After a final decision of the highest national court, we assess the admissibility of the case, identify potential violations, devise the strategy for Strasbourg and, where the conditions are met, represent the client before the Court.
Read more →The firm has particular experience of complex cases and of proceedings before the Grand Chamber.
View profile →In certain specific cases, the firm may also act before international human rights bodies.
Read more →Bringing a case before the European Court of Human Rights does not mean repeating the arguments developed before the national courts.
The first step is to identify the real Convention issue.
We examine the final decision, the earlier national proceedings, compliance with the admissibility requirements, the Convention rights that may have been violated and the relevant case-law of the Court.
We then determine how the case should be presented in Strasbourg: the selection of complaints, the legal framing, the decisive facts, procedural strategy and the redress sought.
In cases of particular importance, our expertise also covers proceedings before the Grand Chamber.
Where possible and in the client's interests, we also assess the prospects of a friendly settlement in the proceedings before the Court.
Our aim is not to relitigate the national case.
Our role is to identify what, in those proceedings, amounts to a violation of the rights guaranteed by the Convention, and to take that question to Strasbourg.
Proceedings before the European Court of Human Rights follow their own rules.
Admissibility, time limits, exhaustion of domestic remedies, the formulation of complaints, European case-law, the choice of arguments, procedural strategy and a possible referral to the Grand Chamber all call for an approach different from that of national litigation.
Our mission is to turn a national case into a genuine Convention case.
Our work begins at a specific point: once the relevant domestic remedies have been exhausted.
Just Rights Europe does not act in domestic proceedings. Our specialisation begins where national litigation ends.
After a final decision of the highest national court, a case may be submitted to us directly for an assessment under the Convention.