
Taking a case to the european court of human rights
Individual complaints concern an ever-broadening range of issues:
disappearances and unlawful killings;
torture and ill-treatment of detainees;
arbitrary loss of liberty;
lack of access to a court;
lack of a fair trial within a reasonable time;
telephone tapping;
deportation and extradition;
discrimination against homosexuals;
freedom of the press;
rights of parents of children taken into care;
interference with property rights;
dissolution of political parties.
There are three key requirements that you must meet:
1. You must be a victim of a violation of one or more of the articles of the Convention. Generally, this means you must be directly affected by a breach of the Convention. In some cases it will be enough to show you are likely to be affected by a breach or that you belong to a group of people, some of whom are likely to be affected. For example, gay men were permitted to challenge laws that criminalized gay sex even though it was unlikely that the individual applicants would ever be prosecuted because the laws were rarely enforced.
2. Before you make an application to the ECHR you must pursue any proceedings that you could take in your state that are capable of providing you with an adequate remedy for the breach of your Convention rights.
3. You must make your application to the ECHR within six months of the conclusion of any court proceedings that you have taken in your state that could have provided you with a remedy or, if there were no proceedings that it was reasonable to expect you to take, within six months of the alleged breach of your Convention right.
When you make an application to the ECHR you will be asked to complete one of the ECHR’s application forms. However, it is not necessary to fill out one of these forms to meet the six month rule. All you need to do is to get a letter to the court within the six months setting out:
1. Your details (name, address and nationality).
2. The country against which you are making your application.
3. The facts that have given rise to your application.
4. The article or articles of the Convention that you say have been breached.
You should send your letter to:
The Registrar
European Court of Human Rights Council of Europe 67075 Strasbourg- Cedex France
Fax: 00 33 3 88 4127 30 Tel: 00 33 3 88 412018
When it has received your letter the ECHR will send you one of its application forms to complete. If there is not enough space on the form you can set out your case in a longer document which you attach to the form. It is important that you submit your completed application form within any deadline set by the ECHR or, if no deadline is set, within a few weeks of receiving it. If you do not submit the form speedily you run the risk that the ECHR will decide that you have not met the six month deadline. If you cannot meet any deadline that is set you should contact the ECHR and try to agree an extended deadline.
Once the ECHR has acknowledged receipt of your application form it may be some time (months if not years) before you hear anything further.
At this stage the ECHR may rule your application inadmissible. The ECHR will not give reasons and there is no right of appeal. If your application is ruled inadmissible you will not be able to proceed with it.
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