Universal-Womens-accesss-to-justice-Publications-Practitioners-Guide-Series-2016-ENG

306 PRACTITIONERS GUIDE No. 12
case. 772 Article 31.2(c) also refers only to pending complaints,
which suggests that the Committee on Enforced
Disappearances may align its approach to that of the Human
Rights Committee. 773
d) Significant disadvantage
Protocol 14 to the ECHR introduced a new admissibility
requirement for the European Court of Human Rights: that of
“significant disadvantage”. Protocol 14 to the ECHR now allows
the Court to declare inadmissible an application when “the
applicant has not suffered a significant disadvantage, unless
respect for human rights as defined in the Convention and the
Protocols thereto requires an examination of the application on
the merits and provided that no case may be rejected on this
ground which has not been duly considered by a domestic
tribunal”. 774
Applying the new criterion, the European Court of Human
Rights has held cases inadmissible for lack of significant
disadvantage where alleged violations of fair trial guarantees or
the right to property had led to pecuniary losses of 150, 90 or 1
euros and the financial situation of the applicant was not “such
that the outcome of the case would have had a significant
effect on his personal life”. 775 The Court held that it must take
into consideration “both the applicant's subjective perceptions
and what is objectively at stake in a particular case”, 776 and it
772
Correia de Matos v. Portugal, CCPR, Communication No.
1123/2002, Views of 18 April 2006, para. 6.2.
773
Articel 31.2(c), CPED.
774
Article 35.3(b) ECHR (emphasis added). The requirement has been
interpreted up to now in Petrovich Korolev v. Russia, ECtHR,
Application No. 25551/05, Admissibility decision of 1 July 2010; Mihai
Ionescu v. Romania, ECtHR, Application No. 36659/04, Admissibility
decision of 1 June 2010; Rinck v. France, ECtHR, Application No.
18774/09, Admissibility decision of 19 October 2010.
775
Mihai Ionescu v. Romania, ECtHR, op. cit., fn. 1341, para. 35.
776
Petrovich Korolev v. Russia, ECtHR, op. cit., fn. 1341.