Monday 15 December 2014

Updated Court Admissibility Guide Available

Earlier this month, the Court presented an updated version of its Practical Guide on Admissibility Criteria. This third edition is updated with case-law until 1 January 2014 and includes the procedural conditions which became stricter on that first day of 2014. The Guide is also available in hard copy with Wolf Legal Publishers. As with the previous editions, it will eventually be translated in a large number of state party languages (see for current translations of the second edition here). The need for such a compilation remains pressing: still the large majority of the applications reaching Strasbourg is dismissed for failing to meet the admissibility criteria (92% in 2013). This is not only a setback for those applying, but also leads to an enormous amount of extra (and for a large part unnecessary) work for the European Court. No wonder then that the Court's current President Dean Spielmann said the following at the launch of this third edition: "In spite of the important reduction in the number of pending cases over the last years, the Court still receives far too many applications that should never have been brought as they fail to meet these various requirements. Practitioners should study this Practical Guide carefully before deciding to bring a case. By so doing they will make an important contribution to the effectiveness of the European Convention on Human Rights.” There indeed is a link between sound legal advice by national lawyers and the workload of the Court. This makes the translation into the main languages of countries from which most applications stem all the more urgent. This is the book's description:

As of 1 November 2014, about 78,000 applications were pending before a judicial formation of the Court. Although the Court’s docket has been reduced by nearly 50% over the last three years, this still represents a very significant number of cases to be brought before an international tribunal and continues to threaten the effectiveness of the right of petition enshrined in the Convention. The vast majority of cases (92% in 2013) will be rejected by the Court on one of the grounds of inadmissibility. Such cases clog up the Court’s docket and obstruct the 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 the call was to prepare a Practical Guide on Admissibility Criteria which clearly sets out the rules and case-law concerning admissibility. This third edition covers case-law up to 1 January 2014 and the stricter procedural conditions for applying to the Court which came into force on that date. Practitioners and prospective applicants should study this Practical Guide carefully before deciding to bring a case before the European Court of Human Rights.