II. THE COURT

The applicant is only sent the Report if and when the case is referred to the Court.

If the case is referred to the Court, you then start all over again as though all the work that had been done on the observations and the brief had never happened. The Court is only given the Article 31 Report — not all the documentation that was on the Commission' file. So you have to put all your factual material and all your arguments in all over again. So always make sure that you have kept copies of everything. You cannot assume that the Court has all the information that was before the Commission. When I first started to appear in cases before the Court I didn't realise that they didn't get the whole Commission file. In Gul v. Switzerland, we found that the Court made quite erroneous factual assumptions about the case by drawing inferences from the Article 31 Report but not having the full facts before it. The same practical advice applies to preparing the memorials for the Court and the speech for the oral hearing as applies to a hearing before the Commission.

One thing to note is that although you can, by arrangement, use your own

language at the Court — if it is not English or French — and you will be translated, the Court does not provide translation into your language.

Don't forget to keep full notes on your files of the real costs of preparing the case

with a view to preparing the bill which you submit to the Court with the memorials in order for the Government to pay your legal costs when you win!

CONTENTS

UNIT ONE. HUMAN RIGHTS HISTORY

UNIT TWO. HUMAN RIGHTS AS AN INTERNATIONAL ISSUE

UNIT THREE. EUROPEAN PROTECTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS

UNIT FOUR. THE STRUCTURE OF THE NEW COURT

UNIT FIVE. PROCEDURE BEFORE THE COURT

UNIT SIX. THE RIGHT TO A FAIR TRIAL

UNIT SEVEN. A Practitioner's Guide to the European Convention on Human Rights

UNIT EIGHT. RECENT DECISIONS OF THE EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS

UNIT NINE. CASE OF BRUMARESCU v. ROMANIA

UNIT TEN. WHAT CASES THE EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS CAN DEAL WITH

UNIT ELEVEN. THE CONVENTION FOR THE PROTECTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND FUNDAMENTAL FREEDOMS

UNIT TWELVE. HUMAN RIGHTS IN UKRAINE

UNIT THIRTEEN. HUMAN RIGHTS PROTECTION AT THE INTERNATIONAL LEVEL

The European Court of Human Rights is currently overloaded with cases (there were almost 150,000 pending applications at the end of March 2012). Some 90% of all applications are eventually declared inadmissible. Such cases clog up the Court's docket and obstruct its examination of more deserving cases where the admissibility requirements have been satisfied and which may concern serious allegations of human rights violations.The 2010 Interlaken Conference on the reform of the Court called upon the "States Parties and the Court to ensure that comprehensive and objective information is provided to potential applicants on the Convention and the Court's case-law, in particular on the application procedures and admissibility criteria".The Court's first response to this call was to prepare this practical guide on admissibility criteria. The guide seeks to reduce the number of obviously inadmissible cases by enabling legal practitioners to properly advise their clients on their chances of bringing an admissible application.This second edition covers case-law up to the end of March 2011. In addition to this guide the Court has launched a short video as well as an interactive admissibility checklist. These tools are aimed at providing lay applicants with more succinct information on the admissibility criteria.

ECHR VIDEO ON ADMISSIBILITY CONDITIONS