Taking cases to the European Court of Human Rights
In September 2009 EHRAC and the South Siberian Human Rights Centre (SSHRC) organised a four-day training seminar in Novokuznetsk for local NGO lawyers, advocates, academics, students and officials. The first day of the programme was a legal clinic on the ECHR run by EHRAC’s legal consultant, Samantha Knights. This was attended by around 20 local NGO lawyers, advocates and law students.
The remaining three days of the training seminar were attended by 36 delegates and covered the basics of how the ECHR mechanism works and the procedure for submitting an application as well as a number of substantive areas of law that had been identified as being the most relevant to the participants’ practice.
The feedback showed that the participants found the seminar relevant to their work or studies while they were split between finding ECHR procedure or specific ECHR articles more useful. Many participants particularly enjoyed a mock court role play used during the session on Articles 10 and 11 (freedom of expression and freedom of assembly) as it allowed them to put theory into practice. Comments on the seminar included:
“Despite the fact that the material being presented was familiar, the trainer explored many new aspects, turning our attention to nuances.”
“In practice I have problems in relation to referring to ECHR precedents in my drafting but, in my opinion, after this lecture, I will not have any more problems.”
“Yes, it was certainly helpful. While it raised many aspects of old material, I also learned a lot that was new. The most important thing was the large number of specific examples, which will help considerably with a more thorough understanding of ECHR articles.”
