Context is everything – European Court of Human Rights struck out 99% of UK cases in 2012
24 January 2013
The European Court of Human Rights got off lightly in the Prime Minister’s In-Out speech yesterday, with just a single passing mention. No surprises there, as the speech was about the European Union, a separate organisation from the Council of Europe, which runs the Strasbourg court. Withdrawing from the European Union would not mean withdrawing from the European Court of Human Rights.
Yesterday was, however, an exception. Ordinarily, the European Court of Human Rights is a large presence in the in-out Europe debate. And, from the amount of coverage and political argument the court generates, you might be forgiven for thinking it rules against the UK hundreds of times per year. The Court has just released its statistics for 2012, and the figures may surprise you.
In 2012 there were 3,308 applications made by individuals to the Court involving the UK (see this document). Only 21 were declared “admissible”, which means they were substantially considered by the Court. It cannot be assumed that the cases resolved in 2012 were same group as the applications brought. But since in 2011 a similar number of applications were brought (3,663 – in fact more) this suggests that around 99% of applications from the UK are being struck out (technically disposed of, that is struck out or declared inadmissible) in the very early stages.
The 21 UK cases amounted around 2% of the total substantively considered by the Court (1,093). And, of those 21, the Court found a violation against the UK in only ten cases.
This document breaks down the violations by article of the European Convention on Human Rights. The UK sample size (10 cases) is so small that it is not possible to extract any meaningful information from the breakdown. But, of those cases, there was a wide spread of violations including Article 3 (torture, inhuman and degrading treatment), Article 4 (anti-slavery) and Article 8 (the right to family and private life).
Context is everything. The UK has to abide by judgments of the European Court of Human Rights, but in reality the vast majority of human rights judgments are now generated by our own courts. As readers of the UK Human Rights Blog will know, the UK courts – from the County Courts upwards – are releasing judgments about people’s human rights almost daily. This is thanks to the Human Rights Act 1998, which allowed individuals in the UK to bring human rights cases in a nearby court to be decided by a local judge.
Before the HRA became law, the legislative plans were referred to as Bringing Rights Home. And that is exactly that the act has achieved. The ten or so judgments which the European Court of Human Rights produces each year against the UK are but a tiny fraction (0.5%) of the applications brought from the UK – not three out of four as some newspapers reported, bizarrely and irresponsibly, this time last year.
That is not to say that the European Court of Human Rights gets every judgment right, of course. There are legitimate criticisms made of its rulings, which naturally involve the most controversial topics.
But it is important to remember, when the next fight erupts over ‘unelected’ European judges deciding our law, that in fact they decide only a handful of UK cases. And those case are represent only a tiny sliver of the human rights judgments involving people in the UK, the vast majority of which are, thanks to the Human Rights Act, decided by judges not in Strasbourg but in Swindon (and in other UK courts).
Hardly a monstrous invasion of our sovereignty, is it? Bear that in mind next time we are debating whether to be in our out of the European Convention on Human Rights.
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Court documents
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- Strasbourg rules against UK on BA crucifix issue, but rejects three other religious rights challenges
- Run for the hills! Here come the noisy grasshoppers
- UK’s relationship with the Council of Europe soon to reach a turning point – Joshua Rozenberg
- UK loses 3 out of 4 European human rights cases? More like 1 in 50, actually
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IF we don’t get out of the European Union Court of Human Rights then Mayra Hindley will get a vote! I read it in the Daily Mail!!!
I think you’re misreading the statistics, if you look at Fig 102 it shows about 2000 applications struck out and about 35 having judgements made during 2012. As the court has a significant backlog we don’t know when those 2000 or so cases were filed. Nor do we know what has happened to the 3000 or so cases filed in 2012 that haven’t been declared admissable, my reading of the chart is that the vast majority are sat in the process somewhere, but the paper doesn’t give quite enough information to be able to be sure.
So your probably right that only 1% of cases come to judgement, but the chart you’re using doesn’t show that.
thanks for a reply that somewhat plays down wht I felt to be your overly optimistic reading of “UK-originated” Human Rights judgments. I came back to add – at risk of sounding cynical: Ihope your angle is not coloured by the lackof insight into the proceedings of those who cannot afford your services. Now I understand better that you may not have intended a positive value judgment about those UK-originated Human rights judgments. However, the fact remains, that my observations in provincial civil proceedings and of solicitors who even came near me given my (lack of) financial powers at present is telling me that “EU Law” (ie ECHR) is still something considered not relevant to their field – HRA or no hRA.
Kind regards,
Barbara Schaefer MA
hi and thanks for your blog; As a senior social worker having suffered detrimental treatment after whistleblowing, ET being struck out as late due to rep’s fault, and CCJ due to resulting financial difficulties being achieved with a false claim by the creditor – I have submitted one case (ET)) and am in the process of submitting another (CCJ).
Upon reflection, the common denominator is that the Courts and other public bodies (ACAS for one) have little if any understanding so far of their obligation to give effect to the individual’s Human Rights and thus get lost in sometimes arbitrary reading of their own procedures (“we have always done it like that”); thus my arguments to ECtHR are based on Article 6 and 13 and article 1 Protocol 1.
It would be good if you could comment on these from your prespective. In fact, the lack of understanding of the obligation mentioned includes solicitors – more than one has responded when I mentioned ECHR by saying something like “I am not an expert on EU law”. Which find nail-biringly frustrating (not to use the word backward).
Thank you.
Barbara