Court of Human Rights’ reforms to speed up cases

Date: 01/10/1998

By Myles Neligan

AS 1 November approaches, lawyers and staff at the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights are preparing for the most profound reforms in the institution's 30-year history.

“We are in a state of flux,” said one court official.

The court acts as the guardian of the 1959 Convention for the Protection of Human Rights, whose signatories extend across the European continent from Portugal to Russia, covering an area which is home to more than 800 million people.

The 40 countries over which the court has jurisdiction signed up to the reform package last year after it became apparent that the institution was in danger of being buried under a backlog of cases.

A 1995 report showed that it took an average of five years for the court to deliver a judgement, at a time when it was increasingly being called on to intervene in high-profile cases involving serious human rights abuses in central and eastern Europe.

The aim of the reforms is to speed up the handling of cases and make it easier for citizens to refer alleged human rights violations to the court.

To this end, from 1 November a majority of cases will be heard by just seven judges, in contrast to the existing system of assembling 21-member panels.

After the changes, the more difficult cases will go to a 17-strong Grand Chamber rather than to the assembly of all 40 judges. Officials say that very few cases will in future be referred to the full court.

In addition, the practice of filtering outstanding lawsuits through the affiliated Commission of Human Rights, the body currently charged with deciding which cases should be referred to the full court for judgement, will be abolished. Instead, a slimmed-down review panel will take over the task of deciding which lawsuits are admissible. Existing restrictions on complainants representing themselves will also be lifted.

Lawyers say the abolition of the old two-tier system is of great symbolic importance. “It means that citizens will be able to appeal directly to the court for the first time,” said a spokesman. “It is a more streamlined procedure, which will give applicants more direct experience of the execution of judgements.”

Supporters of the reforms say that they will bring the Court of Human Rights a step closer to becoming a full judicial body, with the power to force governments to abide by its rulings.

Human rights lawyers predict that the overhaul will boost the court's profile, making it more politically difficult for governments to ignore its judgements.

The court has scored some notable successes, for example in 1996 when a landmark decision was instrumental in forcing the UK to change its rules on imposing custodial sentences on minors. However, critics say that too much depends on governments' sensitivity to being sanctioned by the court, pointing out that its frequent criticism of Turkey for violating the rights of Kurdish separatists has so far failed to achieve the desired results.

“These reforms usher in some major changes, it's true. But I am somewhat sceptical. We will have to wait and see,” said Lotte Leicht, director of Human Rights Watch.

Campaigners say that the only way of giving the court some teeth would be to forge stronger political ties between the 40 countries which fall within its jurisdiction.