NGOs under European Convention on Human Rights / Tymofeyeva

v. Ireland, 414 the European Commission (the EU body) obtained leave to participate in the oral hearing. The author was not able to find any case, where comments were received from a political party or a business corporation. Duties of a third party As a third party to the proceedings before the Court, an NGOs must comply with a number of requirements envisaged in the Rules of Court. Rule 44 of these Rules sets forth deadlines for submission of comments: the requests for authorization must be properly justified and submitted no later than twelve weeks after delivery of the application to the respondent State. The President of the Chamber, however, may exceptionally provide an NGO with a different deadline. The same rule also envisages the language requirements: the submission should be made in one of the official languages of the Court under Rule 34, paragraph 4, namely, English and French. Exceptionally, the President of the Chamber may grant leave for the continued use of the official language of a Contracting Party. Nevertheless, in such circumstances the third party is obliged to bear all or part of the costs to cover the necessary arrangements for the interpretation and translation, into English or French, of the oral and written submissions respectively. In addition, NGOs must comply with all the procedural instructions of the President of the Court or the Chamber. It may, for example, be a requirement to lodge a submission within a dedline. The author was not able to find any case when a political party, business corporation or any other type of entity established to make a profit, took part in the proceedings as a third party. It may signify that there is a difference between the idea of an NGO in respect of the applicant and the third party. On the other hand, absence of third party interventions from the side of business entities and political parties could be caused by lack of interest from their side, not by the limitation of their right to submissions. Further, let us have a look at the position of anNGO in the capacity of representative in the proceedings before the Court. It is of interest whether political parties and business corporations also take part in representation of the applicants.

1.2.2.3 Role of a representative Authorisation to represent

Under Rule 36 of the Rules of Court, persons who take part in the proceedings before the Court may also file their complaints through a representative. Neither the Convention, nor the Rules of Court directly foresee that a person administering the individual application may be represented by an NGO. Nevertheless, confirmation of this conclusion can be found in paragraph 4 of Rule 36 of the Rules of Court, which provides that a representative acting on the applicant’s side may be any person approved by the President of the Chamber. Accordingly, nothing prevents NGOs from participating in the proceedings in the capacity of a representative.

Bosphorus Hava [GC], cited above.

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