46 GORZELIK AND OTHERS v. POLAND JUDGMENT – JOINT CONCURRING OPINION OF JUDGES COSTA AND ZUPANČIČ JOINED BY JUDGE KOVLER 5. The applicants sought to register the association. Under the Polish Law on associations, the decision whether or not to register is taken by the regional court with jurisdiction for the area in which the association has its headquarters, in this case, the Katowice Regional Court. The Regional Court granted registration. However, on an appeal by the Governor (in whom a supervisory power is vested by the Law on associations), the Court of Appeal overturned that order and rejected the application for registration of the Union. The Supreme Court then dismissed an appeal on points of law by the applicants against the Court of Appeal's judgment. Having exhausted domestic remedies, the applicants then turned their hopes to Strasbourg. 6. Both the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court based their reasoning on the realities behind the appearances (a practice to which we are not averse on principle, provided of course that it does not lead to accusations on the basis of supposed intentions). They found that for the purposes of domestic and international law no Silesian national minority existed (however, as they acknowledged, there is no definition of a national minority in any international instrument, not even the Council Europe Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, which Poland has signed and ratified). They also found that, through its choice of name and certain paragraphs in its memorandum of association, essentially paragraphs 10 and 30 cited above, the Union was effectively seeking to establish itself as the representative of that alleged national minority. Lastly, they were satisfied that the aim of the requested registration and its automatic consequence would be to enable the association to rely on section 5 of the 1993 Elections Act, in other words to gain an “advantage” at elections, as it would have an unchallengeable right to seats without having to reach the threshold which electoral lists were normally required to attain under the Act. 7. There is certainly room for doubt about these various points. 8. Admittedly, we would not venture to contest the argument regarding the lack of a Silesian “nation”, or the Court of Appeal's view that, in order to constitute a “national” minority, a group must be linked to a majority from outside Poland, such as the Germans, Ukrainians, Lithuanians or others. That is a political choice and a matter on which an international court could not dictate to a Contracting State without infringing upon the subsidiarity principle. Besides which, even though the Permanent Court of International Justice delivered two famous judgments concerning Polish Upper Silesia in 1926 and 1928 (Germany v. Poland, 25 May 1926, Series A no. 7, and 26 April 1928, Series A no. 15), questions relating to national minorities are complex and still somewhat vague. 9. More debatable, however, is the view that the Union's real intention was to gain electoral advantage (although that does seem probable from the case file at least), and, above all, the notion that the automatic consequence of registration of a national minority organisation was to gain exemption