EU TERRORISM LISTS

Jose Maria Sison, represented amongst others by the General Secretary of the European Center of Constitutional and Human Rights, Wolfgang Kaleck, is on April 30, 2009 attending a hearing at the European Court of First Instance in the course of renewed proceedings to have his name removed from a EU blacklist. 

The list, which was adopted as a Council decision, is intended to interrupt the flow of assets of international terrorists and causes all Sison’s ‘funds, other financial assets and economic resources’ to be frozen and prohibits him from benefiting from any financial service. Sison, a seventy-year-old Filipino, was neither informed of his inclusion in the list nor provided with any reasons - he realised his inclusion in 2002 only when his credit card was rejected at a Dutch supermarket. 

In the first proceedings at the CFI in 2007, Sison attained an annulment of the decision in question as far as it concerned him. Sison’s procedural rights, especially his right to defend himself effectively and to be provided with reasons, were found to have been violated. Prior to the ruling however the Council transmitted to Sison a letter, alleging he still was the leader of a group which he founded more than twenty years ago and involved in certain crimes committed in the Philippines, and requesting him to respond to those allegations. Still, the decision to include him in the list was annulled. Four days after the judgement however the Council adopted a new decision, again including Sison in the list, as has been done in all versions since. As for reasons, the same allegations are repeated. For this reason, Sison again sued, seeking annulment of the current decision.