European Court of Justice (ECJ) [official website] Advocate General Eleanor Sharpston [official profile] released two opinions Thursday arguing that Hamas and the Tamil Tigers [opinions] should be removed from the EU’s Terror List [official website]. The opinions reason that because the organizations’ governments followed the wrong procedures when including the two groups the court should reevaluate their place on the list. If the Advocate General’s recommendation is heeded by the ECJ, the organizations will be removed from the Terror List and sanctions in relations to the list will be lifted. The groups’ assets will cease to be frozen and the EU will cease to make extra efforts to stop any European funding from reaching them. EU officials would also be permitted to hold direct talks with senior members of either group.

Terror Lists have come under fire in the last several years for violating the basic human rights [JURIST reports] of those affected by the blacklisting. This is the second time that the place of Hamas and the Tamil Tigers on the Terror List has been in dispute. In 2014 the EU’s second-highest court [WSJ report] ruled that the groups’ inclusion on the list had not followed official procedures and had been decided on “factual imputations derived from the press and the Internet.”