CYIL 2012

ADMISSIBILITY CRITERIA FOR LODGING AN APPLICATION WITH THE ECHR… Court in identical or similar cases, on the basis of which it can conclude that there has been no breach of the Convention ( Galev and Others v. Bulgaria 41 ) 3) unsubstantiated complaints are those that lack evidence of the facts on which the alleged violations are based ( Trofimchuk v. Ukraine 42 ). 4) confused or far-fetched complaints. These are usually the applications where the exposition of facts, as presented by the applicant, is deliberately contrary to common sense. 9. No significant disadvantage The last and the latest 43 type of criterion of admissibility refers to the complaints in which an applicant has not suffered a significant disadvantage. The purpose of this new criterion is to provide the Court with an additional tool which should assist it in its filtering work and allow it to devote more time to cases which warrant examination on the merits. 44 It is hard to determine a universal meaning of a notion “significant”. In some cases the Court concluded that the loss of an amount of less than one Euro 45 did not have any important repercussions on the applicant’s personal life. In other cases the Court came to a similar conclusion when the sum was significantly higher, 177 Euros. 46 Therefore, it could be said that the Court assesses personal circumstances of the applicants case by case. The important guarantee is that the complaint may not be rejected with regard to this reason if respect for human rights as defined in the Convention and the Protocols thereto requires an examination of the application on the merits. The case also may not be rejected on this grounds if it has not been duly considered by a domestic tribunal. 47 In the previous part of this article the main reasons of inadmissibility of applications were described. At the moment, for a better understanding of how admissibility criteria work in practice, we will examine an imaginary case. The facts of the case are as follows: The applicant is a national of Ukraine. In the application lodged with the Court on 27 June 1996, he complains about impossibility to institute criminal proceedings against X. The final decision in the case was adopted on 13 July 1995 by the Donetsk Court of Appeal. In his submission he calls a judge “offspring of a monkey”. Analysis of this case allows one to deduce that it includes the following list of incompatibility grounds:

41 Galev and Others v. Bulgaria (dec.), no. 18324/04, 29 September 2009. 42 Trofimchuk v. Ukraine (dec.), no. 4241/03, 31 May 2005. 43 The criterion was introduced by Protocol No. 14 to the Convention in 2010.

44 Explanatory Report to Protocol No. 14 to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, amending the control system of the Convention (CETS No. 194) Agreement of Madrid (12.V.2009). Available at http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/en/Reports/Html/194.htm.

45 Korolev v. Russia (dec.), no. 25551/05, 1 July 2010. 46 Rinck v. France (dec.), no. 18774/09, 19 October 2010. 47 Article 35 § 3 (b) of the Convention.

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