11
KLASS AND OTHERS v. GERMANY JUGDMENT
28. In her memorial of 28 November 1977, the Agent of the Government
submitted in conclusion:
"I ... invite the Court
to find that the application was inadmissible;
in the alternative, to find that the Federal Republic of Germany has not violated the
Convention."
She repeated these concluding submissions at the hearing on 10 March
1978.
29. For their part, the Delegates of the Commission made the following
concluding submissions to the Court:
"May it please the Court to say and judge
1. Whether, having regard to the circumstances of the case, the applicants could
claim to be ‘victims’ of a violation of their rights guaranteed by the Convention by
reason of the system of surveillance established by the so-called G 10 Act;
2. And, if so, whether the applicants are actually victims of a violation of their rights
set forth in the Convention by the very existence of that Act, considering that it gives
no guarantee to persons whose communications have been subjected to secret
surveillance that they will be notified subsequently of the measures taken concerning
them."
AS TO THE LAW
I. ON ARTICLE 25 PARA. 1 (art. 25-1)
30. Both in their written memorial and in their oral submissions, the
Government formally invited the Court to find that the application lodged
with the Commission was "inadmissible". They argued that the applicants
could not be considered as "victims" within the meaning of Article 25 para.
1 (art. 25-1) which provides as follows:
"The Commission may receive petitions addressed to the Secretary-General of the
Council of Europe from any person, non-governmental organisation or group of
individuals claiming to be the victim of a violation by one of the High Contracting
Parties of the rights set forth in this Convention, provided that the High Contracting
Party against which the complaint has been lodged has declared that it recognises the
competence of the Commission to receive such petitions ..."
In the Government’s submission, the applicants were not claiming to
have established an individual violation, even potential, of their own rights
but rather, on the basis of the purely hypothetical possibility of being