NGOs under European Convention on Human Rights / Tymofeyeva

When providing a communication to the Committee of Ministers under Rule 9 of the Rules of the Committee of Ministers, NGOs must agree that this information will be public. It also may be implied that such information has to be truthful, according to the best knowledge of the provider. The examples given above show that neither in the proceedings before the Court, nor in the course of the execution of the Court’s judgments, is the information provided by political parties or business entities. The Court, apart from international treaties, case-law and domectic legislation, bases its judgments on the reports of inter-governmental and non-governmental organisations. As to the Committee of Ministers Rules, Article 9 precisely specifies that the information is to be received from “non-governmental organisations or by national institutions for the promotion and protection of human rights”. 473 Political parties and companies hardly can be considered to be the institutions for the promotion and protection of human rights. Having discussed the major roles that NGOs play in the proceedings before the Court, and, also in the case of an information provider, before the Committee of Ministers, under the Convention, we may finally describe all the specifics of the term ‘NGO’ under the Convention and elaborate the definition required for the purposes of the present research.

473 Rule 9 of the Rules of the Committee of Ministers.

90