ORDER OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE SEVENTH CHAMBER OF THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE
14 February 2008(*)
« Procedure – Intervention – Restrictive measures directed against certain persons and entities with a view to combating terrorism – Freezing of funds – Persons claiming to be victims of an act of terrorism – Lack of interest in the result of the case – Dismissal »
In Case T‑256/07,
People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, established in Auvers-sur-Oise (France), represented by J.-P. Spitzer, lawyer, and D. Vaughan, QC,
applicant,
v
Council of the European Union, represented by M. Bishop and E. Finnegan, acting as Agents,
defendant,
supported by
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, represented by V. Jackson and T. Harris, acting as Agents, assisted by S. Lee, Barrister,
by
Commission of the European Communities, represented initially by S. Boelaert and J. Aquilina, then by S. Boelaert and P. Aalto, acting as Agents,
and by
Kingdom of the Netherlands, represented by M. de Grave and Y. de Vries, acting as Agents,
interveners,
ACTION for partial annulment of Council decision 2007/445/EC of 28 June 2007 implementing Article 2(3) of Regulation (EC) No 2580/2001 on specific restrictive measures directed against certain persons and entities with a view to combating terrorism and repealing Decisions 2006/379/EC and 2006/1008/EC (OJ 2007 L 169, p. 58),
THE PRESIDENT OF THE SEVENTH CHAMBER OF THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE
makes the following
Order
Procedure
1 By application lodged at the Registry of the Court of First Instance on 16 July 2007, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (‘the applicant’) brought an action under the fourth paragraph of Article 230 EC, by which it seeks partial annulment of Council decision 2007/445/EC of 28 June 2007 implementing Article 2(3) of Regulation (EC) No 2580/2001 on specific restrictive measures directed against certain persons and entities with a view to combating terrorism and repealing Decisions 2006/379/EC and 2006/1008/EC (OJ 2007 L 169, p. 58).
2 By order of 20 November 2007, after the parties had been heard, the President of the Seventh Chamber of the Court of First Instance granted the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Commission of the European Communities and the Kingdom of the Netherlands leave to intervene in the proceedings in support of the form of order sought by the Council.
3 By document lodged at the Registry of the Court of First Instance on 6 December 2007, Farideh Khezadeh, Ebtesam Jalizavi, Mohammed Jalizavi, Elham Jalizavi, Abdolnabi Beit-Salem and Massoumeh Youssofi-Nissi (‘the applicants for leave’) applied for leave to intervene in the proceedings in support of the form of order sought by the Council.
4 The application for leave to intervene was served on the parties in accordance with Article 116 (1) of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance. The applicant and the Commission objected to its admissibility. The Council and the United Kingdom deferred to the wisdom of the Court.
Law
5 Under the second paragraph of Article 40 of the Statute of the Court of Justice, which applies to proceedings before the Court of First Instance by virtue of the first paragraph of Article 53 of that Statute, any person establishing an interest in the result of a case, save in cases between Member States, between institutions of the Community or between Member States and institutions of the Community, has the right to intervene in the proceedings.
6 It has consistently been held that the concept of an interest in the result of the case, within the meaning of that provision, must be defined in the light of the precise subject-matter of the dispute and be understood as meaning a direct, existing interest in the ruling on the forms of order sought and not as an interest in relation to the pleas in law or arguments put forward. The expression ‘result’ is to be understood as meaning the operative part of the final judgment which the parties ask the Court to deliver. It is necessary, in particular, to ascertain whether the prospective intervener is directly affected by the contested act and whether its interest in the result of the case is established. It is also settled case-law that it is necessary to distinguish between prospective interveners establishing a direct interest in the ruling on the specific act annulment of which is sought and those who can establish only an indirect interest in the result of the case by reason of similarities between their situation and that of one of the parties (order of the President of the Court of Justice in Case C‑464/07 P(I) Provincia di Ascoli Piceno and Comune di Monte Urano v Apache Footwear and Others [not yet reported], paragraph 5; and Order of the Court of First Instance in Case T‑410/03 Hoechst v Commission [2004] ECR II‑4451, paragraph 14 and the case-law cited).
7 The interest of the applicants for leave in the result of the present case must be assessed in the light of that case-law.
8 In this case, the applicants for leave justify their application to intervene by the assertion that on 25 November 1999, the applicant carried out an attack in Iran, in the course of which members of their families were killed or injured. This attack is said to be related to a case of criminal association with a terrorist organisation and of financing of a terrorist organisation, in relation to which a preliminary investigation was initiated in France in April 2001. On 10 May 2004, the applicants for leave filed a civil suit, by way of intervention, before the examining magistrate in charge of that preliminary investigation. By order of 6 December 2005, the examining magistrate ruled that the said civil suit was inadmissible, essentially on the ground that there was no established connection between the facts which he was investigating and the attack referred to by the applicants for leave. The appeal filed by the applicants for leave against the said order was rejected as lacking legal basis by judgment of the Court of Appeal of Paris (France) on 22 December 2006. On 26 December 2006, the applicants for leave filed an appeal to the French Cour de cassation.
9 It is under those circumstances that the applicants for leave wish to intervene in the present case. They contend, in particular, that as a collective group of victims of attacks committed by the applicant, they have an obvious interest in the result of the case and in the maintenance of the applicant on the list of persons, groups and entities affected by a freezing of funds at EC level. More specifically, they intend to allege, on the one hand, that the Council was not bound to remove the applicant from the said list in the light of the judgment of the Court of First Instance in Case T‑228/02 Organisation des Modjahedines du peuple d’Iran v Council [2006] ECR II‑4665, and, on the other hand, that the rights of defence should be strictly limited for terrorist organisations.
10 By so doing, the applicants for leave have not referred to any special circumstances capable of establishing the existence of a personal interest in the dismissal of the application in the main proceedings and have not demonstrated in any way that their position could be affected in a sufficiently specific manner by the outcome of the dispute before this Court. Whatever such outcome, it has no possible incidence on the outcome of the judicial proceedings currently under way in France, since this Court is not called upon to determine the question of the involvement of the applicant in the attack of 25 November 1999 in Iran referred to by the applicants for leave, nor the question of the connection made by the latter between that attack and the facts covered by the preliminary investigation referred to at paragraph 8 above.
11 For the rest, it follows from the case-law cited at paragraph 6 above that the interests of the applicants for leave in relation to the pleas in law that they intend to put forward in the oral proceedings does not confer on them, as such, an interest in the result of the case, within the meaning of Article 40 of the Statute of the Court of Justice.
12 In those circumstances, the applicants for leave have not established an interest in intervening in the present proceedings, and their application for leave to intervene must therefore be dismissed.
Costs
13 Under Article 87 (2) of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, the unsuccessful party is to be ordered to pay the costs if they have been applied for in the successful party’s pleadings. Under Article 87 (4) of the Rules of Procedure, the Member States and institutions which have intervened in the proceedings are to bear their own costs.
14 In the present case, the applicant has applied for its costs to be paid by the applicants for leave. The Council has made no application for costs. Accordingly, the applicants for leave must be ordered to bear their own costs and to pay those incurred by the applicant in connection with the application to intervene.
On those grounds,
THE PRESIDENT OF THE SEVENTH CHAMBER OF THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE
hereby orders:
1. The application for leave to intervene lodged by Farideh Khezadeh, Ebtesam Jalizavi, Mohammed Jalizavi, Elham Jalizavi, Abdolnabi Beit‑Salem and Massoumeh Youssofi‑Nissi is dismissed.
2. Farideh Khezadeh, Ebtesam Jalizavi, Mohammed Jalizavi, Elham Jalizavi, Abdolnabi Beit-Salem and Massoumeh Youssofi-Nissi shall bear their own costs and pay those incurred by the applicant in connection with the application to intervene.
3. The Council, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Commission and the Kingdom of the Netherlands shall bear their own costs in connection with the application to intervene.
Luxembourg, 14 February 2008.
E. Coulon | N. J. Forwood
Registrar | President |