Universelles Leben e.V. v. Germany (application No. 29745/96) was a case decided by the European Commission of Human Rights

European Commission of Human Rights

European Commission of Human Rights was a special tribunal.From 1954 to the entry into force of Protocol 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights, individuals did not have direct access to the European Court of Human Rights; they had to apply to the Commission, which if it found the case to be...

 in 1996.

Facts

Universelles Leben, the German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 branch of Universal Life

Universal Life

Universal Life is the name of a controversial new religious movement based in Würzburg, Germany, which is described by members as a part of the new revelation movement, and by critics as a cult...

, filed a request in German court for an interim injunction prohibiting the German Government from including a reference to the applicant association in a publication on "So-called youth sects and psycho-groups in the Federal Republic of Germany" until a final court's decision on prohibiting the reference. The interim injunction was granted by the Cologne

Cologne

Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...

 Administrative Court.

After a government appeal of the injunction, the North-Rhine Westphalia Administrative Court of Appeal dismissed UL's request. It found that the documents produced by UL, in particular on the replacement of medical treatment by religious belief, showed a degree of danger for the general public justifying a reference to the applicant association in the envisaged publication including a warning about its activities.

Decision

The commission considered that a State [..] is entitled to convey, in an objective, but critical manner, information on religious communities and sects, if such information does not pursue aims of agitation or indoctrination endangering the freedom of religion and that the reference to the applicant association in the intended publication does not have any direct repercussions on the religious freedom of the association or its members. Therefore it held that there was no interference with the applicant association's rights to freedom of religion under Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

External links

• Commission's decision