An Overview of the European Court of Human Rights

Abstract

Based on the European Convention on Human Rights, in 1959 the European Court of Human Rights was established in order to deal with applications against member states (High Contracting Parties) about the violation of the rights and freedoms contained in the Convention including: the right to life, the prohibition of slavery, servitude and forced labor, the right to liberty and security, the right to begin entitled to a fair trial, the right to freedom of expression, the right to respect for one’s private and family life, the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion and so on. Subsequently, various Protocols were annexed to this Convention including the Protocol 11 of European Convention on Human Rights. Through eliminating former two-steps system consisting of European Commission of Human Rights (ECHR) and the European Court of Human Rights, the system became one-step. A fundamental revision was made in the structure and the proceedings system of the Court. In this article, along with the introduction and the consideration of the structure and the judicial procedure of the new Court, we proceed to examine the Court jurisdiction and how the decisions are made.