Transcript European court of Human Rights

European court of Human
Rights
2012/2013
Council of Europe
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) was
established by the 1950 European Convention for the
Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.
The task of the Council of Europe was :
- supervising, together with the European Commission of
Human Rights, set up in 1953,
- the observance of the rights and freedoms.

What for?
 The impetus from the adoption of the 1950 European
Convention came from:
 the atrocities committed in Europe before and during
the WWII and
 the desire to bring the non-Communist countries of
Europe together within a common ideological
framework, stressing individual civil and political
freedoms and rights, as opposed to communist ideas.
ECtHR
 ECHR has eventually grown into one of the largest, most
accomplished and exemplary international judicial bodies.
 Importance:
 compliance with the ECtHR's judgments is common,
showing a deep influence on the laws and social realities of
member States. We can ask: can the courts bring about
social change?
 The record of the ECHR is impressive in comparison with
those of the two other regional human rights courts:
 1.the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and
 2. the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights.

As a matter of fact, after the ECJ, the ECtHR has
decided the largest number of cases (as of January 1,
2000, 837 judgments), developing the most extensive
jurisprudence in the field of the protection of human
rights.
Growth in 1990‘s
 During the 1990s, two factors have further boosted its
growth:
 1. Firstly, with the end of communism and the
enlargement of the Council of Europe to Eastern
European States, the ECHR has become, of the regional
courts, the one with jurisdiction over the largest number
of States (40), encompassing the whole of Europe,
including Russia.
Protocol 11
 2. Secondly, on May 11, 1994, the Council of Europe's
member states concluded an additional protocol to
the 1950 European Convention, known as Protocol
11, which fundamentally changed the machinery for the
judicial enforcement of the Convention's provisions.
 Protocol 11 set up a single permanent Court in
place of the existing two-tier system of a Court and a
Commission.
Private individuals
 According to the existing rules: Private individuals
have access to the ECHR without an external filter.
Moreover, now individuals can, in limited circumstances,
seek a re-hearing in a case decided by a Court's
Chamber (7 judges) before the Court's Grand
Chamber (17 judges).
 This does not happen in the other two regional human
rights courts (American and African).
Geographic jurisdiction
 The combination of the two factors: entry into force of
Protocol 11 and the Court's expanded geographic
jurisdiction have made the number of potential claimants
soar to more than 800 million. Currently 45 judges
cope with one of the busiest international dockets ever.
 The ECHR is the largest international bench (also
incorporating the largest number of women, both in
absolute and proportional terms),
 and the only one in which size is not fixed but is a
function of the number of States members (one
judge per contracting State).
For an application to the ECtHRthe admissibility criteria which
have to be complied with:
 1. AGAINST THE STATE (which has ratified the ECHR)
 2. about THE RIGHTS covered by th Convention
 3. VICTIM STATUS: the applicant must have victim
status
 4. DATE- the application must be about the events
occured after the Convention ratification by the state
concerned
 5. 6 MONTHS: the application must have been lodged
within 6 months after the final decision in domestic
proceedings in the member state
 5. DOMESTIC REMEDIES exhausted
 6. the applicant must have suffered SIGNIFICANT
DISSADVANTAGE
 http://www.echr.coe.int/ECHR/EN/Header/The+Court/Int
roduction/Video+on+the+Court/
ECtHR rulings: the influence in
national law and politics
 - ECtHR judgements as effective as those of any
domestic rules- Art. 46 ECHR states:
 ‚obligation of state authorities to undertake general
measures- broader measures that extend beyond
the specific individual case an aim is: to prevent recurrence of similar
infringements in the future‘
 Considered to be comparable to that of the US
supreme Court!
The Fall of the Berlin Wall- 1989as the Simbol of the Fall of the
Communism (end of Isolism)
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fK1MwhEDjHg&featu
re=watch-vrec
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSspMjMVyUc&featur
e=watch-vrec
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFT_E7BFfJE&featur
e=relmfu
The end of the Communismbeginning of the democratic era
 The revolutions of 1989
 http://video.search.yahoo.com/video/play;_ylt=A2KLqIU
pmqRQP0MAxrb7w8QF;_ylu=X3oDMTBvbGgza2Q0BHNlY
wNzcgRzbGsDdmlkBHZ0aWQDVjExNg-?p=the+end+of+the+communism+in+eastern+europe&
vid=877820ebe7999c7cb808f4551eb77708&l=6%3A01
&turl=http%3A%2F%2Fts3.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%
3DV.4589027343597598%26pid%3D15.1&rurl=http%3
A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dhc2XG
HA7NK4&tit=The+Revolutions+Of+1989&c=6&sigr=11a
9e478c&fr=yfp-t-701-1&tt=b
 In June 2005, Wilders was one of the leaders in the
campaign against the European Constitution, which was
rejected by Dutch voters by 62%.
 The Party for Freedom combines economic liberalism
with a conservative program on immigration and culture.
The party seeks tax cuts (€16 billion in the 2006 election
program), de-centralization, abolition of the minimum
wage, and limiting child benefits and government
subsidies.
 Regarding immigration and culture, the party believes
that the Judeo-Christian and humanist traditions should
be taken as the dominant culture in the Netherlands,
and that immigrants should adapt accordingly.
 The party wants a halt to immigration from non-Western
countries. It is sceptical towards the EU, is against
future EU enlargement to countries like Turkey and
opposes a dominant presence of Islam in the
Netherlands. The party is also opposed to dual
citizenship.
Website named Reporting point
Central and Eastern Europeans
 In 2012 the PVV party has launched a website - where
people can report complaints about central and eastern
European immigrants in the Netherlands.
 'Do you have problems with people from central and
eastern Europe? Have you lost your job to a Pole,
Bulgarian, Romanian or other eastern European? We
want to know,' the website states. The website is
illustrated by newspaper headlines such as 'Wouldn't it
be better if you went back?' and 'Eastern Europeans,
increasingly criminal'." The European Commission
condemned the website, and EU Justice Commissioner
Viviane Reding stated: "We call on all citizens of the
Netherlands not to follow this intolerance. Citizens
should instead clearly state on the PVV's website that
Europe is a place of freedom.„
 The website caused a lot of controversy within the
European Union.[
 Geert Wilders’ Freedom Party (PVV) received some
14,000 complaints on its new hotline against migrant
workers from Central and Eastern Europe, reports Dutch
newspaper de Volkskrant.
 ISLAMOPHOBIA IN THE NETHERLANDS:
 There were more than 100 ‘incidents’ at mosques in the
Netherlands between 2005 and 2010 – far more than in
other countries. The incidents are detailed in a new
Dutch book about Islamophobia and discrimination.
Those responsible for the trouble mostly go unpunished
and Muslims often file no criminal reports.
 Geert Wilders' autobiographical book Marked for Death:
Islam’s War against the West and Me (1 May 2012)
 http://www.amazon.com/Marked-Death-Islams-AgainstWest/dp/1596987960/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=133829
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