A. Introduction

On 3 May 2007, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg (hereinafter "the Court") rendered a judgment in the case Bączkowski and Others v. Poland The Court stated that Poland violated Article 11 (freedom of association and assembly), Article 13 (right to an effective remedy) in conjunction with Article 11 and Article 14 (prohibition of discrimination) in conjunction with Article 11 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.

Indeed, in this case it was obvious that the refusal issued by the Mayor of Warsaw to the Foundation for Equality and its members to exercise their right to freedom of assembly was unlawful. Further, it was also obvious that the refusal was motivated by the fact that the Foundation for Equality and its members campaign on behalf of persons of homosexual orientation. Should such an illegal refusal take place under German law, the applicants would probably have obtained the quashing of this illegal refusal in time (that is, before the date of the planned assembly) by means of a temporary injunction before the German Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht). Conversely, in Poland victims of an illegal refusal to hold an assembly are very unlikely to obtain a final decision in time. This relates to the fact that, on the one hand, a request to hold an assembly may be submitted 30 days before the planned date of the assembly at the earliest, which leaves victims of an illegal refusal less than a month to go through all appellate procedures. On the other hand, victims of an illegal refusal to hold an assembly do not dispose of the possibility to obtain a temporary injunction nor any other form of preliminary ruling under Polish law.

The facts of the case should be seen in the larger context of the current negative attitude towards the lesbian, gay, transgender and bisexual (LGTB) community presented by some elected politicians as well as different groups in society and referred...