45
MARCKX v. BELGIUM JUDGMENT
DISSENTING OPINION OF JUDGE SIR GERALD FITZMAURICE
allegation of non-compliance with a particular clause, it is necessary that the
language of that clause itself should justify the inference drawn from it or
the assumption it is said to warrant; - and here it is abundantly clear that no
draftsman intending to include, or instructed to include, within the scope of
any clause, rights to inherit property, or dispose of it by will, deed or gift,
would rest content with merely providing for the "peaceful enjoyment of ...
possessions" or referring to the "use" of property - a very ambiguous and
uncertain term.
19. Moreover - and this point is important enough to deserve a separate
paragraph - the reference to the "use of property", in the second paragraph
of Article 1 of the Protocol (P1-1), is not even made in connection with the
conferment of a right, but on the contrary for the purpose of limiting the
scope of a right - namely, the right of peaceful enjoyment of possessions
that is conferred. The second paragraph of the Article in short grants no
rights to the individual but withholds them. This alone is sufficient to
destroy the validity of the reliance which the judgment places on the
reference to the use of property as justifying an interpretation of the phrase
"enjoyment of ... possessions" so as to impart to it a radical extension of its
actual scope.
20. The truth of the matter - as would be obvious to anyone not intent on
this scope-extending process - is that the chief, if not the sole object of
Article 1 of the Protocol (P1-1) was to prevent the arbitrary seizures,
confiscations, expropriations, extortions, or other capricious interferences
with peaceful possession that many governments are - or frequently have
been - all too prone to resort to. To metamorphose it into a vehicle for the
conveyance of rights that go far beyond the notion of the peaceful
enjoyment of possessions, even if they are connected with property, is to
inflate it altogether beyond its true proportions. This is not a worthy or
becoming basis on which to find a Government guilty of a violation of the
Convention.
21. It has to be concluded therefore that, no more than in the case of
Article 8 (art. 8) of the Convention, does Article 1 of the Protocol (P1-1),
rationally interpreted, have any application to the type of complaint which is
the subject of the present case; or to the elements, quite extraneous to its
true meaning and intention, that the Court has seen fit to read into it.
22. The conclusion thus reached in regard to Article 8 (art. 8) of the
Convention and Article 1 of the Protocol (P1-1) automatically entails that
Article 14 (art. 14) of the Convention - (the no-discrimination- in-theenjoyment-of-the-Conventional-rights-and-freedoms clause) - becomes
inapplicable also, because the only conditions in which it could legitimately
be applied turn out to be lacking. This however requires fuller explanation
and I now come to that.