The European Court of Human Rights held a Grand Chamber hearing on Wednesday 12 October 2011 in the case of Centro Europa 7 S.R.L.(application no. 38433/09) and Di Stefano v. Italy.
The case concerns an Italian TV company’s inability to broadcast, despite having a broadcasting licence, due to lack of television frequencies allocated to it.
Procedure
The application was lodged with the Court on 16 July 2009 and communicated to the Italian authorities on 10 November 2009. The Chamber to which the case had been allocated relinquished jurisdiction in favour of the Grand Chamber. The organisation Open Society Justice Initiative was granted leave to submit written comments as a third party [1]
[1] Under Article 30 of the European Convention on Human Rights, “Where a case pending before a Chamber raises a serious question affecting the interpretation of the Convention or the Protocols thereto, or where the resolution of a question before the Chamber might have a result inconsistent with a judgment previously delivered by the Court, the Chamber may, at any time before it has rendered its judgment, relinquish jurisdiction in favour of the Grand Chamber, unless one of the parties to the case objects”.
Composition of the Court
The case was heard by a Grand Chamber, composed as follows:
Jean-Paul Costa (France), PRESIDENT,
Françoise Tulkens (Belgium),
Josep Casadevall (Andorra),
Nina Vajić (Croatia),
Dean Spielmann (Luxembourg),
Corneliu Bîrsan (Romania)
Elisabeth Steiner (Austria),
Elisabet Fura (Sweden),
Ljiljana Mijović (Bosnia and Herzegovina),
David Thór Björgvinsson (Iceland),
Dragoljub Popović (Serbia),
András Sajó (Hungary),
Nona Tsotsoria (Georgia),
Işıl Karakaş (Turkey),
Kristina Pardalos (San Marino),
Guido Raimondi (Italy),
Linos-Alexandre Sicilianos (Greece), JUDGES,
Julia Laffranque (Estonia),
Ann Power-Forde (Ireland),
Isabelle Berro-Lefèvre (Monaco), SUBSTITUTE JUDGES,
and also Vincent Berger, JURISCONSULT.
Representatives of the parties
Government
Mario Remus and Paolo Gentili, ADVISERS;
Applicants
Roberto Mastroianni, Ottavio Grandinetti and Fabio Ferraro, COUNSEL.
The applicant, Francescantonio Di Stefano, also attended the hearing.
