THE EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS

The European Court of Human Rights is an international court set up in 1959. It rules on individual or State applications alleging violations of the civil and political rights set out in the European Convention on Human Rights. Since 1998 it has sat as a full-time court and individuals can apply to it directly. The Court examined hundreds of thousands applications since it was set up. Its judgments are binding on the countries concerned and have led governments to alter their legislation and administrative practice in a wide range of areas. The Court’s case-law makes the Convention a modern and powerful living instrument for meeting new challenges and consolidating the rule of law and democracy in Europe. The Court is based in Strasbourg, in the Human Rights Building designed by the British architect Lord Richard Rogers in 1995 – a building whose image is known worldwide. From here, the Court monitors respect for the human rights of 700 million Europeans in the 46 Council of Europe member States that have ratified the Convention.

European Convention on Human Rights

The Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, better known as the European Convention on Human Rights, was signed in Rome (Italy) on 4 November 1950 by 12 member states of the Council of Europe and entered into force on 3 September 1953.

It was the first instrument to give effect and binding force to certain of the rights stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It was also the first treaty to establish a supranational organ to ensure that the States Parties fulfilled their undertakings. The Convention was a milestone in the development of international law. Once states had accepted that a supranational court could challenge decisions taken by their own courts, human rights de facto gained precedence over national legislation and practice.

Any individual, group of individuals, company or non-governmental organization can apply to the Strasbourg Court, provided that they have exhausted all domestic remedies.

In order to join the Council of Europe, a State must first sign and ratify the European Convention on Human Rights, thus confirming its commitments to the aims of the Organization, namely the achievement of greater unity between its members based on human rights and fundamental freedoms, peace and respect for democracy and the Rule of Law.

Structure of the European Court of Human Rights

It is possible to divide the units in the Court into administrative and judicial units.

Administrative Units

The administrative units in the court are: The General Assembly of the Court, the sections and the filtering section.

General Assembly of the Court

Adoption of the Rules of Court can be considered as its most important duty. The selection of the court's administrative staff is also one of its duties: President, two vice presidents and three department heads. The vice-presidents also continue to serve as the head of the department they are in. Each of them is selected for a three-year term. On the other hand, the General Assembly also elects the Registrar and his deputy for five years. It also decides on the composition of the members of the sections and may propose to the Committee of Ministers to reduce the number of members of the chambers from seven to five for a certain period of time (Convention, art. 25).

Sections

Five sections have been established as an administrative structure within the Court. According to the Rules of Court, each judge serves in one of the five sections. In the division of judges into sections, attention is paid to the balanced representation of geographical regions, gender and different legal systems owned by the Contracting States. In addition, the composition of the sections is changed every three years.

Filtering Section

The single-judge formation created by the entry into force of Protocol No. 14 has yielded extremely useful results in terms of eliminating applications that are clearly inadmissible before the Court. In order to benefit more from this situation, the reorganization was carried out within the the Registry. Thus, in addition to the previous five chapters, a "sixth chapter" (although not officially named as such) was established. This section works in subdivisions composed of lawyers from the five countries with the most applications. The aim here is to provide a standard for inadmissibility decisions, to make the admissibility procedure more rational and to correct working procedures.

Judicial Units

Judicial units in the court can be listed as follows: Chambers, Committees, Single Judge, Grand Chamber.

Chambers

Chambers are formed in each section. The Chamber shall in each case include the President of the Section and the judge elected in respect of any Contracting Party concerned. If the application is against the Contracting State which the head of section is elected, he or she shall be replaced by the Vice-Presidents of the Sections. The members of the Section who are not so designated shall sit in the case as substitute judges.

Committees

Committees composed of three judges belonging to the same Section shall be set up for a period of twelve months. In particular, the committees shall decide on applications in respect of which the settled case-law of the Court is at stake.

Single-judge formation

It is the judicial unit tasked with eliminating clearly inadmissible applications and manifestly ill-founded applications. Such applications actually constitute approximately 90% of the applications before the Court. A judge may not examine as a single judge any application against the Contracting Party in respect of which that judge has been elected.

Grand Chamber

The Grand Chamber shall be composed of seventeen judges and at least three substitute judges. The Grand Chamber shall include the President and the Vice-Presidents of the Court and the Presidents of the Sections. The judge elected in respect of the Contracting Party concerned or, where appropriate, the judge designated by virtue of Rule 29 or Rule 30 shall sit as an ex officio member of the Grand Chamber in accordance with Article 26 §§ 4 and 5 of the Convention. The judges and substitute judges who are to complete the Grand Chamber in each case referred to it shall be designated from among the remaining judges by a drawing of lots by the President of the Court in the presence of the Registrar. The Grand Chamber examines the cases raising serious questions affecting the interpretation of the Convention or the Protocols thereto. The Chambers may relinquish jurisdiction in favour of the Grand Chamber at any stage of the proceedings. Any party to a case may exceptionally, within a period of three months from the date of delivery of the judgment of a Chamber, file in writing at the Registry a request that the case be referred to the Grand Chamber. A panel of five judges of the Grand Chamber shall examine the request solely on the basis of the existing case file. If the panel accepts the request, the Grand Chamber shall decide the case by means of a judgment.

The Registry

The Registry assumes the role of providing legal and administrative support to the Court in the performance of its judicial duties. The Registry consists of lawyers, administrative and technical personnel and translators.
The Registrar elected by the General Assembly of the Court is the highest official of the The Registry under the authority of the President of the Court. The General Assembly of the Court shall elect a Deputy Registrar to assist the Registrar in his duties. In addition, a registrar and deputy registrar serve in each section of the Court.

The lawyers in the Registry serve in thirty-five offices (divisions) of the Court, which we can refer to as subdivisions of the divisions. These lawyers make correspondence with the parties on procedural issues and prepare analytical notes and files to be submitted to the attention of the judges. These lawyers do not have a power to make a decision about the applications. Applications to the Court can be referred to different offices within the framework of the legal system of the relevant country and the language of the application. All documents prepared by the Registry for the Court are written in one of the two official languages.

Procedure

States parties to the Convention or anyone claiming to be a victim of a breach of the Convention may apply to the ECtHR with a petition alleging that one or more of its rights under the Convention have been infringed by the State party. The proceedings before the court are open to the public and comply with the principle of adversarial trial. In addition, most of the examine is done in writing. Hearings are conducted in very few cases and are open to the public, but the Grand Chamber may also order closure in the presence of exceptional circumstances.Individuals can apply themselves or through a lawyer. However, when the application is communicated to the government, the applicants must be represented by a lawyer. The Council of Europe has adopted a legal aid system for applicants who do not have sufficient means. The official languages of the Court are French and English, but it is possible for applications to be made in one of the languages of the States Parties. However, once the application has been communicated to the Government, one of the official languages of the Court must be used. However, the President of the Court or the President of the Chamber may decide that the applicant may continue to use his/her own language at a later stage.Within the framework of this procedure, it is foreseen that the application is communicated the government in order to submit its observations on admissibility and merits. It has now become the usual procedure for the Court to examine the admissibility and merits together. In principle, the government must submit its observations (defence) within a period of 16 weeks. These observations are then forwarded to the applicant to submit his answer within a period of 4 weeks. At this stage, the applicant is also asked to submit his or her just satisfaction claims. The applicant's response and claims are sent to the government for the last time so that they can present their observations. After these observations, the judge-rapporteur brings the application, the draft decision of which has been prepared, to the front of the chamber for the decision.The determination of the Chamber that one or more of the rights in the Convention have been violated generally leads to the payment of some money to the applicant within the framework of Article 41. At the same time, based on Article 46, the Chamber may issue directives regarding the structural problem at the source of the detected violation and the measures to be taken to solve it.The judgments of the Chamber are not final. If there is no such request at the end of the three-month period they have to take the decision of one of the parties to the Grand Chamber, or if the parties have waived their requests in this direction, or if the request has been rejected by the Panel, the judgment of the chamber shall become final.All the decisions and judgments of the Court are binding. The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe is responsible for the execution of the Court's judgments. The execution of friendly settlement is also within this scope. The Committee of Ministers shall supervise whether the State concerned has taken the necessary general or special measures for the execution of the judgments on the matter in respect of which the breach of the Convention has been established. On the other hand, Protocol No. 14 amended Article 46 and adopted two new procedures for the implementation phase: These are that the Committee of Ministers can request the Court to clarify the meaning of the decision and to assess whether the State concerned has implemented the decision correctly.

Rights Guaranteed by the Convention and the Protocols thereto