GROPPERA RADIO AG AND OTHERS v. SWITZERLAND JUDGMENT
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As regards accessibility, the Government recognised that only the
International Telecommunication Convention had been published in full in
the Official Collection of Federal Statutes and in the Compendium of
Federal Law. While the Radio Regulations had not been published in these except for numbers 422 and 725 -, information was given in the Official
Collection as to how they could be consulted or obtained (see paragraph 35
above). This practice was, the Government said, justified by the length of
the text, which ran to more than a thousand pages. Moreover, the practice
had been approved by the Federal Court (judgment of 12 July 1982
previously cited) and could be found in at least ten other member States of
the Council of Europe. Lastly, it was consonant with the European Court’s
case-law on individuals’ access to legal norms in common-law systems.
68. In the Court’s view, the scope of the concepts of foreseeability and
accessibility depends to a considerable degree on the content of the
instrument in issue, the field it is designed to cover and the number and
status of those to whom it is addressed.
In the instant case the relevant provisions of international
telecommunications law were highly technical and complex; furthermore,
they were primarily intended for specialists, who knew, from the
information given in the Official Collection, how they could be obtained. It
could therefore be expected of a business company wishing to engage in
broadcasting across a frontier - like Groppera Radio AG - that it would seek
to inform itself fully about the rules applicable in Switzerland, if necessary
with the help of advisers. As the 1983 Ordinance and the International
Telecommunication Convention had been published in full, such a company
had only to acquaint itself with the Radio Regulations, either by consulting
them at the PTT’s head office in Berne or by obtaining them from the
International Telecommunication Union in Geneva.
Nor can it be said that the various instruments considered above were
lacking in the necessary clarity and precision. In short, the rules in issue
were such as to enable the applicants and their advisers to regulate their
conduct in the matter.
(b) Legitimate aim
69. The Government contended that the impugned interference pursued
two aims recognised by the Convention.
The first of these was the "prevention of disorder" in
telecommunications, the order in question being laid down in the
International Telecommunication Convention and the Radio Regulations
and being universally binding. Sound Radio had disregarded three basic
principles of the international frequency order:
(a) the licensing principle, whereby the establishment or operation of a
broadcasting station by a private person or by an enterprise was subject to