Selberg began by referring to his article recently published in Svensk Juridisk Tidsskrift (Swedish Legal Journal). The article is based on the Swedish Transport Workers’ Union’s expulsion of a member due to his position as a municipal council representative for the Sweden Democrats, a position that the union believes violates the purpose of its statutes regarding work for social development based on the principle that all people are of equal value.
The member won his lawsuit for invalidity in both the district court and the court of appeal, and the union’s appeal was not admitted for consideration by the Supreme Court. The Transport Workers’ Union has brought the case before the EMD because it believes that the Court of Appeal’s ruling violates the freedom of association protected by international conventions to which Sweden is bound.
Selberg supports the Transport Workers’ Union’s view and argues that the ruling violates freedom of association as protected by Article 11 of the ECHR, Articles 3 and 5 of ILO Convention No. 87, and Article 5 of the ESP. Selberg believes that trade unions enjoy greater protection than other non-profit associations, citing the special provisions on trade unions’ institutional freedom of association in ILO Convention No. 87 and the ESC, to which the ECtHR attached decisive importance in its interpretation of Article 11 of the ECHR in ASLEF v. The United Kingdom from 2007, which concerned a trade union’s expulsion of a member who was involved in the British National Party. Selberg believes that the Court of Appeal’s ruling is the result of an outdated traditional doctrine and argues that trade unions’ human rights claim to autonomy means that national courts have very limited scope to review trade unions’ expulsion decisions.
Hansteen drew parallels with Norwegian law and argued that Norwegian courts do not seem to have taken on board the fact that freedom of association prevents the review of political and professional assessments that form the basis for decisions on exclusion from trade unions. Nevertheless, he believed that national courts must be able to examine whether the case has been handled in accordance with the statutes, whether the decision is based on correct facts, and whether fundamental legal certainty norms have been disregarded, and referred in this connection to both the reservation made by the ECHR in ASLEF and the Supreme Court’s judgment in HR-2022-833-A (Jehovah’s Witnesses).
Here you will find links to Selberg’s article and Hansteen’s presentation.
