Last Updated on December 15, 2023 by LawEuro
European Court of Human Rights (Applications nos. 59433/18, 59477/18, 59481/18 and 59494/18)
At the relevant time, the four applicants were State school teachers with civil servant status employed by different German Länder. They were members of the Trade Union for Education and Science. They all participated in strikes, which included a demonstration, organised by that union during their working hours in order to protest against worsening working conditions for teachers. They were subsequently reprimanded or fined in disciplinary proceedings for having breached their duties as civil servants by participating in the strikes during their working hours.
On different dates the applicants, who were all legally represented, lodged separate constitutional complaints with the Federal Constitutional Court against the disciplinary decisions issued against them, as confirmed by the administrative courts. They submitted that the decisions, which resulted from a prohibition on strikes by teachers with civil servant status, had breached their right to form associations to safeguard and improve working and economic conditions under Article 9 § 3 of the Basic Law. They further argued that the administrative courts had failed to interpret national law in line with public international law as the prohibition on strikes by teachers with civil servant status, who did not hold duties involving the exercise of core elements of public authority, violated, in particular, Article 11 of the Convention.
The European Court of Human Rights observes that the disciplinary measures at issue were imposed on the applicants because they had gone on strike, that is, they had stopped teaching for a few hours, together with others, in order to demand better working conditions, and had participated during that time in demonstrations organised for that purpose by the trade union of which they were members and which also represented the interests of teachers employed as contractual State employees. The impugned measures, in that they were taken in respect of a demonstration, concerned the applicants’ right to freedom of assembly. However, the applicants would not have been disciplined for participating in such a demonstration outside their working hours. The point of the measures was to impose a sanction for the applicants’ participation in a work stoppage organised by their trade union, in contravention of the prohibition on strikes by civil servants owing to their status. The measures thereby interfered with the applicants’ freedom of association, of which trade-union freedom is a specific aspect and the Court will examine the case from that angle alone.
The Government argued that the impugned measures were justified under the first sentence of Article 11 § 2 as they served in particular to protect the rights and freedoms of others. The Government stated that they were not primarily relying on the second sentence of Article 11 § 2. In these circumstances, the Court does not consider it necessary to determine whether the applicants as teachers with civil servant status could be said to be “members of the administration of the State” for the purposes of Article 11 § 2 in fine, a question which the Court left open in Vogt. The Court reiterates, however, that the concept of “the administration of the State” should be interpreted narrowly, in the light of the post held by the official concerned.
To be justified under the first sentence of Article 11 § 2, the interference complained of must be shown to be “prescribed by law”, to pursue one or more legitimate aims, and to be “necessary in a democratic society” in order to achieve such aims. To be considered necessary in a democratic society, it must be shown that the interference corresponded to a “pressing social need”, that the reasons given by the national authorities to justify it were relevant and sufficient and that the interference was proportionate to the legitimate aim pursued. Regard must be had to the fair balance to be struck between the competing interests of the individual and of the community as a whole.
The applicants argued that the disciplinary measures against them were not “prescribed by law”. The Court notes that the disciplinary measures were based on Article 33 § 5 of the Basic Law, read in conjunction with provisions of the Civil Servants’ Status Act and the Civil Servants Act of the respective employing Land laying down general duties of civil servants and the prohibition on being absent from work without permission. While neither the Basic Law nor statute law lays down an explicit prohibition on strikes by civil servants, such as the applicants, Article 33 § 5 of the Basic Law has for decades consistently been interpreted by the Federal Constitutional Court as enshrining such a prohibition for all civil servants. The Federal Administrative Court has also consistently found that strike action by civil servants is in breach of the traditional principles of the career civil service under Article 33 § 5 of the Basic Law.
It is true that, following the relevant judgments of this Court, one first-instance administrative court questioned the legality of the prohibition on strikes for teachers with civil servant status, while another questioned, in the proceedings concerning the fourth applicant in the present case, the legality of disciplinary measures against teachers with civil servant status for having participated in strikes. However, this does not alter the fact that the applicants in the present case could have foreseen, to a degree that was reasonable in the circumstances, that their participation in strikes as teachers with civil servant status would lead to disciplinary measures. In this connection, the Court also takes note of the position taken by the Federal Administrative Court in the proceedings concerning the fourth applicant, in which that court found that Article 33 § 5 of the Basic Law could not be interpreted in a Convention-compliant manner and that this conflict between the Basic Law and the Convention would have to be resolved by the legislature, with the prohibition on strikes by civil servants under Article 33 § 5 of the Basic Law remaining valid in the meantime. The impugned interference was thus “prescribed by law” for the purposes of Article 11 § 2 of the Convention.
The Court accepts the Government’s submission that the prohibition on strikes by civil servants generally pursued the overall aim of providing good administration, in conformity with the State’s wider obligation to provide good governance, by guaranteeing the effective performance of functions delegated to the civil service and thereby ensuring the protection of the population, the provision of services of general interest and the protection of the rights enshrined in the Convention through effective public administration in manifold situations. As the Federal Constitutional Court stated in its judgment of 12 June 2018, the prohibition on strikes by civil servants was considered in Germany to be essential for maintaining a stable administration, ensuring the fulfilment of State functions and, linked to that, the proper functioning of the State and its institutions. It added that the career civil service, as an institution, was intended to ensure a stable administration system that functioned as an equalising factor vis-à-vis the political forces shaping the State. In the light of the foregoing, the Court considers that the prohibition on strikes by civil servants pursues at least one of the legitimate aims listed in the first sentence of Article 11 § 2 of the Convention. In the present case, the disciplinary measures imposed on the applicant teachers for having gone on strike, and thus not having taught between two and twelve lessons at their respective schools also served to ensure a functioning school system and therefore to safeguard the right of others to education protected by Article 7 § 1 of the Basic Law and Article 2 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention.
It remains to be determined whether the interference with the applicants’ right to freedom of association was “necessary in a democratic society”.
It is not the Court’s task to review the relevant domestic law in the abstract, but to determine whether the manner in which it actually affected the applicants infringed their rights under Article 11 of the Convention. However, when examining the issues raised in the case before it, more specifically the disciplinary measures taken against the applicants in the present case, the Court must not lose sight of the general context, that is to say, here, the general prohibition on strikes by all civil servants in Germany owing to their status. As a matter of principle, the more convincing the justifications for the general measure, the lesser the importance that will be attached by the Court to its impact in the particular case.
To determine whether the disciplinary measures against the applicants for having participated in strikes, in contravention of the prohibition on strikes by civil servants in Germany, were “necessary in a democratic society”, regard must be had to the entire factual and legal context in which the impugned measures were taken.
The Court must therefore ascertain whether the effect that the ban on strikes by civil servants had on the applicants in the present case was proportionate and whether or not the ban rendered their trade-union freedom devoid of substance. As already indicated (see paragraphs 109 and 111 above), the answer to this question is context-specific in a number of ways and requires an assessment which takes into account all the circumstances of the case. For that purpose, the Court will have regard to the following aspects of the case: (i) the nature and extent of the restriction on the right to strike; (ii) the measures taken to enable civil servants’ trade unions and civil servants themselves to protect occupational interests; (iii) the objective(s) pursued by the prohibition on strikes by civil servants; (iv) further rights encompassed by civil servant status; (v) the possibility of working as a State school teacher under contractual State employee status with a right to strike; and (vi) the severity of the impugned disciplinary measures.
The Court observes that the prohibition on strikes by civil servants, including teachers with that status, is based on their status and is absolute. The restriction on the right to strike by German civil servants, including the applicants, can thus be characterised as severe.
The applicants relied heavily on a statement made by the Court in Enerji Yapı-Yol Sen to the effect that a prohibition on strikes could not extend to civil servants in general. The Court would agree that a general ban on strikes for all civil servants raises specific issues under the Convention. In this connection, the Court also reiterates that the assessment as to whether a prohibition on strikes renders trade-union freedom devoid of substance depends on a number of elements.
The applicants also relied on international labour law. The Court acknowledges that the practice of the competent monitoring bodies set up under the specialised international instruments, as well as that of other international bodies, shows a strong trend towards considering that civil servants should not per se be prohibited from strike action, this trend also being reflected in the practice of the Contracting States. In as much as there is common ground among them as to the principle that bans or restrictions on the right to strike may be imposed on certain categories of civil servants or public sector workers, notably those exercising public authority in the name of the State and/or providing essential services, there is also a tendency to consider that the notion of essential services, despite some divergence as to its precise definition, is to be understood in the strict sense and as not including public education. The Court notes that the approach taken by the respondent State, namely to prohibit strikes by all civil servants, including teachers with that status, such as the applicants, is thus not in line with the trend emerging from specialised international instruments, as interpreted by the competent monitoring bodies, or from the practice of Contracting States.
The competent monitoring bodies set up under the specialised international instruments – notably the CEACR and the ECSR as supervisory bodies for the ILO standards and the European Social Charter, the latter containing a more specific and exacting norm regarding industrial action, but also the CESCR and the HRC – have repeatedly criticised the status-based prohibition of strikes by civil servants in Germany, including, in particular, with respect to teachers with that status. Without calling into question the analysis carried out by those bodies in their assessment of the respondent State’s compliance with the international instruments which they were set up to monitor, the Court would reiterate that its task is to determine whether the relevant domestic law in its application to the applicants was proportionate as required by Article 11 § 2 of the Convention, its jurisdiction being limited to the Convention.
Moreover, while any trend emerging from the practice of the Contracting States and the negative assessments made by the aforementioned monitoring bodies of the respondent State’s compliance with international instruments constitute relevant elements, they are not in and of themselves decisive for the Court’s assessment as to whether the impugned prohibition on strikes and the disciplinary measures imposed on the applicants remained within the margin of appreciation afforded to the respondent State under the Convention.
The Court recalls that the right to strike constitutes an important instrument for a trade union to protect the occupational interests of its members and in turn for the members of a trade union to defend their interests (see paragraph 104 above). While strike action is an important part of trade‑union activity, the Court reiterates that it is not the only means for trade unions and their members to protect the relevant occupational interests. Contracting States are in principle free to decide what measures they wish to take in order to ensure compliance with Article 11 as long as they thereby ensure that trade-union freedom does not become devoid of substance as a result of any restrictions imposed. The Court thus needs to examine whether other rights granted to German civil servants’ unions and to civil servants themselves enable them to protect the relevant occupational interests effectively.
At the outset, the Court notes that civil servants in Germany have the right to form and join trade unions to defend their occupational interests and that the applicants availed themselves of the relevant right. The applicants are members of the Trade Union for Education and Science. The largest civil servants’ union, the Association of Civil Servants and Union for Collective Bargaining, alone represents about 50 per cent of all civil servants, according to the undisputed submission by the Government. It is noteworthy that the unionisation rate among civil servants in Germany is very high and that it is considerably higher than the average general unionisation rate in Germany which stands at 16.5 per cent
In Germany, working conditions of civil servants, including remuneration, are regulated by statute law in the light of the traditional principles of the career civil service, not by collective agreements between trade unions and the employing State authority. The umbrella organisations of civil servants’ trade unions have a statutory right to participate when legal provisions for the civil service are drawn up. This participation of umbrella organisations in the preparation of new legislation is intended to protect the rights and interests of civil servants in the drafting of provisions concerning civil servants and to compensate for the absence of a right to collective bargaining and the prohibition on strikes. The Länder Civil Servants Acts, which applied to the applicants, provide that umbrella organisations have to be informed of any draft legislation and allowed to comment within a reasonable time before the draft is submitted to Parliament. If the Länder governments do not follow proposals made by the umbrella organisations in the respective draft laws, they must provide reasons for failing to do so and transmit them to the Länder Parliaments, either of their own motion or at the request of the umbrella organisations.
This participatory right enables civil servants’ trade unions to seek to persuade the employer to hear what they have to say on behalf of their members. As regards the effectiveness of this right in practice, the Court takes note of the example invoked by the Government where the competent Land Parliament ultimately accepted the trade-union demands in relation to parental leave, after the government had not fully done so. None of the other Contracting Parties surveyed provides for comparable rights of trade-union participation in the process of fixing working conditions as a means of compensating for a prohibition on strikes by the workers concerned. The Court is aware that this right of trade unions to participate in the drafting of statutory provisions for the civil service does not, as the applicants stressed, include a right to co‑determine the future legislative provisions; but the right to collective bargaining has not been interpreted as a right to a collective agreement either, nor does the right to strike imply a right to prevail.
Beyond the statutory right of trade unions to participate when legal provisions for the civil service are drawn up, the relevant provisions of the Länder Civil Servants Acts also provide that meetings are to be held regularly between the competent ministry and the umbrella organisations to discuss general and fundamental questions of civil service law. Such meetings constitute another possibility for trade unions to seek to persuade the employer to hear what they have to say on behalf of their members.
Moreover, as explained in detail by the Federal Constitutional Court, the “principle of alimentation”, a traditional principle of the German career civil service, guarantees civil servants an individual and enforceable constitutional right to be provided with “adequate maintenance”, which must be commensurate with, inter alia, the civil servant’s grade and responsibilities and be in keeping with the development of the prevailing economic and financial circumstances and the general standard of living. The legislature is required to continuously adjust the remuneration of civil servants in order to comply with this principle and the Federal Constitutional Court has set out detailed and specific standards for the assessment of the adequacy of civil servants’ remuneration. These include a duty to have regard to the results reached in collective agreements for contractual State employees in the public sector, as well as to the development of the nominal wage index and of the consumer price index. According to the Association of Civil Servants and Union for Collective Bargaining, the increase in remuneration of contractual State employees is thus usually transferred to and mirrored in the legislative provisions on civil servants’ remuneration in order to comply with the constitutional duty to provide civil servants with “adequate maintenance”. Other elements taken into account in the assessment of the adequacy of civil servants’ remuneration include their training and responsibilities and the average gross salaries of private-sector employees with comparable qualifications and responsibilities. Finally, it is the civil servants’ net income which is decisive for the determination of the adequacy of the remuneration and which must enable the civil servant and his or her family to enjoy a way of life which is appropriate to the office held and which goes beyond meeting basic needs.
While proceedings for the judicial review of the adequacy of civil servants’ remuneration have to be initiated by civil servants themselves, their trade unions are free to support such proceedings and have been invited by the Federal Constitutional Court to file amicus curiae briefs in the relevant cases. Noting that the Federal Constitutional Court has found in several cases that civil servants’ remuneration was in breach of Article 33 § 5 of the Basic Law and ordered the competent legislature to enact provisions which were in conformity with the “principle of alimentation”, the Court considers that civil servants are granted an effective means by which to enforce through the courts their individual constitutional right to be provided with “adequate maintenance”, that is to say, an effective alternative means of defending their interests in relation to an essential working condition, and that they can rely on support from their trade unions in this connection.
Lastly, domestic law requires that the representation of civil servants be ensured. Civil servants are entitled to be represented through staff councils. These councils are entitled, through the right to co‑determination, to participate in staff, social and organisational matters relating inter alia to civil servants and may enter into service agreements with the relevant department (ibid.). While these rights are not union-related, they nonetheless need to be taken into account when assessing the prohibition on strikes by civil servants, as they enable civil servants to participate in the process of regulating some of their working conditions. Moreover, in certain Länder, umbrella trade-union organisations and the State agree on general regulations on matters that are subject to co-determination (ibid.).
The Court reiterates that it accepts the Government’s submission that the prohibition on strikes by civil servants as combined with several complementary, legally enforceable fundamental rights pursues the overall aim of providing for good administration. This reciprocal system of interrelated rights and duties guarantees the effective performance of functions delegated to the civil service and thereby ensures the protection of the population, the provision of services of general interest and the protection of the rights enshrined in the Convention through effective public administration in manifold situations. In this connection, the Court observes, more generally, that restrictions on the right to strike may serve to protect the rights of others, which are not limited to those on the employer’s side in an industrial dispute, and may serve to fulfil a Contracting State’s positive obligations under its constitutional law, the Convention and other human rights treaties.
In the applicants’ case, the contested restriction pursued the aforementioned objective to provide for good administration. The disciplinary decisions sought to ensure the continuous provision of education at State schools and to safeguard the right of others to education, as guaranteed by Article 7 § 1 of the Basic Law, Article 2 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention and other international instruments. The Court would underline that the right to education, which is indispensable to the furtherance of human rights, plays a fundamental role in a democratic society. Primary and secondary education is of fundamental importance for each child’s personal development and future success. While the Convention does not dictate how education is to be provided and still less does it prescribe any specific status for teachers, the Court emphasises the huge importance, from a public-policy perspective, of an efficient educational system capable of providing teaching and educating children, in a credible manner, about freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law. It cannot but agree with the Committee of Ministers that education is crucial to developing the democratic culture that democratic institutions and societies need in order to function and that public authorities should include quality education as a prominent element of their policies.
Beyond the rights granted to civil servants and their trade unions to defend occupational interests, domestic law grants civil servants a number of rights based on their status, including a right to lifetime employment and a right to be provided with “adequate maintenance” for life, including after retirement from active service and in the event of illness. According to the Association of Civil Servants and Union for Collective Bargaining, in Germany civil servant status results in higher net pay than that of comparable contractual State employees in the public sector as well as better conditions regarding health care and a better pension scheme. In Germany, civil servant status is thus more advantageous than contractual State employee status in several ways, both legally and in terms of resulting material conditions. In this connection, the Court also observes that the employment conditions of State-school teachers in Germany, in terms of salary and teaching hours, compare favourably to those in most other Contracting Parties.
The Court further observes that there is no blanket ban on strikes in the public service in Germany, as contractual State employees, which account for some 62 per cent of all staff working in the public service, do have a right to strike. State school teachers in the Länder in which the applicants worked or had worked, may, in principle, be employed with either civil servant status or contractual State employee status. The applicants were aware of this duality of employment status for State school teachers. The strikes in which the applicants participated were in part held in support of teachers with contractual State employee status and the applicants’ discrimination complaint before this Court is based on the fact that teachers with contractual State employee status had not been sanctioned for their participation in the same strike.
It is a matter of dispute between the parties as to whether the applicants had the possibility of working as State school teachers with contractual State employee status. As regards the choice of employment status at the time of their recruitment, a choice which the applicants claimed they did not have, the Court takes note of the Government’s submission that the second and third applicants had from the outset limited their job applications to appointment as civil servants. The application form used by the third applicant at the time featured a box with the indication “the application is also valid for an application as a contractual State employee”; he did not tick that box. The first applicant had even worked as a teacher with contractual State employee status at an earlier point and then obtained civil servant status after she had explicitly asked for it. As to the possibility of a subsequent change from civil servant status to contractual State employee status, both parties agreed that, technically, the civil servant would have to ask for his or her dismissal and then be re-employed as a contractual State employee. Whereas the applicants argued that there was no guarantee that dismissed civil servants would subsequently be re-employed with contractual State employee status, the Government maintained that, in practice, such change in status, with subsequent appointment as a contractual State employee, would be negotiated before a civil servant asked for his or her dismissal; the applicants’ submission that asking to be dismissed would put the civil servant at risk of unemployment was therefore incorrect. They asserted that such change in employment status was well-established practice and possible in all Länder, including in the applicants’ cases. They explained that the fact that very few teachers with civil servant status chose to change to contractual State employee status was due to the attractiveness of civil servant status, which in essence corresponds to the applicants’ submission that a change from civil servant status to contractual State employee status would entail certain disadvantages. The Court notes that the applicants did not demonstrate that they had engaged with their employers regarding a potential change of their employment status from civil servant to public employee.
The applicants relied on the existence of the possibility of working as a State school teacher with contractual State employee status and a right to strike as an argument in support of their submission that there was no obstacle to allowing teachers with civil servant status to strike. It is true that teachers with contractual State employee status and a right to strike accounted for a certain percentage of State school teachers in the Länder in which the applicants worked – between 8.5 and 20 per cent in 2020/21 according to the figures submitted by the Government and between 20 and 25 per cent nationwide according to the applicants – and that consequently disruptions in the provision of education due to striking teachers could, and did, happen. This raises the question whether a requirement to ensure minimum service in State schools, or a restricted right of teachers with civil servant status to strike subject to certain requirements, could have been envisaged as a less restrictive measure than a general prohibition on strikes by civil servants. The applicants submitted that it was undisputed that no damage had been caused by their participation in the strikes as internal substitution arrangements had been made and that, in general, those teachers who had a right to strike had been considerate of the right to education. Moreover, they asserted that short work-stoppages were sufficient to advance the collective bargaining process.
As the impugned prohibition on strikes by civil servants is a general measure rooted in the Basic Law, as interpreted by the Federal Constitutional Court, and reflects a long-standing democratic consensus in Germany as well as the outcome of the weighing-up and balancing of different, potentially competing, interests, the central question for the Court in assessing the proportionality of this measure is not whether less restrictive rules could have been adopted or, indeed, whether the State could prove that, without the impugned prohibition, the aim of providing continuous public education would not be achieved, but rather whether, in not making an exception for State school teachers with civil servant status, the constitutional legislature had acted within the margin of appreciation afforded to it. It is in this connection that the possibility for the applicants to be employed as State school teachers with contractual State employee status, with the right to strike, constitutes an element to be taken into account in the assessment of the proportionality of the prohibition on strikes imposed on the applicants as State school teachers with civil servant status. By providing for a duality of employment statuses for State school teachers, while rendering the status which comes with a prohibition on strikes considerably more attractive in practice, the respondent State essentially reduced the potential impact of strikes in State schools.
Although the main issue in the current case inevitably will be the effect of the ban on strikes, it being a constitutive element in the overall organisation of the civil service in Germany, rather than the severity of the sanctions for breaking the ban, the Court cannot but note that the first applicant was reprimanded, while the second and third applicants were given an administrative fine of EUR 100 each. The fourth applicant was initially given an administrative fine of EUR 1,500, with that sum being reduced on appeal to EUR 300. The disciplinary decision against the fourth applicant was ultimately not enforced, however, as it had ceased to be valid because she had since left the civil service on her request. The disciplinary measures against the applicants were thus not severe.
Having regard to the foregoing, the Court reiterates that the impugned restriction on the right to strike of civil servants, including teachers with that status, such as the applicants in the present case, was severe in nature. However, while the right to strike is an important element of trade-union freedom, strike action is not the only means by which trade unions and their members can protect the relevant occupational interests and Contracting States are in principle free to decide what measures they wish to take in order to ensure compliance with Article 11 as long as they thereby ensure that trade-union freedom does not become devoid of substance as a result of any restrictions imposed. In this connection, the Court emphasises that, in the respondent State, a variety of different institutional safeguards have been put in place to enable civil servants and their unions to defend occupational interests. As explained above, civil servants’ trade unions are granted a statutory right to participate in the drafting of statutory provisions for civil servants, who are also granted an individual constitutional right to be provided with “adequate maintenance”, which they can enforce in court. The Court considers that these measures, in their totality, enable civil servants’ trade unions and civil servants themselves to effectively defend the relevant occupational interests. The high unionisation rate among German civil servants illustrates the effectiveness in practice of trade-union rights as they are secured to civil servants. In this connection it is noteworthy that the Association of Civil Servants and Union for Collective Bargaining, the largest civil servants’ union, representing about 50 per cent of all civil servants, submitted to the Court that civil servants already had all that could be gained by strike action owing to the constitutional rights which came with their status and advocated against granting civil servants a right to strike.
Moreover, unlike the situation in the case of Enerji Yapı-Yol Sen, where a circular, which was issued five days before a national day of strike action and which prohibited civil servants from participating in that strike, was drafted in general terms, without any balance having been struck in relation to what was necessary in order to attain the aims enumerated in Article 11 § 2, the impugned prohibition on strikes by civil servants is a general measure reflecting the balancing and weighing-up of different, potentially competing, constitutional interests.
Reiterating that the more convincing the justifications for a general measure, the lesser the importance that will be attached by the Court to its impact in the particular case, the Court considers that the impact of the prohibition on strikes in the present case does not outweigh the aforementioned solid and convincing justifications for the restrictions entailed by the general measure as presented by the respondent Government and reflected in the extensive assessment of the Federal Constitutional Court. In particular, having regard to the totality of the measures enabling civil servants’ trade unions and civil servants themselves to effectively defend the relevant occupational interests, the prohibition on strikes does not render civil servants’ trade-union freedom devoid of substance. Therefore that prohibition does not affect an essential element of civil servants’ trade-union freedom as guaranteed by Article 11 of the Convention. Moreover, the disciplinary measures against the applicants were not severe, they pursued, in particular, the important aim of ensuring the protection of rights enshrined in the Convention through effective public administration, and the domestic courts adduced relevant and sufficient reasons to justify those measures, weighing up the competing interests in a thorough balancing exercise that sought to apply this Court’s case-law throughout the domestic proceedings. The material employment conditions of teachers with civil servant status in Germany further militate in favour of the proportionality of the impugned measures in the present case, as does the possibility of working as State school teachers under contractual State employee status with a right to strike.
The Court thus concludes that the measures taken against the applicants did not exceed the margin of appreciation afforded to the respondent State in the circumstances of the present case and were shown to be proportionate to the important legitimate aims pursued. Accordingly, there has been no violation of Article 11 of the Convention.
CASE OF HUMPERT AND OTHERS v. GERMANY (European Court of Human Rights) 59433/18, 59477/18, 59481/18 and 59494/18. Full text of the document.
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