Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 91

November 2006

Demir and Baykara v. Turkey - 34503/97

Judgment 21.11.2006 [Section II]

Article 11

Article 11-1

Freedom of association

Refusal to recognise legal personality of civil service trade union already active for several years: violation

Form and join trade unions

Interests of members

Collective agreement already in force for two years declared null and void by court order: violation

[This case was referred to the Grand Chamber on 23 May 2007]

Facts: Three years after it was founded, a trade union for civil servants entered into a collective agreement regulating all aspects of working conditions in the offices of a municipal council. A representative of the union sued the council on the ground that it had defaulted on its obligations under that agreement. The court found that the applicable law at the time the union was founded did not permit civil servants to set up unions, and that the relevant Convention of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), ratified by Turkey, could not be relied upon in the absence of domestic implementing legislation. Accordingly, the union set up five years earlier had never enjoyed legal personality and had not been entitled to enter into collective agreements, as it had done over two years before in the case at issue.

Law: Right of civil servants in a municipal council to form a union:In the absence of any concrete evidence to show that the activities of the ap