Strasbourg Appeals

Practical guidance on submitting applications to the European Court of Human Rights.

Bringing an application to Strasbourg is not an easy one to navigate, and you may need help. Often procedural mistakes are made which will prevent the court from even considering an application. However, even where this is not the case, a poorly presented application will not do justice to an applicant’s complaints and a failure to follow the correct procedures will result in increased delay.

To apply, or not to apply

This means answering the following questions:

A •Is the applicant a victim of the alleged violation?

B •Can the alleged violation be attributed to the state?

C •Is the complaint substantially the same as one previously submitted by the applicant to the court or any other international tribunal?

D •Has the applicant exhausted domestic remedies?

E •Have more than six months elapsed since the date of the last effective domestic decision?

F •Has the applicant suffered a significant disadvantage?

Submitting an application

Remember the to the six-month limitation time limit. Can get an extra 8 weeks by writing to the court indicating an intention to submit an application. Applicants will then be given eight weeks to an application form.

Completing the application form

The application must be :

•Be coherent and legible;

•Clearly identify the respondent state

•Include copies of any relevant document  and

•State whether the applicant has used another international method of settlement.

Extra tips

Applications should include the correct name and address of both the applicant and representative. The court should be notified immediately of any changes.

•Form of authority: The representative named on the form will be the representative named in any judgment. All representatives wishing to be so named should be listed on the form and a fresh form of authority submitted for any new representative.

Adding complaints after an application has been communicated to the member state requires the permission of the court. All the complaints should therefore be included in the original application.

•Although complaints should be particularised and clearly explained, the form will be considered by domestically trained lawyers able to identify an arguable complaint from a succinct statement of the facts and alleged violations. The real key hurdle is to get their attention, and make the application interesting and ‘sexy’.

•Be succinct:

After the application is filed

An application will be registered by the court and assessed by a lawyer. If the lawyer believes that the application is clearly inadmissible, the case will usually be sent promptly to a single judge, who can declare it inadmissible.

A chamber of seven judges may also declare an application inadmissible at this stage in an inadmissibility de plano decision. As decisions of the chamber are published on the court’s website, this procedure is only used if it is desirable that the decision be made public.

If the lawyer considers that the application discloses an arguable violation of the convention, in due course a report will be prepared communicating some or all of the applicant’s complaints to the respondent state’s government and requesting written observations from the parties.

Unless the application is given priority status, it is unlikely to be communicated immediately. Priority status is normally granted to expulsion cases and applications which contain complaints under articles 2, 3 and 5 of the convention. The court may also prioritise a case where the applicant’s personal circumstances necessitate it, for example on account of their age or ill health. Most applications to not get currently and the process is not quick

Applying to the European Court of Human Rights can be a slow and frustrating process. But writing to the court to speed up the process is counter-productive. The court  follows its own internal prioritisation system and such chasing correspondence only creates additional delay.

Final note

The practices and procedures of the European Court of Human Rights are complex and this guide is only intended to provide a brief outline of some of the more important requirements.

Anyone considering bringing an application to Strasbourg should first consult the court’s website which contains extensive information about the application procedure and the admissibility criteria. An expert lawyer’s advice is a very good idea. Here at Hylton-Potts we offer highly competitive fixed fees.