Wille v. Liechtenstein | 1999

Free speech ruling leads to checks on Liechtenstein prince’s power

The opinion expressed by [Herbert Wille] cannot be regarded as an untenable proposition since it was shared by a considerable number of persons in Liechtenstein.

Judgment of the European Court of Human Rights, October 1999 – Pictured: Herbert Wille (Photo: Wikimedia Commons/ETH-Bibliothek/Comet Photo AG (Zürich))

Background

Liechtenstein’s Hans-Adam II swore never to let Herbert Wille hold public office again after the legal expert voiced an opinion that the prince disagreed with.

In 1995, Dr Wille gave a public lecture in which he said that the country’s constitutional court should be given the final say in case of disagreement between the prince and the people.

After the prince learnt about the lecture, he wrote to Dr Wille accusing him of holding views against the constitution and of therefore being unfit for public office.

In his letter, the prince also recalled an earlier row with Dr Wille (an ex-politician) and the government he had helped lead during a constitutional crisis in 1992.

Dr Wille denied being against the constitution. He thought the prince’s pledge to bar him from public office because of his opinions interfered with his right to free speech under the European Convention on Human Rights (“ECHR”).

In 1997, Dr Wille’s term as president of Liechtenstein’s administrative court came to an end. Parliament decided to put him forward for the role again—but the prince refused to accept the proposal.

Judgment of the European Court of Human Rights

The European court ruled that what had happened to Herbert Wille amounted to a violation of his right to free speech.

Liechtenstein’s government had argued that the prince’s sanction had been justified because Dr Wille had made what they said was a highly political statement attacking the country’s constitution.

But the court was not convinced.

It acknowledged that Dr Wille’s lecture had political implications but could not accept that this alone should have stopped him from speaking on the subject.

The European court also noted that the government (of which Dr Wille had been a member) had put forward a similar view of the constitution in a proposed bill in 1991-92. A majority in the parliament had accepted the bill but the prince had refused to sign it into law.

The court therefore found that the government had failed to show how the interference with Dr Wille’s right to free speech was “necessary in a democratic society.” In the court’s view, the prince’s action was “disproportionate”.

Moreover, there was no way Dr Wille could have got justice in his own country because Liechtenstein’s constitutional court had never in its history agreed to hear a complaint brought against the prince.

Follow-up

In response to the European court’s judgment in Herbert Wille’s case, Liechtenstein changed the law in 2003 to establish the constitutional court’s role in hearing cases of alleged ECHR violations by any public authority.

The law allows anyone to apply to the constitutional court to review whether the actions of the state are in keeping with the ECHR. This includes individual acts of the prince and could cover complaints like Dr Wille’s.

Additional information

Themes:

Related examples

New law protects anti-corruption prosecutors from political interference

The European court found that Romania’s chief anti-corruption prosecutor had had no way to legally challenge her dismissal. Also, the government’s decision to dismiss her had violated her free speech because it was mostly in response to her public criticism of controversial legal reforms. Romania then changed the law to protect prosecutors from abusive removal from office.

Themes: Right to a fair trial Freedom of speech

Romania

Impact of the European Convention on Human Rights