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a) Procedure for the Submission of Complaints
Any Contracting State (State application) or individual claiming to be a victim of a violation of the Convention (individual application) may lodge directly with the Court in Strasbourg an application alleging a breach by a Contracting State of one of the Convention rights. An application form is included in Part II, and may also be obtained from the European Court website at: http://www.echr.coe.int/Application%20forms/Formule-bil1.pdf Notes for the guidance of persons wishing to apply to the European Court of Human Rights, and an explanatory note for persons competing the Application Form can also be found at: http://www.echr.coe.int/Notesfor%20guidanceApplicants/NoticeENG.pdf and http://www.echr.coe.int/Explanatory%20Notes/note-eng.pdf respectively. b) Third Party Intervention Under Art. 36, a Contracting Party may submit materials and take part in hearings. In addition, the President of the Court may invite any Contracting Party who is not party to the proceedings, or any person concerned, to submit written comments or to take part in hearings. Non-governmental organizations may also file amicus briefs where they can show that they have an interest in the case or special knowledge of the subject matter, and that their intervention would serve the administration of justice. 15 c) Powers of the Court Article 38 allows the court to assist the parties in reaching a "friendly settlement". Under Art. 41 of the Convention, where a Contracting Party is in breach of its obligation under the Convention, and if its domestic law does not provide for adequate reparation of that breach, then the Court has the right to make an award of just satisfaction to the injured Party. 16 It may also award both pecuniary and non-pecuniary damages payable within three months of judgment. 17 Article 46 states that the Court's judgments are binding and final, and that Contracting Parties undertake to abide by these judgments. In practice this means that although Contracting Parties are obligated to take general measures to abide by the Court's decisions, it is within their discretion to decide to take a particular action in response to a violation. The Court does not have the power to recommend specific measures. Finally, under Article 47, the Court may, at the request of the Committee of Ministers, give advisory opinions on legal questions concerning the interpretation of the Convention and Protocols. d) Helpful Tips: (a) The procedure before the new European Court of Human Rights is adversarial and public. Hearings are, in principle, public, unless the Chamber/Grand Chamber decides otherwise on account of exceptional circumstances. Memorials and other documents filed with the Court's Registry by the parties are therefore accessible to the public. (b) Individual applicants may submit applications themselves, but legal representation is recommended, and even required for hearings or after a decision declaring an application admissible. The Council of Europe has set up a legal aid scheme for applicants who do not have sufficient means. (c) The official languages of the Court are English and French, but applications may be drafted in one of the official languages of the Contracting States. Once the application has been declared admissible, one of the Court's official languages must be used, unless the President of the Chamber/Grand Chamber authorises the continued use of the language of the application. (d) It is crucial that individuals and States Parties have exercised all other option available to them domestically before submitting an application to the European Court. The European Convention is subsidiary to national laws. Examples of decisions on exhaustion of domestic remedies may be found in the "Case-law" section of Part II. (e) Responsibility for supervising the execution of judgments and friendly settlements lies with the Committee of Ministers. It is thus for the Committee of Ministers to verify whether States in respect of which a violation of the Convention is found have taken adequate remedial measures to comply with the specific or general obligations arising out of the Court's judgments. Details of amended legislation following European Court decisions appear in the published Collection of Resolutions. Protocol No. 11 amends the Convention to allow these briefs. It is the goal of the Court to place the applicant as close as possible to the position in which he would have been had the violation of the Convention not taken place: Piersack v. Belgium, Series A, Volume 85 (23 October 1984). See Moreira De Azevedo v. Portugal, Series A,Volume 208-C (28 August 1991) at 30; Kremzow v. Austria, Series A., Volume 268-B (21 September 1993) at 34; Dombo Beheer B.V. v. The Netherlands, Series A, Volume 274 (27 October 1993) at 41; see Zwaak, L.F., "The Effects of Final Decisions of the Supervisory Organs Under the European Convention on Human Rights" in Bayefsky, A.F., The UN Human Rights Treaty System in the 21st Century (The Hague, London, Boston: Kluwer Law International, 2000) at 255 for a fuller discussion of case-law regarding compensatory awards of the European Court.
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