Luxembourg, 07/05/2002 (Agence Europe) - Advocate General Antonio Tizzano is considering the case of a Spanish Basque citizen, Aitor Oteiza Olazabal, close to the terrorist group ETA. The French interior ministry refused to allow him to establish himself in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques, a French département bordering on the Spanish Basque Country, for reasons of public order. The Court is in the process of deciding on the case.
The Advocate General says he is confirming the case law of the Court of Justice, which in the Rutili ruling, considers this type of measure as opposed to European law. Member States cannot impose partial bans on the residence of citizens from other Member States unless the ban applies to their own citizens. Without objective justification, he comments baldly, holding out an olive branch to the French Conseil d'Etat that sent the case to the Court. In France, a French citizen cannot be banned from part of the country by an administrative decision (judicial decisions are not at stake here).
France and Spain are both following the case very closely hoping that the Court will overturn the Rutili case that France argues is out of date (it goes back to 1987). The Court is expected to issue its ruling in the next few months. On France's request, it will rule in plenary and be chaired by its President, French national Gil Carlos Rodriguez Iglesias. Observers comment that this case is a sensitive issue for both France and Spain.
During the proceedings the French government pointed out that the administrative measure taken against Mr Oteiza Olazabal was aimed at keeping an activist from a particularly violent and extremely active terrorist group away out of South-West France where ETA was trying to set up logistical bases. It pointed out that the measure to keep him out of South-West France had been taken at the culmination of a wave of assassinations and bloody terrorist activity by ETA, and Aitor Oteiza Olazabal has never denied belonging to ETA.
The Rutili ruling concerned an Italian trade unionists who had been involved in the May 68 events which, despite their widespread nature, had made hardly any victims. The legal context has changed since The treaty of the Union laid down anti-terrorist measures and Member States have to have ways of fighting so it is time this case law was reversed argued the French government.
The Paris Tribunal Administratif, where the Basque challenged the decision by the ministry of the interior, and then the Cour Administrative d'appel in Paris, both applied the Rutili case, cancelling the administrative decisions of the interior ministry that had banned Aitor Oteiza Olazabal in 1996 from 31 départements in France, including those in the South-West and ordered him to remain within the département of Haut-de-Seine near Paris unless given permission to leave. The French interior ministry took the case to the Conseil d'Etat, which sent it to the Court of Justice.