EHRAC-GYLA Regional Seminar, Tbilisi, 2011

Strasbourg litigation - A Regional Perspective

Between 10-12 May 2011, EHRAC held its first ever training seminar at the regional level bringing together 31 experienced ECHR practitioners from Russia, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Moldova, supported by 11 expert facilitators. These included key figures in the field of human rights litigation such as:

Geneviève Mayer - Head of the Department for the Execution of Judgments at the European Court of Human Rights in Paris.

Rupert Skilbeck - Litigation Director at the Open Society Justice Initiative in New York.

Francoise Hampson - Barrister and Professor at the University of Essex School of Law, Governor of the British Institute of Human Rights, member of the UN Sub-Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities.

Samantha Knights - Barrister at the Matrix Chambers, member of the Bar Human Rights committee and of the EHRAC International Steering Committee in London.

Regional seminar participants, Tbilisi, 12 May 2011

The seminar, held in close collaboration with EHRAC’s NGO partners, the Georgian Young Lawyers Association (GYLA), was held in Tbilisi, Georgia, and provided participants with a focused and practical forum for discussion and debate on a range of topical issues relating to litigation and advocacy at the European Court of Human Rights. With the support from human rights litigation experts, participants were offered the opportunity to enhance cooperation, share successful techniques, practices and experiences from within the region. The content of the programme was devised in consultation with the participants themselves.

The first Day

The seminar opened with a keynote address from Caterina Bolognese, the head of the Council of Europe Office in Georgia. Participants were also given the opportunity to introduce themselves and exchange contacts.

The second Day

Analysis of International Humanitarian Law

The programme began with an analysis of international humanitarian law (IHL) and how it relates to human rights law, and a discussion of their application in the context of the South Ossetia conflict. A distinction was made between general situations where an applicant may or may not choose to invoke IHL and specific situations where such laws may be the applicant’s only recourse.

Prof. Phil Leach (EHRAC Director), leads the session on the

analysis of international humanitarian law.

Discussion of the Schalk & Kopv v Austria cas.

Rights to single-sex marriage and adoption by homosexuals and transsexuals

This session focused on the seminal case of Schalk & Kopf v Austria and considered why the European Court did not oblige the State to grant marriages for same-sex couples. The group questioned whether in the absence of a violation this could be still considered a positive judgment.

Domestic and sexual violence

The topic of the parallel discussion group was litigating domestic and sexual violence cases before the European Court and covered such points as the definitions of domestic and sexual violence, the relevant law and criminal procedure, and different types of protective order for victims. The Inter-American System of Human Rights was also discussed.

Engaging with the Committee Ministers of the Council of Europe

There followed a plenary session on the role of, and how to engage with, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe given by a senior official in the Department for the Execution of Judgments of the European Court. Her presentation was followed by a question and answer session.

Ensuring implementation and redress

The second day closed with a session on implementation and redress. This considered friendly settlements and ‘pilot’ (systemic) judgments as well as other tools available to ensure effective implementation. Egregious violations in the Chechen cases, implementation mechanisms under Azerbaijani law and reparations under the Inter-American System were also discussed in this session. Furthermore, a case study focusing on D.H. & Others v Czech Republic highlighted the failure of the Czech Republic to implement changes to its discriminatory education system (towards Roma children) and proposed recommendations to redress the problem.

The third day

Freedom of expression and information

The third round of discussion groups on the third day covered freedom of expression and information, and recent developments in ECHR case-law on criminal procedure (Article 6). The freedom of expression group focussed particularly on Azerbaijan and Russia and the problems of violence towards journalists, censorship, disproportionate punishment in defamation cases and the misuse of counterterrorism legislation. Notable points in the discussion on Article 6 were the line between police investigation and police incitement and the prohibition of amnesty laws.

Discussion on freedom of expression and information.

Discrimination

Discussion on the effective litigation of discrimination cases.

The second round of discussion groups considered the effective litigation of discrimination cases and requesting ‘interim measures’. The second group discussed how best to request interim measures and there was an overview of relevant case-law and discussion of the efficiency of requesting interim measures in disappearance cases. The group concluded that despite the possibility of such cases being declared inadmissible (due to domestic remedies not being first exhausted) this approach was justified by the urgency of the cases and the positive results achieved to date.

Overall feedback from participants

‘Useful’, ‘perfect’, ‘interesting’ and ‘informative’ were the words most frequently used by the participants to describe the seminar. The vast majority gave very positive feedback regarding the regional nature of the event making specific reference to the new litigation strategies they had gained from the seminar. Overall, 96% of the participants were extremely satisfied with the seminar and the remaining 4% said that with so many interesting items on the agenda they felt that there had not been enough time for discussion. Even though they have not been directly asked almost half the participants emphasised that the practical nature of the seminar had made it directly relevant to their work and therefore very productive.

“Exchanging experience with other lawyers from other countries was very useful and will allow me to review my own approach.”

“such events are very useful, not only in terms of exchanging experience, but also to strengthen professional links and develop strategies for collaboration.”

The future

All of the participants said that the seminar had given them fresh ideas for future work and provided examples of concrete issues they would like to address, collaboration they envisage with colleagues from the seminar or new strategies they would like to apply in their litigation work.