CourEDH
944
10.12.2009
Press release issued by the Registrar
Chamber judgment1
Koppi v. Austria (application no. 33001/03)
REFUSAL OF PREACHER’S REQUEST FOR EXEMPTION
FROM CIVILIAN SERVICE NOT DISCRIMINATORY
unanimously
No violation of Article 14 (prohibition of discrimination)
taken in conjunction with Article 9 (freedom of thought, conscience and religion)
of the European Convention on Human Rights
(The judgment is available only in English.)
Principal facts
The applicant, Matthias Stefan Koppi, is an Austrian national who was born in 1982 and lives in Rankweil (Austria). He is a member and student of the “Bund Evangelikaler Gemeinden in Österreich”, a registered religious community. He has been working as a municipal preacher (Prediger) for the community since 2001.
Recognised in November 2000 by the Ministry of Internal Affairs as a conscientious objector and, as such, exempt from military service, Mr Koppi was still liable to perform civilian service. He subsequently requested the Ministry to be exempted from civilian service claiming that he held a comparable clerical position to members of recognised religious societies who, because they performed specific services relating to worship or religious instruction, were exempt. The Ministry dismissed his request on the ground that, under section 13a of the Civilian Service Act, exemption only applied to members of recognised religious societies and not registered religious communities.
Mr Koppi’s complaints to the Constitutional Court and Administrative Court were also ultimately dismissed.
Complaints, procedure and composition of the Court
Relying on Articles 4 (prohibition of forced labour), 9 and 14, Mr Koppi complained about not being exempt from the obligation to perform civil service duties, while members of recognised religious societies holding religious functions comparable to his own were.
The application was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 29 September 2003 and declared partly admissible on 5 January 2006.
Judgment was given by a Chamber of seven judges, composed as follows:
Christos Rozakis (Greece), President,
Nina Vajic (Croatia),
Elisabeth Steiner (Austria),
Khanlar Hajiyev (Azerbaijan),
Dean Spielmann (Luxembourg),
Sverre Erik Jebens (Norway),
George Nicolaou (Cyprus), judges,
and also Sřren Nielsen, Section Registrar.
Summary of the judgment
Decision of the Court
Article 14 in conjunction with Article 9
Firstly, the criterion of belonging to a recognised religious society, on which the Austrian authorities had relied in refusing the applicant’s request for exemption from civilian service was not, as such, discriminatory. A difference in treatment between religious groups resulting from their being granted a specific status in law – to which substantial privileges were attached – was compatible with the requirements of Article 14 read in conjunction with Article 9 as long as the State had set up a framework for conferring legal personality on those groups and as long as each group had had a fair opportunity to apply for the specific status, using established criteria in a non-discriminatory manner.
However, there was no indication that Mr Koppi’s religious community had applied for recognition as a religious society or that such a request had been refused, let alone refused on grounds incompatible with the requirements of Article 9 of the Convention.
The Court therefore considered that Mr Koppi, as a member of a registered religious community applying for exemption from civilian service under section 13a (1) of the Civilian Service Act, had not been in a relevantly similar or analogous situation to a member of a recognised religious society. There had therefore been no violation of Article 14 taken in conjunction with Article 9.
Others
Given the above finding, there was no need to examine separately the issue under Article 9 alone or from the point of view of Article 14 read in conjunction with Article 4.
