Rights on the right to privacy, family life, home, correspondence, and protection from violations of honour
and reputation, states that State intervention can only be tolerated within the context of a law, which law
must be in conformity with the provisions, aims and objectives of the Covenant.
44. It was in this sense that the European Court of Human Rights in its judgment on OPEN DOOR AND
DUBLIN WOMAN VS. IRELAND, 29 October 1992, Series A, No 246, §70 and §72, affirmed that it had to
examine if the disputed legal measure was in response to an urgent social need and particularly if it was
proportional to the legitimate goal pursued by Ireland; and the Court had to monitor closely its compatibility
with the principles of a democratic society.
45. In the instant case, the two Parties affirmed that the levies imposed on the coffee and cocoa products
were a contribution towards raising the low level of yields from the cadastral survey of the rural areas.
46. As such, and as the Applicant does not disapprove of it, the Court considers that the objective intended
by the DUS (Single Exit Right) is legitimate, since it is justified on solid grounds and is ofa general interest.
47. Moreover, the Applicant invoked Article 23(3)
× Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family
an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which provides that "Everyone who works has the right to
just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human
dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection",
and considered that the DUS was rather exorbitant; and that it constituted a violation of its right as
guaranteed by the said article.
48. The Court finds that "the right to just and favourable remuneration" presupposes the existence of a
relationship of work between a debtor, responsible for remuneration, and a beneficiary; which assumes that
the beneficiary of the remuneration must carry out for the debtor, a job that is duly remunerated. In its
judgment on PROFESSOR ETIM MOSES VS REPUBLIC OF GAMBIA, 29th October, 2007,
ECW/CCJ/RUL/05/07, §24, the Court adjudged that violation of "the right to just and favourable
remuneration" arises in a situation where an individual who normally carries out a remunerated work, is
not remunerated at all, or if he is, the remuneration received is below the real value of the work done.
49. Whereas, the Court finds that in the instant case, the Applicant is a private producer of coffee and
cocoa and it conducts its agricultural activities entirely autonomously and receives neither salary nor
honorarium from any given State organ; that there is no employment relationship between the Applicant
and the Defendant State such as to establish a salary obligation on the Defendant towards the Applicant;
that the latter derives its revenues from the sale of its produce to exporters, and such revenues cannot be
considered as remuneration.
50. Consequently, the Court cannot admit the plea-in-law brought forth by the Applicant requiring the Court
to declare that the Defendant State has violated its right to fair remuneration; that plea is therefore
dismissed.
As to violation of the principle of equality of all citizens before the law
51. The Applicant alleged a manifest breach of the principle of equality of all citizens before the law; it
affirmed that the Defendant State differentiates between cocoa-coffee producers and producers of the other
raw materials.
52. To buttress this plea, the Applicant argued that in Côte d'Ivoire whereas fiscal deductions and taxation
policies affect 60% of the price of cocoa and coffee in the rural areas, levies imposed on pineapple is 6%,
2% on rubber, 0% on cotton and 30% on industrial and commercial profits.
53. That such breach of equality against cocoa and coffee producers violates Article 7
× All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All
are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any
incitement to such discrimination.
of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which provides that: "All are equal before the law and are
entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection
against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such
discrimination".
54. For the Defendant State, one cannot allege a breach in equality of all citizens before the law in as much
as in the terms of the Ivorian constitutional provisions, citizens make contributions in public duty as
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