On 3 May 2016, lawyers Marieke van Eik and Tamara Buruma represented the LTTE during a hearing before the Grand Chamber of the Court of Justice of the European Union. The case concerns the appeal filed by the Council of the European Union against the annulment of its decision to list the LTTE as a 'terrorist organization', by the General Court of the European Union in 2013.
During the appeals hearing , the central question was whether the Council had based its decision to list the LTTE on sufficiently "serious and credible evidence or clues", even though the Council had failed to state any facts dating from after the military defeat of the LTTE in 2009 in its Statement of Reasons.
The advocate-general will present her opinion on the case on 22 September 2016. A judgment is expected at the end of this year.
Background
In 2013, the General Court ruled that the Council's decision to list the LTTE as a 'terrorist organization' had been insufficiently motivated. First because the Council had based its listing of the LTTE on a decision taken by the Indian authorities, without investigating whether the Indian government had complied with human rights standards in doing so; as such the Council was not free to use that decision within the context of the listing-process. Second because the Council had further justified the listing by merely referring to press- and internet articles as source for its estimation that the LTTE should remain listed; that type of information was deemed insufficiently reliable to serve as basis for the listing.
Previously