GORZELIK AND OTHERS v. POLAND JUDGMENT 35 been prepared to accept it – but the content of paragraph 30 of the memorandum of association, which corresponded to the wording of section 5 of the 1993 Elections Act. It was the provisions of the memorandum of association, not its name, that would subsequently have been decisive for the State Electoral College in determining whether the association constituted a “registered organisation of a national minority”. It could be assumed that, even if the association had been registered as an organisation of “people of Silesian nationality” but with the disputed paragraph deleted from the memorandum, the applicants would not have been able to take advantage of the electoral privileges envisaged for national minorities. In the Government's submission, the applicants had been perfectly aware of that consequence as, otherwise, they would have accepted the Governor's proposal for the deletion of paragraph 30. 84. The Government added that, on the basis of that provision, the applicants would inevitably have acquired on registration of the association an unconditional right to benefit from preferential treatment under the 1993 Elections Act. Consequently, the authorities had had to act before that risk had become real and immediate since, at election time, all the measures available under the Law on associations would have either been inadequate or come too late. 85. In reality, under Polish law an association could only be dissolved if its activities demonstrated a flagrant or repeated non-compliance with the law or its memorandum of association. To begin with, there had been nothing in the stated aims of the association to cast doubt on their conformity with the law; the prime objective, which had been to obtain minority status, had not been articulated expressly. Secondly, had the applicants, or other members, stood for future parliamentary elections, there would have been no legal means to prevent them from taking advantage of the privileges under electoral law. 86. Running for election, in the legitimate exercise of a political right, could not be considered an unlawful activity under the Law on associations. At that stage the State Electoral College would have had no power to reject the declaration stating that the applicants had constituted an electoral committee of a registered organisation of a national minority, because their status would have been confirmed officially by the content of their memorandum of association and, in particular, paragraph 30 thereof. It would only have had the power to ascertain whether the declaration had been made by an authorised legal entity. 87. In sum, the Government considered that the restriction imposed on the exercise of the applicants' right to freedom of association had been necessary in a democratic society since it corresponded to a “pressing social need” and had been proportionate to the legitimate aims pursued. (c) The Court's assessment