European Court of Human Rights – Klausecker v. Germany

The case originated from a labour dispute instituted before German courts by the applicant against the European Patent Organization (EPO). Following the European Patent Office’s decision not to recruit him, the applicant attempted to review EPO’s internal decision by relying on EPO’s internal system of justice. However, given his position as a candidate for a job position, he was not entitled to access to internal appeal within the EPO under the Service Regulations of the European Patent Office. Similarly, the International Labour Organization Administrative Tribunal (ILOAT) rejected his application, since its jurisdiction is limited to employment disputes between EPO and its employees or former employees. As a result, the applicant filed a constitutional complained to the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany. The Constitutional Court declared inadmissible the applicant’s constitutional complaint, finding that it lacked jurisdiction to review an internal decision of EPO, since EPO is an international organization possessing its own legal personality and accorded with immunity from legal process by virtue of the EPO Constitution and the Headquarters Agreement concluded between EPO and Germany.

 Before the European Court of Human Rights, the applicant claimed that Germany had infringed its right to a remedy and fair trial, under Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, as a result of the dismissal of his constitutional complaint against EPO’ s decision .

Confirming its traditional interpretation, the European Court of Human Rights reminded that “a material factor in determining whether granting an international organization immunity from jurisdiction of the domestic courts is permissible under the Convention is whether the applicants concerned had available to them reasonable alternative means to protect effectively their rights under the Convention“.

The Court found that the restriction of the applicant’s right of access to German Court was a legitimate and proportionate limitation to the right to a legal remedy under Article 6.  As noted by the Court, the EPO had offered the appellant the opportunity to resolve the dispute through arbitration. Therefore, the appellant was not deprived of all means of protection.

In this regard, the Court also stressed that “bearing in mind the legitimate aim of immunities of international organisations, the test of proportionality cannot be applied in such a way as to compel an international organization to submit itself to national litigation in relation to employment conditions prescribed under national labour law. To read Article 6 § 1 of the Convention and its guarantee of access to court as necessarily requiring the application of national legislation in such matters would, in the Court’s view, thwart the proper functioning of international organisations and run counter to the current trend towards extending and strengthening international cooperation“.