26 GORZELIK AND OTHERS v. POLAND JUDGMENT In that connection, the Court also notes that the central issue underlying the applicants' grievance is the refusal to register their association as an “organisation of the Silesian national minority” (see paragraphs 22, 48 and 50 above). B. Whether the interference was justified 53. The impugned restriction will not be justified under the terms of Article 11 unless it was “prescribed by law”, pursued one or more of the legitimate aims set out in paragraph 2 of that Article and was “necessary in a democratic society” for the achievement of those aims. 1. “Prescribed by law” (a) The Chamber's judgment 54. The Chamber, finding that the refusal to register the applicants' association was based on a number of legal provisions, including Article 32 of the Constitution, Articles 5 and 58 of the Civil Code and sections 8, 10(1) (i) and (iv) and 14 of the Law on associations, held that the restriction on their freedom of association had been “prescribed by law” (see paragraph 38 of the Chamber's judgment). (b) The parties' submissions to the Grand Chamber (i) The applicants 55. The applicants contested the Chamber's conclusion. They argued, first and foremost, that they had been denied the right to form an association not because they had failed to meet the requirements for registration laid down in the Law on associations, or because their aims or the means of their achievement had been contrary to the law, but solely because the authorities considered that there was no Silesian national minority in Poland. 56. That opinion was, they stressed, completely arbitrary. It was based on purely political, not legal or factual, grounds. Thus, in reality, there had been no possibility of ascertaining whether or not a given group constituted a national minority, since under Polish law there was still no procedure whereby a minority could seek legal recognition or provision defining the notion of “national” or “ethnic” minority. They asserted that that lacuna in the law made it impossible for them to determine how to form an association comprising members of a minority group wishing to pursue common goals. They also noted that the Chamber had already found that the absence of any such legal criteria left the authorities a degree of latitude and made the situation of the individual uncertain. In their view, the power of appreciation