Effect given to the recommendations of the committee and the Governing Body - Report No 344, March 2007

Case No 2233 (France) - Complaint date: 12-NOV-02 - Closed

Effect given to the recommendations of the Committee and the Governing Body

1. 70. The Committee examined this case for the first time at its November 2003 session [see 332nd Report, paras 614–646, approved by the Governing Body at its 288th Session], then at its March 2005 session [see 336th Report, paras 59–61, approved by the Governing Body at its 292nd Session].
2. 71. This case concerns restrictions on the right of bailiffs, as employers, to establish and join organizations of their own choosing, and on their right to engage in collective bargaining, by virtue of their compulsory membership of the National Chamber of Bailiffs (Chambre nationale des huissiers de justice) and the latter’s exclusive competency in the area of collective bargaining. Litigation proceedings had been initiated before the national administrative courts and were under way in parallel with the Committee’s examination of the case. Following its first examination, the Committee requested the Government to amend Order No. 45-2592 of 2 November 1945 on the status of bailiffs in order, on the one hand, that the right of bailiffs to organize be an express part of their status and, on the other, that bailiffs be able to choose freely the organizations representing their interests in the collective bargaining process, and that the organizations in question be exclusively employers’ organizations which can be considered to be independent of the public authorities in that their membership, organization and functioning are freely chosen by the bailiffs themselves. At the time of the second examination, noting that, according to the information provided by the Government, the Council of State (Conseil d’Etat) had still not issued a ruling, the Committee requested the Government to transmit the order of the Council of State as soon as it had been issued.
3. 72. In a communication dated 16 September 2006, the Government transmitted a copy of the Council of State Order of 16 December 2005 in which it ruled on the case. The Government stated that the Order responded in part to the Committee’s recommendation, in that it announced the repeal of the contentious provisions of the Order of 2 November 1945, and that it was currently studying means by which it could comply with that decision as well as with the Committee’s recommendations.
4. 73. The Committee notes with interest that the Council of State considers that the entry into force of the Preamble to the Constitution of 27 October 1946, the sixth indent of which implies that all regularly constituted trade unions have the right to participate in collective bargaining processes (depending on their representativeness), implicitly but necessarily repealed the provisions of article 10 of the Order of 2 November 1945, as they included in the monopoly granted to the National Chamber of Bailiffs matters pertaining to the recognized rights of occupational unions of employers or workers. The Committee notes that the repeal of article 10 of the Order of 2 November 1945, as stated in a non-appealable court ruling, guarantees the right of bailiffs, as employers, to organize and the right of their occupational organizations to engage in collective bargaining.