HAMLYN - College of Social Sciences and International Studies ...

Human Rights
160 per year. In 1998 alone there were 300. Some experts predict
that the Human Rights Act will have the effect of reducing the
number of cases going to Strasbourg. I do not take that view. On
the contrary, I believe it is likely to increase them.
The Strasbourg system can provide a remedy. In that same
period to 1998, there were 52 cases against the United Kingdom
in which the Strasbourg Court found one or more violation of
the Convention (as against 35 in which no violation was found).
Findings of violations do sooner or later result in action to put
the matter right by the respondent government.
So the Strasbourg system works. In what way then is access to
the ECHR different because of the 1998 Act? One reason is that
it is quicker and easier to bring a case as a complainant in the
United Kingdom courts than in Strasbourg. Cases in Strasbourg
take an average of five years to reach a decision—though now a
case that ends in Strasbourg will take even longer because it will
first have to go through the British system. Access will be easier
physically in that Strasbourg is geographically quite a distance.
However, more importantly, it will be easier psychologically.
Most solicitors have never taken a case to Strasbourg and have
no idea how to do so (it simply would not occur to them),
whereas taking a case in an English court is something solicitors
know about.
Moreover, the 1998 Act permits a person to take his Convention
points not simply in proceedings that he has initiated, but
in a case being brought against him, for instance, in criminal
proceedings. The experts all predict that the bulk of Human
Rights Act points will be taken by defendants in criminal cases.
It is obviously much easier to take Convention points in an
existing action one is defending than initiating a case oneself.
Another reason why the Act changes everything is because of
the enormous increase in knowledge about the ECHR. Partly
this is through formal training. So, for instance, all the 3,000 full
and part-time judges are attending a one-day training seminar
run by the Judicial Studies Board. There will be training for the
30,000 lay magistrates and the clerks who advise them. (A sum
of £4.5 million was allocated to this official training.)
There are numerous training courses for private practitioners.
(The role played by lawyers in deciding what cases to bring and
what Convention points to argue will be of great importance. If
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