The Gazette 1973

The task of the Commission is to establish the facts of an application and then to try and effect a friendly settlement between the parties on the basis of respect for human rights. If this is achieved, a brief report of the facts and the solution reached is drawn up, if not, the Commission gives its opinion as to whether on the facts, a breach of the Convention has taken place. The Commission's report are confidential and only published if the case is referred to the Court or if the Committee of Ministers or Commission itself decides. The report is transmitted to the Committee of Minis- ters of the Council of Europe and two things may then happen. The case may be referred to the European Court of Human Rights either by the Commission or the State concerned but not, be it noted, by an indivi- dual, or if it is not referred to the Court within three months, the Committee of Ministers must take a deci- sion on the case. The optional jurisdiction of the European Court As I mentioned already, the jurisdiction of the Court was made optional in the same way as the right of individual petition. The Court achieved its competence to hear cases in 1958. It is accepted at present by the same eleven countries who have accepted the right of individual petition. The first case to come before the Court was that of Lawless v. Ireland. Besides the sub- stantive issue involved this case is procedurally important in that it upheld the right of the Commission to obtain and communicate to the Court the views of the appli- cant or the Commission's report, as well as any other views of the applicant in the course of the proceedings. In a later case, De Wilde, Ooms and Versyh v. Belgium the vagrancy cases, the Court allowed the applicant's lawyer to be present, and on call of the Commission delegates to make a short statement on certain factual points. Thus while not an actual party to proceedings before the Court, practice has allowed a not insignifi- cant degree of representation for the individual appli- cant. If it finds against the State and the internal law of that State allows for only partial reparation to be made, the Court may, under Article 50, award just satisfaction to the injured party. Applications for "just satisfaction" at the successful close of a case for an injured party are becoming a feature of cases before the Court. Thus last June D.M. 20,000 were awarded to the applicant in the case of Ringeisen v. Austria for wrongful detention contrary to Article 5 (3) right of detained person to be brought promptly before a judge. It is the duty of the Committee of Ministers to supervise the execution of the Court's judgement.

party to the Convention can refer to the Commission a breach of the Convention by another State party. But the most dramatic feature of the implementation provisions is Article 25. An individual, or group of individuals, claiming to be the victim of a violation of the Convention by a State party, may complain by petition to the Commission. Thus, it must now be accepted that the individual has a standing in inter- national law. He is no longer dependent for protection on the intervention of his own or indeed of any govern- ment. The Convention has dispensed with the require- ment of nationality. Its rights are expressly guaranteed to all persons, in contrast for example, with the Consti- tution of Ireland, where rights are guaranteed to the citizen. To secure acceptance of the Convention, it was found necessary t o make the right of individual petition optional—it may be accepted by a declaration of a State party. The Commission became competent to hear indivi- dual petitions on the deposit of the Sixth Declaration on 5th July 1955. Ireland's declaration was made on the day we ratified the Convention itself, 25th February 1953. At present eleven countries have made the neces- sary declaration—Austria, Belgium, Denmark, West Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom. The signa- tories who have not accepted the right of individual petition are Cyprus, Italy, Malta and Turkey. This has been the cornerstone of the Convention machinery. Up to the end of August 1972 there have been ten cases brought by one member State against another. In fact these fall into four groups : (a) Two by Greece against the United Kingdom, arising out of incidents in Cyprus in 1956-57. (b) One by Austria against Italy in 1960. (c) Five applications against Greece by some or all of Denmark, Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands from 1967-70. (d) Two by Ireland against the United Kingdom in December 1971 and March 1972. Procedure in Individual cases The number of individual petitions up to August 1972 was 5,740. While, of these, only 114 were declared admissible and dealt with by the Court or the Com- mittee of Ministers, or are still pending, the importance of the right of individual petition in the day-to-day working of the Convention is clear. This is reinforced, when we remember that many of the cases brought are test cases, whose outcome can have an effect far wider than the individual case.

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