In a detailed report regarding black lists, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Council of Europe announced that the Council of the EU, for its defiance of the Court of First Instance’s ruling regarding the removal of the PMOI from the terror list, has violated the rule of law, has violated its commitments to Article 233 of the EC treaty, and has defied the Court of First Instance.

According to a report released by Reuters, Dick Marty, the head of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Council of Europe said that “the People’s Mujahideen of Iran, which forms part of the National Council of Resistance of Iran is on an EU blacklist despite a European Court ruling in 2006 saying it should be removed from the list.

“Despite recent procedural improvements it remains almost impossible, in practice, to be removed from the blacklist — a situation that is illegal and unacceptable,” Marty wrote.

Article 54 of the report says: “The CFI (the First Instance Court of the ECJ) annulled Council Decision 2005/930/EC of 21 December 2005 in so far as it concerned OMPI in the 2006 case Organisation des Modjahedines du peuple d’Iran . OMPI was established with the aim of replacing the Shah of Iran’s regime by a democracy, and the organisation later participated in the founding of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) . OMPI was first included on a blacklist by the order of 28 March 2001 by the UK Secretary of State for the Home Department under the UK Terrorism Act 2000. The applicant was never included on a UNSC blacklist.”

Article 55 of the report says: “The CFI’s annulment in the 2006 judgment was based on its finding that not enough evidence was presented to support OMPI’s continued listing. According to the applicant, the organisation had renounced all military activity since June 2001. The Council was required to comply with this judgment under Article 233 EC by annulling or withdrawing the references to OMPI in its decisions.”

Article 55 of the report says: “To date, the Council has refused to remove OMPI from the list, claiming that the CFI ruling only dealt with procedural defects, which it had remedied. While the Court had annulled the Community Decision, the Council argues that it was replaced by a subsequent Decision, 2006/379/EC of 29 May 2006, and therefore the OMPI still legally remains on the list and its assets frozen. Even if the Council had changed its procedures, the changed procedures still cannot be considered as somehow being applied retroactively to decisions enacted prior to the adoption of the new procedures.”