Maria Sison. In its second ruling in 2009 (Sison II), it considered that, contrary to the requirements of EU legislation, the national decisions of the Netherlands relied on by the Council in order to freeze Sison's funds concerned neither the instigation of investigations or prosecution nor condemnation for terrorist activities. In this ruling, the General Court did not rule on the application for compensation made at the same time by Jose Maria Sison, that application having been stayed until delivery of the judgement on the claim for annulment of the fund-freezing measures.
In its judgement today, the Court ruled on that application for compensation and dismissed it, considering that only sufficiently serious infringement of a rule of law conferring rights on individuals can incur the liability of the Community. This would have been the case if, when taking its decision, the Court had manifestly and gravely disregarded the limits set on its discretion. At the time, it was difficult to interpret and apply the Community law in question, as the actual working of the provisions concerned was particularly confusing, as evidenced by the Court's copious case-law in this field. Thus, it was only in Sison II that the Court held that a national decision must, if the Council is to be able validly to invoke it, form part of national proceedings seeking, directly and principally, the imposition on the person concerned of measures of a preventive or punitive nature, in connection with the combating of terrorism. Furthermore, the infringement committee by the Council may be accounted for by the “particular constraints and responsibilities borne by that institution and constitutes an irregularity that an administrative authority exercising ordinary care and diligence might have committed if placed in similar circumstances”, the General Court states. (FG/transl.jl)