Definitive Report - Report No 204, November 1980

1. 71. In a communication dated 7 May 1980, the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) presented a complaint of infringement of trade union rights in Portugal. Since then, observations have been received from the Government in a communication dated 12 September 1980.
2. 72. Portugal has ratified the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948 (No. 87), and the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949 (No. 98).

A. Allegations of the complainant

1. 73. The complainant alleges that the Portuguese authorities refused to issue visas to enter Portugal to a delegation of Soviet and East German trade union leaders headed by the Vice-President of the Miners' Trade Unions International (MTUI) and to a delegation from Poland composed of the secretary and a member of the secretariat of the MTUI. According to the complainant, the visas were refused these trade union leaders were refused the visas at the time when they were to attend the regular meeting that was to be held by the MTUI bureau at Lisbon, from 5 to 8 May 1980, at the invitation of the General Confederation of Portuguese Workers (CGTP-IN). The MTUI is affiliated to the WFTU.
2. 74. The WFTU points out that the trade unionists in question had been duly elected. It considers that such discriminatory action on the part of the Portuguese Government against those delegations can only be interpreted as a violation of Convention No. 87 since they were thus prevented from freely exercising their right to participate in international activities.

B. Reply of the Government

1. 75. In reply to the allegations of the WFTU, the Government explains that a meeting at Lisbon of leaders of miners' trade union organisations from ten countries, including France and Poland, had been announced by the local press on 30 April 1980. Called by the Portuguese Trade Union Federation of Metallurgists, Metalworkers and Miners, the meeting was to be held, starting on 5 May, for the purpose of discussing jointly the problems of these sectors and making preparations for an international conference of miners' trade unions at Budapest from 5 to 8 August 1980. According to the newspapers quoted by the Government, the participants were to remain in Portugal until 11 May in order to meet Portuguese workers and visit the Bevalt, Tin and Wolfram-Portugal works and the mines at Panasqueira.
2. 76. On 6 and 7 May, continues the Government, the newspapers reported a press conference called by the Portuguese miners' trade unions - and attended by a member of the MTUI bureau, S.K. Samyal, a trade unionist from India - to cancel the international meeting of miners' trade unions because entry visas had been refused to Soviet, Czech and East German delegates.
3. 77. The trade unionists announced a 24-hour protest strike for 14 May since the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had informed them by telephone that the visas would not be granted "on the ground of higher political criteria followed for some time". The Government adds that, again according to the Portuguese press, the fact that the international meeting of miners' trade unions was cancelled did not prevent a protest demonstration being held at the Panasqueira mines, in which Mr. Samyal took part.
4. 78. The Government is surprised that such an important meeting, at which ten countries were to be represented, should have been called off by the organisations concerned merely because visas had not been granted to only four trade unionists. Contrary to the allegations of the complainant, the Government states that visas for two persons coming from Warsaw had in fact been granted. As for the other persons concerned, visas had not been refused to a delegation wishing to attend a trade union meeting: they had been refused, rather, on individual grounds it falls within the internal jurisdiction of each country, the Government asserts, to authorise aliens to enter its territory or not. It explains, further, that the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are embodied in the Constitution of Portugal, which has signed the International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, as well as the European Convention of Human Rights. To refuse visas on individual grounds constitutes no violation, in its opinion, of the provisions of those texts or of Convention No. 87. The Government cites previous decisions of the Committee in support of its contention.
5. 79. The Government also affirms that workers' organisations, including the CGTP-IN, enjoy the right to hold trade union meetings, in which trade union representatives from other countries may participate, and refers in this connection to article 57(6) of the Constitution setting forth the right of trade union organisations to establish relations and affiliate with international trade union organisations.

C. Conclusions of the Committee

1. 80. The Committee notes that it is alleged in the present case that the Portuguese authorities, by refusing the necessary entry visas, prevented leaders of an international trade union organisation, the MTUI, from participating in a regular meeting of its bureau in Portugal.
2. 81. The Committee also notes the contradictory nature of the information supplied by the complainant and by the Government inasmuch as the Government denies having refused an entry visa to the delegation of Polish trade unionists. On the other hand, it acknowledges having refused a visa to Soviet and East German citizens intending to travel to Lisbon.
3. 82. The Committee must first of all recall that the right of trade unions to affiliate with international workers' organisations necessarily involves the right of national trade union organisations freely to maintain contact with the international organisations of workers to which they are affiliated.,
4. 83. The Committee notes however that representatives of the MTUI from India and Poland were allowed to enter Portuguese territory and consequently it does not seem to be for trade union reasons that the Soviet and East German citizens were unable to obtain visas. The fundamental question at issue in the present case therefore appears not to be an infringement of trade union rights but the sovereign right of a State to grant or deny entry to aliens wishing to enter into its territory. On this point, it is not within the competence of the Committee to deal with the matter, as it has already stated on several occasions.