Can I apply to the ECHR? Is it worth it? Have I missed the time-limit for applying to the ECHR? Do I have to apply to a particular authority at the national level before I can apply to the ECHR? Can you prepare an application to the ECHR for me? How much does it cost to prepare an application to the ECHR?

I can only answer all these questions after I have assessed the prospects of a successful application to the ECHR based on your case file. In the following, I will explain what a successful application to the ECHR means, the grounds on which I can say that an application to the ECHR is potentially successful, what exactly I do to find out whether such grounds exist, how much it costs to assess the prospects of a successful application to the ECHR and on what conditions I carry it out, why the costs of drafting an application form depend on the results of the assessment (together they form what is called the preparation of an application to the ECHR), and finally how much it usually costs to draft an application form.

An application is successful if the ECHR finds that the applicant’s right has been violated. However, the applicant usually applies to the ECHR for more than just a finding of a violation. The applicant also wants the violation to be remedied. Often, the applicant wants the violation to be remedied in a particular way. For example, an applicant may wish to return to the country from which they were deported, to regain the home that was taken from them, or to be able to communicate with their child, which is being prevented by the other parent in whose care the child has been placed. Therefore, the prospects of a successful application to the ECHR must be assessed in light of the ability to achieve a particular objective set by the prospective applicant.

It should also be understood that the ECHR can only find a violation of a right if it first declares an application for that violation admissible. Do you mean if the ECHR registers the application? No. Registering an application is different from declaring it admissible. As a general rule, the ECHR registers an application if it considers that the application form has been completed in accordance with all the requirements. The fact that the ECHR has registered an application does not in any way mean that it is admissible or inadmissible. The ECHR declares an application admissible if it considers that it satisfies all the admissibility criteria at once. The ECHR declares an application inadmissible if it considers that it does not fulfil at least one of the admissibility criteria. What are these criteria? The best-known admissibility criteria are the requirements to exhaust domestic remedies (i.e. anything that the ECHR recognises as available and likely, both in theory and in practice, to lead to the recognition and remedy of a particular kind of violation at the national level), if any, and to apply to the ECHR within four months after that. In addition, the applicant must be a victim of the alleged violation and must retain the status of a victim (i.e. the violation must not have already been recognised and remedied) or must justify the right to apply to the ECHR on behalf of another person who is a victim of the violation. The application can only concern acts or omissions of those bodies and persons for which the respondent State is responsible, which can only be a member State of the Council of Europe (sometimes also Russia). Only the rights and freedoms set out in the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and the Protocols thereto ratified by the respondent State can be violated (I will refer to all these rights as “Convention rights”, even if they are set out in the Protocols to the Convention). The alleged violation must have been committed when the Convention or the relevant Protocol was in force for the respondent State and on territory under the jurisdiction of the respondent State. Finally, a similar claim must not be the subject of ongoing (and in some cases concluded) proceedings before the ECHR and certain other international bodies, and the applicant must have suffered a significant disadvantage as a result of the violation and must not abuse the right to apply to the ECHR.

Thus, I can say that there are prospects of a genuinely successful application to the ECHR if it could achieve the specific objective set by the prospective applicant by remedying a violation that the ECHR could find, if the ECHR could also declare the application admissible in respect of that violation, and if the probabilities of achieving the objective, of finding a violation, and of declaring the application admissible are reasonable, i.e. reasoned. The conclusion as to the probability of achieving the objective must be based on an analysis of the national law and the case-law of the ECHR and the national authorities. This analysis must show that the applicant’s objective could be achieved if the alleged violation is found. The conclusions as to the probabilities of the application being declared admissible and of being upheld on the merits (i.e. a violation being found) must be based on the case-law of the ECHR interpreting the provisions of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and the Protocols thereto as to the conditions under which such violations are considered to have been committed and the admissibility criteria for an application in respect of such violations are considered to be met (and those under which they are not). It must be shown in a logically consistent manner that the circumstances, the presence or absence of which, according to the case-law of the ECHR, leads to the conclusion that such violations have been committed and that the admissibility criteria are satisfied, and which together constitute what is referred to as the “law”, are at least comparable (or similar) to the relevant circumstances of the case under consideration. The latter must be formulated based on the case file and sometimes on the basis of national law, including established case-law, which together constitute what is known as the “facts” (yes, in proceedings before the ECHR, national law is usually part of the facts rather than the law). Furthermore, there should be no circumstances apparent from the case file to which the ECHR would certainly link its conclusions as to the absence of such violations or the inadmissibility of applications based on them. Where possible, it should be shown that any circumstances potentially less unfavourable to the applicant than those noted above (and they almost always exist and should never be ignored) are not those to which the ECHR would certainly link its findings of no violation or inadmissibility.

The likelihood that the ECHR will declare an application admissible or find a violation is almost never 100%. Why is this? Usually, a claim will more or less indisputably fulfil only some of the admissibility criteria. (I include here the requirement that all constituent elements of a violation should be present. In fact, whether there are grounds for concluding that a violation has been committed can be seen as part of the analysis regarding the admissibility. Indeed, if the ECHR finds clear indications of no violation, it usually prefers to skip declaring an application admissible and starting the examination of the merits and simply declare it inadmissible as “manifestly ill-founded”. This is the same as finding no violation). However, the overall probability of a successful application to the ECHR can never be higher than the lowest of the probabilities that the application fulfils one or the other of the admissibility criteria. We cannot calculate all the probabilities precisely because there is no data set on which to base such calculations. But let’s make a guess: for example, there is a 50% chance that the ECHR will agree that the time-limit for applying has been met in a controversial situation. Then, the overall probability of a successful application to the ECHR cannot exceed this 50%, even if we have “ironclad arguments” that the application meets all other admissibility criteria. If such a probability applies to two admissibility criteria, the resulting chance of success is already 1 in 4. But even one chance in a hundred is not zero. For some people, that chance may be enough to apply to the ECHR, given the importance of a potential “victory” – for example, the possibility of reopening a criminal case that has resulted in years of imprisonment. In any case, only you can decide whether the chances of success are sufficient for you. I am prepared to take any case where the reasonable chance of success, however small, is greater than zero. I do not select the potentially most successful cases and work on all claims that the ECHR can consider. It should also be noted that an applicant’s chances of getting what they want may differ from the chances that the ECHR will find a violation of their right, i.e. “formal success”. Why is this so? First, it is crucial to realise that even when it is possible to achieve what the applicant wants, it is often only indirectly and not in the ECHR proceedings themselves. For example, the ECHR almost never directly requires the respondent State to quash a conviction based on a violation of the right to a fair trial. Nevertheless, national law may provide for the possibility of obtaining a retrial based on an ECHR judgment finding such a violation. However, it may not, in which case the applicant will have to be satisfied with monetary compensation for non-pecuniary damage only or with a mere finding of a violation. On the other hand, compensation for pecuniary damage for a violation, such as the right to peaceful enjoyment of property, may be obtained directly based on an ECHR judgment finding a violation and awarding such compensation. However, this will normally only be the case if it is practically impossible to obtain such compensation at the national level, even based on such an ECHR judgment, and if the amount of compensation can be easily determined immediately after the examination of the merits of the case. Thus, it should be understood that a finding of a violation does not necessarily entail a remedy in kind (sometimes only some monetary compensation is available, and the applicant must seek such compensation in a timely and appropriate manner, either directly in the ECHR proceedings or later at the national level). Moreover, even if the violation can be remedied in kind, the State may only sometimes do so the way the applicant would prefer. In any event, the question of whether it is possible to achieve what the applicant would have wanted must be addressed in addition to the question of whether it is possible to obtain a finding of a violation. The latter is necessary but usually not sufficient to achieve the desired result. In other cases, however, there is only a reasonable likelihood of obtaining a finding of a violation, the remedying of which cannot, in principle, lead to the applicant’s desired outcome, even if the application to the ECHR is formally successful. Can an example be given? Suppose I analyse a criminal case file. I may find that there are prospects of a successful application to the ECHR on the grounds of excessive length of pre-trial detention, excessive length of criminal proceedings and violation of the right to respect for private life as a result of a search during criminal proceedings. However, I can also conclude that there are no prospects of challenging the fairness of the criminal proceedings which led to the applicant’s conviction, even though that may be the only way to reopen those proceedings and the only thing that matters to the prospective applicant.

I begin my assessment of the prospects of a successful application to the ECHR by establishing, based on the material provided to me and your comments on it, what the case as a whole is about and what your claims against the State are. You can start by submitting any documents that you think are important. I will always ask you to provide specific additional documents after I have started the assessment if they are necessary or helpful. Suppose, however, that your case has been before the courts at the national level. In this case, it will almost always be necessary to provide all submissions to the courts of all instances made by or in the interest of the prospective applicant – claims, appeals and the like (they are called different things in different countries and proceedings) – as well as all court judgments, decisions and so on resulting from their consideration and from the determination of the case as a whole. If you have copies of the entire case file, you can submit them all at once.

I then identify a relatively narrow range of rights and freedoms that could, in principle, be affected in the context of the case. How can the range of rights be narrowed down? In principle, there are only a few dozen Convention rights. I also immediately exclude the rights provided for in the Protocols to the Convention that the potential respondent State has not ratified. For example, Switzerland has not ratified Protocol No. 1 to the Convention, which provides for the right to peaceful enjoyment of property, and therefore cannot violate this right. Furthermore, when I receive, for example, a criminal case file concerning a potential applicant, I can usually safely exclude several obviously inapplicable Convention rights from the scope of the analysis, such as the right to marriage and the right to education, but not the right to liberty and security of person, the right to respect for private life, the right to peaceful enjoyment of property. In a criminal case, all of these rights can be affected, not just the right to a fair trial in the determination of a criminal charge. I then identify those claims that are clearly inadmissible because they manifestly fail to satisfy at least one admissibility criterion or the conditions under which the ECHR recognises such violations. How can clearly inadmissible claims be effectively identified? I start my analysis with the admissibility criteria that are in doubt and that are easiest to check. For example, in the case of the right to a fair trial in the determination of a criminal charge, I often start by identifying what domestic remedies are available at the national level. Because this right can be violated in a myriad of ways, identifying them would require a time-consuming analysis of the whole proceedings, where individual deficiencies arising at one stage may be remedied at another stage without becoming a violation. Where the remedies are submissions to certain levels of national courts (these may have different names in different countries), I analyse the submissions made by the applicant and those acting in their interest. The content of these submissions, subject to my possible extended interpretation where necessary, limits the range of claims that could potentially be brought before the ECHR. There may, of course, be other possible violations of the right in question for which there is no domestic remedy. I am therefore undertaking further analysis with an eye to the possibility of identifying such violations as well. However, as regards possible violations for which a remedy is available, the relevant admissibility criterion is only met if the violation is alleged, at least in substance, in the context of that remedy. Having found that this is not the case, I conclude that the relevant claim is inadmissible. And I do not need to decide whether there are indications that the alleged violation was committed in that part. In the course of my work, I gradually narrow down the scope of the analysis by searching for and studying the case-law of the ECHR that enables me to understand in which circumstances, present or absent in the present case, it is not possible to say that one of the admissibility criteria has been met or that a violation has been committed. How exactly is this done? For example, the right to a fair trial cannot be violated unless the proceedings are of one of two types: the determination of a criminal charge or the determination of a dispute concerning civil rights and obligations. The ECHR has developed a large body of case-law on what is meant by the “criminal” nature of the charge, that “charge”, the “determination” of that charge, the “dispute”, “civil” rights and obligations, those “rights and obligations”, and the “determination” of a dispute about them. All this case-law, including the most recent, must be taken into account in deciding whether the proceedings in question are subject to the fair trial guarantees, if there is the slightest doubt about it; one should not, though, expect this case-law to always be clear and consistent. For example, the determination of a purely administrative dispute about deportation from a country will not be covered by fair trial guarantees if the proceedings lack both criminal and civil elements in the sense given to them by the case-law of the ECHR. Suppose that a potential applicant does indeed challenge the fairness of such proceedings. In that case, I conclude that there can be no violation of the right in question. However, even when the case-law of the ECHR is well established, there is sometimes a reasonable expectation that the ECHR will be prepared to change it to reflect changing realities (this may be evidenced, say, by the dissenting opinions of judges who are still in the minority in deciding the issues in question). For example, many types of proceedings that were previously considered to fall outside the scope of fair trial guarantees have, over time, come to be considered to fall within them. Finally, suppose I have found some prospects of a successful application to the ECHR. This means that I have formulated one or more claims in respect of which I can argue, based on your case file that I have analysed, the national law that I have examined and the case law of the ECHR that I have selected, that the ECHR could declare the application based on them admissible and conclude that violations have been committed.

The cost of an assessment of the prospects of a successful application to the ECHR is €5,000. This price does not depend on the respondent State, which may be any member State of the Council of Europe or Russia, the number of claims, the volume of the case file or the languages in which it may be written. I work with documents in any of the 37 official languages of these countries. Individual documents may also be in other languages. Suppose you provide documents in the form of photocopies or scans (i.e. files containing “images” of document pages). In this case, they should be legible so that, if necessary, optical character recognition software can convert them into machine-readable text for translation into another language and for quick and efficient searches for important information. You should not provide translations of the original documents into another language unless these translations are already part of the case file. I will translate everything myself. How is this possible? Artificial intelligence-based programmes are now so advanced that they allow me to work comfortably with foreign languages that I do not speak, at least not fluently. I have worked with Norwegian in a case involving a dispute with the tax authorities, with Azerbaijani in a case where an applicant was challenging his inclusion on a wanted list, with Swedish in a case where a relative was fighting for contact with the child, with Ukrainian in a case of unfairness in the determination of criminal charges against the applicant, with Serbian in a case involving unpredictable interpretations of criminal law on the basis of which the applicant was charged with a criminal offence. At no time did I encounter difficulties, even when the substance of the claims involved language issues, as in the Norwegian and Serbian cases.

However, the probability of a successful application to the ECHR can only be determined as accurately as possible if the total amount of work falls within 25 hours. This applies to all the work required, including all communication with you about the assessment (I will always write in English, but you can reply in your preferred language and get my texts translated into your language), carrying out all the above analysis of the prospects of a successful application to the ECHR, preparing a written statement of the results of that analysis that anyone can understand, and translating that statement from English, which is always the language in which it is initially written, into the language of your choice. I prepare all translations using DeepL, a translation service based on convolutional neural networks widely deployed in my multilingual work.

Suppose I need more than 25 hours to fully assess the prospects of a successful application to the ECHR. In this case, you will get the most accurate results for those claims that can be fully analysed during the primary assessment within the allotted time. Normally, 25 hours will be sufficient to identify all those claims that clearly do not meet the admissibility criteria, including those that are manifestly ill-founded on the merits. In addition, in relation to the remaining claims, I will set out, firstly, anything else that I have identified that gives at least a rough idea of the prospects of success in that part, and secondly, what exactly I need to do to complete the assessment in its entirety and how long that will take. The cost of any work I do is always my estimate of the time required multiplied by a rate of €200 per hour. Is it possible to predict in advance that a full assessment will require more than 25 hours? Unfortunately, this is almost impossible. It may seem that a large number of claims or a large volume of documents would indicate that I need to spend more time on the assessment, but this is not the case. Sometimes, I can quickly determine that many claims are manifestly inadmissible. On the other hand, a single claim may require a lot of work to determine the probability of a successful application to the ECHR. Suppose the issue is the application of national law, the foreseeability of which is the subject of a claim. In this case, a time-consuming analysis of the extensive case-law of the domestic courts may be required. On the other hand, you may provide me with thousands of pages of the case file, but I will only need to examine only some of them (or parts of them). Only information relevant to particular claims and admissibility criteria will be extracted from the case file. It is difficult to point out any features of a case that would allow me (or you) to estimate the amount of work required to fully assess the prospects of a successful application to the ECHR without actually starting to work on the assessment. In principle, the remaining part of the analysis can be dropped if a rough assessment is sufficient for you to decide whether the claim in question is worth applying to the ECHR. How is this possible? For example, I may point out potential admissibility problems that I have already fully identified for some claims. I may need additional analysis to determine whether there are other problems with the same claims. Or I may be able to fully explain, as a result of the primary assessment, why the probability of finding a violation is relatively low. I may need extra time in this part to clarify the probability that the claim meets a particular admissibility criterion. However, that probability will not change the low probability of finding a violation. It may be that the problems I have already identified with a particular claim lead you to conclude that you are not prepared to apply to the ECHR with it, even taking into account all that you could achieve with a favourable outcome of the proceedings. Suppose, however, that you decide to ask me to draft an application form for the claims that I have not fully analysed. In that case, the remainder of the analysis will still need to be carried out. Moreover, the remaining part of the analysis may lead to the conclusion that there are not even the slightest prospects of a successful application to the ECHR in the relevant part. This may be the case even if the primary assessment has shown that there may be some prospects, i.e. that they could not be conclusively ruled out by the partial analysis. If this is the case, it will not be possible to draft an application form in this part.

Once I have assessed the prospects of a successful application to the ECHR, I will also be able to say how much it will cost to draft an application form for those claims that have some prospects of success. The results of the assessment in this part will be the core of the content of the application form. I can only draft an application form, estimate the amount of work required and calculate its cost based on the concrete prospects of success revealed by an assessment, which I cannot replace with a belief in success. However, I can give you some guidelines. In most cases, drafting an application form takes about two-thirds of the time needed to fully assess the prospects of a successful application to the ECHR. So let us say that a full assessment can be done in 25 hours. In this case, drafting an application form will normally take about 15 hours (if there are some prospects of success). This means that the cost of drafting an application form, in this case, would be €3,000, which is also the absolute minimum. The total threshold for the cost of preparing an application is, therefore, €8,000: €5,000 for assessing the prospects of a successful application to the ECHR and €3,000 for drafting an application form. Please note that I only draft application forms to the ECHR in English. However, I can translate the text of the application form into another language for your reference.

You can order an assessment of the prospects of a successful application to the ECHR by completing and submitting the order form directly from this page. Within 24 hours, I will send you a signed contract in English (sometimes with a translation into another language for your convenience). You can pay for my services by transferring funds to my Swiss bank account using the details provided in the contract. Once you have received the contract, you should sign it online, directly in your browser or mobile device, using Adobe’s Acrobat Sign service, where authentic copies of all signed contracts are stored and always available to the parties (no additional software installation required). You then make your payment, and I will carry out the assessment and email you the results, usually within two weeks of receiving your payment and all the documents required for the assessment. Suppose I need more time in a certain period. In that case, I will always give you a reasonable and specific completion date ahead of time. Please let me know in the field for comments if you need the results sooner. I will then respond if I can accommodate your request.