European Court of Human Rights, August 1998

The European Court of Human Rights, based in Strasbourg, was established in 1959 under the Council of Europe's Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (Rome, 1950). The Council of Europe is anintergovernmental organisation which aims to protecthuman rights and democracy, promote cultural identity and seek solutions to major social problems. Founded in 1949 it now has forty members, including the fifteen EU Member States, but unlike the EU it has only two working languages - French and English. Considerable background information about its activities together with the full text of its conventions can be found at its web site at http://www.coe.int/DefaultEN.asp. Under the European Convention on Human Rights, any individual who feels that his or her rights have been violated by a contracting state may take the case to the European Court of Human Rights provided that all national remedies have first been exhausted. Cases may also be brought by a group of individuals, a non-governmental organisation or a state. Currently the matter is first examined by the European Commission of Human Rights which rules on the admissibility of the case, seeks to secure a settlement where possible or failing that, draws up a report and the case may then be referred to the Court whose judgment is final.

Under the present system there may be lengthy delays but from November, in an attempt to overcome this, the system is to be streamlined. The Commission is to merge with the Court, which will become a permanent Court instead of sitting simply for a weekly session each month. These changes will in due course be reflected in the organisation and presentation of the web sites but at present the full text of a considerable amount of material relating to the activities of the European Court of Human Rights, its constitution, rules, procedures and the cases brought before it can be found in both English and French at http://www.dhcour.coe.fr/ while the web site of the European Commission of Human Rights at http://www.dhcomm.coe.fr/ lists details of sessions, information on admissibility of applications and recent reports adopted.

The web site of the Court offers a summary of statistics of cases brought from 1960-1998, lists of pending cases and scheduled public hearings to check on progress, basic texts of the Court, press communiqués issued by the Registrar of the Court (in full text from 1997 to date), selected key speeches and - most importantly - the judgments. All judgments from 1959 are listed, but only those from October 1996 to date are currently available in full text at no charge. Earlier ones are available in print in Reports of judgments and decisions (Carl Heymanns Verlag, Köln) or electronically through LEXIS from 1972. The Court web site was originally seen as offering a route to a document delivery service. However, the Court's documentation centre is in the process of introducing a new computer system which it hopes will enable it to open up access via the Internet and at the same time it has plans as a result of the transition to mount the full text of the backfile of case reports, creating not just a document delivery option but a search facility as well. Recent judgments are usually loaded on the day of delivery and are listed in date order. There is, however, a very basic if somewhat unsatisfactory search engine which requires the searcher to scroll down on the initial Court screen and is easily overlooked. Searching by party is possible but there is no way of restricting the type of document retrieved to, for example, simply judgments and it is not possible to search for records relating to a particular article of a convention. The new system software will no doubt offer a much more userfriendly and accurate search facility. An additional and potentially interesting section under judgments is that relating to the effects of judgments where details are given of changes to the law that have been introduced by member countries following decisions of the Court.

Internet address
http://www.dhcour.coe.fr/