The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg (“the Court”) is often referred to as the last resort of justice to which an individual may turn if they feel aggrieved by a decision or action of their state. Each year, the Court receives tens of thousands of applications, but more than ninety per cent of them are rejected before they even reach the judges. The reason is usually not that the applicants are wrong, but rather that their submissions do not meet the formal or procedural requirements. A successful application must above all be complete, comprehensible and timely. Otherwise, the Court will not examine the application at all.

The Court also does not examine every “injustice” that applicants might feel, but only those cases where there has been a violation of rights guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights or one of its additional protocols (“the Convention”). This means that one cannot invoke any feeling of injustice or ill-treatment – the Court may only decide if a specific right guaranteed by the Convention has been violated, for example the right to a fair trial, freedom of expression or the prohibition of discrimination. Moreover, an application may be directed exclusively against a state which has ratified the Convention. One cannot turn to the Court with problems between private individuals, for example in a dispute with an employer or a neighbour, unless a public authority has intervened in it.

The Convention is based on the assumption that responsibility for ensuring respect for human rights lies primarily with the states themselves. Therefore, one may only turn to the Court after all available domestic remedies have been exhausted, including extraordinary remedies. The Court is not a superior court to domestic courts, but an international supervisory mechanism which intervenes only when the state has, as it were, “failed” and permitted interference with Convention-guaranteed rights. Only after the decision of the last competent authority does the four-month time limit begin to run, within which the application must be sent to Strasbourg. After its expiry, the submission is automatically rejected, even if it is delayed by only a single day.

The actual form of the submission is crucial. The Court accepts exclusively applications submitted on the official form. The form must be completed fully and legibly. It is important that from the form itself it should be possible to understand what happened, who is responsible and how the applicant attempted to seek redress in their state. It is precisely the brevity and clarity of the form that helps the Court quickly assess whether the application is admissible at all. In addition to the completed form, it is necessary to attach copies of all decisions of domestic courts or administrative authorities, not only the decision of the last one. Furthermore, it is advisable to attach all other documents from which information essential for the Court’s decision-making will emerge. From all these documents it must be apparent wherein the violation of Convention-guaranteed rights is seen, and that the applicant actually raised all their objections already in proceedings before the domestic courts. If the submission is incomplete or essential documents are missing, the Court will reject it without further ado, without examining the merits of the case itself.

Among the most common errors are incomplete forms, missing summaries of factual circumstances, use of an outdated version of the form, failure to provide judgments or late submission. Many applications also founder on a failure to understand that the ECHR is not a further instance which should rectify incorrect decisions of domestic courts.

Although the chances of success are not high, a well-prepared application can lead not only to compensation for a specific individual, but also to a change in domestic practice or legislation. Sometimes one case is sufficient to compel a state to change a long-standing problematic law or judicial practice. Lodging an application with the Court is therefore not a step of “desperation”, but a means which enables an individual to obtain justice even against their own state. An application to the European Court of Human Rights therefore represents an exceptional means of protection which is intended to complement, but not to replace, the domestic system.

This text was translated from Czech to English using an AI translator.