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issued by the Registrar of the Court ECHR 082 (2011) 01.07.2011 European Court of Human Rights to deliver four Grand Chamber judgments on 7 July 2011 The European Court of Human Rights will be delivering four Grand Chamber judgments at a public hearing on Thursday 7 July 2011 at 10 a.m., 10.30 a.m. and 11 a.m. � local time � in the Human Rights Building, Strasbourg � in the following cases: Stummer v. Austria (application no. 37452/02) - concerning the applicant's nonaffiliation to the Austrian old-age pension system for work performed as a prisoner and his consequent inability to receive pension benefits under that scheme; Bayatyan v. Armenia (no. 23459/03) - concerning the conviction of the applicant, a Jehovah's Witness, for his refusal to perform military service for conscientious reasons; Al-Skeini and Others v. the United Kingdom (no. 55721/07) and Al-Jedda v. the United Kingdom (and 27021/08) � concerning, respectively, the killing in 2003 of six Iraqi civilians in incidents involving British soldiers in South East Iraq and the detention of an Iraqi civilian in 2004 in a detention centre in Basra run by British forces. Press releases and texts of the judgments will be available after the hearing, in English and French, on the Court's Internet site (www.echr.coe.int) Stummer v. Austria The applicant, Ernst Stummer, is an Austrian national who was born in 1938 and lives in Vienna. Mr Stummer spent lengthy periods of his life in prison. His application for an early retirement pension was dismissed by the Workers' Pension Insurance Office (Pensionsversicherungsanstalt der Arbeiter) in March 1999, which noted that he had failed to accumulate the minimum of 240 insurance months required for pension eligibility under domestic social law. He subsequently brought an action against the Pension Insurance Office, submitting that he had been working in prison for 28 years and that the number of months worked during that time should be counted as insurance months for the purpose of assessing his pension rights. In April 2001, the Vienna Labour and Social Court dismissed the claim. His appeal was dismissed by the Vienna Court of Appeal in October 2001, which held in particular that it was not for the courts but for the legislator to decide whether or not to change the provisions relating to the social insurance of prisoners. In February 2002, the Supreme Court (Oberster Gerichtshof) dismissed his appeal. After his release from prison in January 2004, Mr Stummer received unemployment benefits for a few months and has afterwards received emergency relief payments under the Unemployment Insurance Act. According to his counsel's submissions at the hearing before the European Court of Human Rights in November 2010, Mr Stummer received some 720 euros (EUR) per month, composed of EUR 15.77 per day plus EUR 167 per month in emergency relief payments and EUR 87 as an allowance towards his rent expenses. Mr Stummer complains that the exemption of prison work from affiliation to the old-age pension system is discriminatory. He relies on Article 4 (prohibition of slavery and forced labour) of the European Convention on Human Rights and, in substance, also on Article 14 (prohibition of discrimination) and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (protection of property) to the Convention, submitting that the distinction between work performed during detention and work while at liberty was objectively unjustified. The application was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 14 October 2002 and declared admissible on 11 October 2007. On 18 March 2010 the Chamber relinquished jurisdiction in favour of the Grand Chamber and on 3 November 2010 a public hearing was held in the Human Rights building in Strasbourg (webcast available). Bayatyan v. Armenia The applicant, Vahan Bayatyan, is an Armenian national, born in 1983. He is a Jehovah's Witness. The case concerns his criminal conviction for refusal to perform military service for conscientious reasons. Declared fit for military service, Mr Bayatyan became eligible for the spring draft of 2001. In letters sent to a number of officials, he declared that he refused to perform military service for conscientious reasons, but that he was prepared to do alternative civil service. The Parliamentary Commission for State and Legal Affairs subsequently informed him that since there was no law in Armenia on alternative service, he was obliged to serve in the army. In a judgment eventually upheld by the Court of Cassation in January 2003, he was convicted of draft evasion and sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison. In July 2003, he was released on parole. Mr Bayatyan complains that his conviction violated his rights under Article 9 (freedom of thought, conscience and religion). He also submitted that the Article should be interpreted in the light of present-day conditions, namely the fact that the majority of Council of Europe Member States have recognised the right of conscientious objection and that Armenia in 2000, before becoming a member, had committed to "pardon all conscientious objectors sentenced to prison terms". The application was lodged with the Court on 22 July 2003 and declared admissible on 12 December 2006. In a judgment of 27 October 2009, the Court held that there had been no violation of Article 9. On 10 May 2010 the Chamber relinquished jurisdiction in favour of the Grand Chamber at the applicant's request. A public hearing was held in the Human Rights building in Strasbourg (webcast available) on 24 November 2010. Al-Skeini and others v. the United Kingdom & Al-Jedda v. the United Kingdom Al-Skeini and others The applicants, Mazin Jum'Aa Gatteh Al-Skeini, Fattema Zabun Dahesh, Hameed Abdul Rida Awaid Kareem, Fadil Fayay Muzban, Jabbar Kareem Ali and Colonel Daoud Mousa are Iraqi nationals who live in Basra, Iraq. The applicants' six close relatives were killed in Basra during the period (1 May 2003 to 28 June 2004) when the United Kingdom was an occupying power in Iraq. Three of the victims were shot dead or shot and fatally wounded by British soldiers, either on patrol or carrying out raids. The third applicant's wife was shot and fatally wounded during an exchange of fire between a British patrol and a number of gunmen. The fifth applicant's son was allegedly beaten and then forced into a river, where he drowned (he could not swim). The sixth applicant's son, at work in a hotel in Basra, was seized by British troops and taken to a British military base in Basra where he was beaten and died of asphyxiation; 93 injuries were identified on his body. In March 2004, the Secretary of State for defence decided not to conduct independent inquiries into or accept liability for the deaths of the applicants' relatives and not to pay just satisfaction. The applicants applied for judicial review. On 13 June 2007 the majority of the House of Lords found that the United Kingdom did not have jurisdiction over the victims' deaths except in relation to the son of the sixth applicant. The Secretary of State had already accepted that the facts of the sixth applicant's case fell within the United Kingdom's jurisdiction under Article 1 of the Convention. The applicants allege that their relatives were within the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom under Article 1 of the Convention when they were killed through the acts of the British armed forces. They complain under Article 2 (right to life) and, in the case of the sixth applicant Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman and or degrading treatment), about the failure to carry out a full and independent investigation into the circumstances of the victims' deaths. Al-Jedda The applicant, Hilal Abdul-Razzaq Ali Al-Jedda, born in Iraq in 1957, is a British and Iraqi national who is currently living in Istanbul, Turkey. He moved to the United Kingdom in 1992, where he was granted asylum and subsequently British nationality. In September 2004 the applicant travelled from London to Iraq. He was arrested there in October 2004 by United States troops, accompanied by Iraqi national guards and British soldiers, on suspicion of being a member of a terrorist group involved in weapons smuggling and explosive attacks in Iraq. He was taken to a detention centre in Basra run by British forces. At each periodic review of his detention it was concluded that he remained a threat and that it was still necessary to intern him. He was released on 30 December 2007. The applicant denied the allegations against him. No criminal charges were brought against him. In June 2005 he brought a judicial review claim before the British courts, challenging the lawfulness of his continued detention and the refusal to return him to the United Kingdom. The courts held that United National Security Council Resolution 1546 and successive resolutions authorised British forces within the multi-national force to use internment "where necessary for imperative reasons of security in Iraq" and that such binding Security Council decisions superseded all other treaty commitments. Resolution 1546 therefore overrode Article 5 (right to liberty and security) in relation to the applicant's detention in Basra. That decision was ultimately upheld by the House of Lords. The applicant complains about his detention in Basra, relying on Article 5 � 1. The two applications were lodged with the Court on 11 December 2007 and 3 June 2008, respectively. In the case of Al-Jedda the application was declared admissible on 15 June 2011. On 19 January 2010 the Chamber relinquished jurisdiction in favour of the Grand Chamber in both cases, and on 9 June 2010 a public hearing was held in the Human Rights building in Strasbourg (webcast available). This press release is a document produced by the Registry. It does not bind the Court. Decisions, judgments and further information about the Court can be found on its Internet site. To receive the Court's press releases, please subscribe to the Court's RSS feeds. Press contacts [email protected] | tel: +33 3 90 21 42 08 Emma Hellyer (tel: + 33 3 90 21 42 15) Tracey Turner-Tretz (tel: + 33 3 88 41 35 30) Kristina Pencheva-Malinowski (tel: + 33 3 88 41 35 70) Fr�d�ric Dolt (tel: + 33 3 90 21 53 39) Nina Salomon (tel: + 33 3 90 21 49 79) The European Court of Human Rights was set up in Strasbourg by the Council of Europe Member States in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights. 4