16
WEBER AND SARAVIA v. GERMANY DECISION
accordance with the Court’s decision in Banković and Others v. Belgium
and Others ([GC], no. 52207/99, ECHR 2001-XII), the applicants therefore
did not come within Germany’s jurisdiction within the meaning of Article 1
of the Convention – a concept which was primarily territorial – on account
of that act.
67. Secondly, in the Government’s submission, the second applicant had
failed to exhaust domestic remedies as required by Article 35 § 1 of the
Convention. He had not sufficiently substantiated in his constitutional
complaint his argument that his rights under the Basic Law were likely to be
interfered with by measures taken on the basis of the impugned provisions
of the amended G 10 Act. The Federal Constitutional Court had therefore
dismissed his complaint as being inadmissible. Moreover, the first applicant
had failed to exhaust domestic remedies in so far as she had complained that
section 3(2), third sentence, of the amended G 10 Act violated her
Convention rights. She had failed to show in her complaint to the Federal
Constitutional Court that she was affected by the provision in question and
to what extent.
68. Thirdly, in the Government’s view, the applicants could not claim to
be victims of a violation of their Convention rights. They referred to their
reasoning with regard to exhaustion of domestic remedies in that
connection. Moreover, in so far as the Federal Constitutional Court had
already declared the impugned provisions to be unconstitutional, the
applicants could no longer claim to be victims of a violation of their
Convention rights. In particular, they did not have a legitimate interest in
obtaining a decision in so far as that court permitted the continued
application of those provisions on a provisional basis.
(b) The applicants
69. The applicants contested those submissions. As to the application’s
compatibility ratione personae with the Convention, the first applicant
argued that she came within German jurisdiction within the meaning of
Article 1 of the Convention as she was a German national. Both applicants
further argued that it could not be decisive that the impugned acts had taken
effect abroad. Otherwise a respondent State could circumvent its obligations
under the Convention.
70. The applicants submitted that they had exhausted domestic remedies
as they had both obtained a judgment of the Federal Constitutional Court,
delivered on 14 July 1999.
71. The applicants further argued that they had not lost their status as
victims of violations of their Convention rights in so far as they had not
been granted the redress sought in their constitutional complaints. They
stressed that the powers of the Federal Intelligence Service had remained
unchanged in the new version of the G 10 Act of 2001 in so far as the
Federal Constitutional Court had not objected to them. It was in the nature