Luxemburg, 11/07/2007 (Agence Europe) - In two judgments delivered on Wednesday, the Court of First Instance annulled the decisions of the EU Council of Ministers ordering the freezing of the assets Filipino national Jose Maria Sison and the organisation Stichting Al-Aqsa. Without investigating any evidence the Council may have had on the alleged terrorist activities of the accused, the Court felt that the procedural deficiencies of the decisions were sufficient to warrant their annulment.
With regard to Mr Sison, the Dutch authorities pointed out that he was the chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines, the military wing of which the New People's Army (NPA) was responsible for a large number of terrorist acts. Without challenging this, the Court said in its judgment T-47/03 that no party in the case had been able to say which Dutch national decision had been the basis for the Council decision of 28 October 2002, which had Mr Sison's name added to the list. Consequently, contrary to his basic rights, he had been unable to defend himself. However, although Mr Sison's name has been removed from the 2002 list, it remains on the current, 29 June 2007, list, firstly because this list is not covered by this judgment and also because, this time the Council had sent Mr Sison their reasons for including his name on the list. These reasons were far from being adequate, said Jan Fermon, lawyer at the Brussels bar, representing Mr Sison. He told EUROPE that, in short, the Council was now claiming that the Dutch Council of State supported the rejection of Mr Sison's application for refugee status, when, in fact, it had recognised his right to asylum. Mr Fermon could not give an exact date, but said that he fully intended to lodge a further appeal with the Court of First Instance against this latest inclusion of his client's name on the list. This case is totally separate from case C-266/05 P, in which Mr Sison was refused access to the evidence held against him by the Council (see EUROPE 9364).
Stichting Al-Aqsa is a foundation governed by Dutch law, which cooperates with various organisations in Israel and in the occupied territories on humanitarian projects. Its inclusion on the list of terrorist organisations, through the Council decision of 27 June 2003, was annulled by Court judgment T-327/03 for identical reasons. (cd)