Grand Chamber

The Grand Chamber is the highest formation of the European Court of Human Rights. Composed of seventeen judges, it hears cases raising a serious question affecting the interpretation or application of the Convention or the Protocols thereto, or a serious issue of general importance. Its judgments set the Court's case-law for all forty-six member States of the Council of Europe.

Grand Chamber proceedings lie at the heart of the specialisation of Just Rights Europe. They are governed by their own rules, by a tight timetable and by drafting and advocacy requirements that differ appreciably from ordinary proceedings before a Chamber.

Two routes of access

Referral (Article 43 of the Convention). Within three months of a Chamber judgment, any party may request that the case be referred to the Grand Chamber. The request is examined by a panel of five judges, which accepts it only if the case raises a serious question affecting the interpretation or application of the Convention, or a serious issue of general importance. The panel gives no reasons for its refusals. Only a small fraction of requests is accepted: a request for referral must therefore be conceived not as an appeal, but as a demonstration of the importance of the question for the Convention system as a whole.

Relinquishment (Article 30 of the Convention). A Chamber may, before delivering its judgment, relinquish jurisdiction in favour of the Grand Chamber where the case raises a serious question affecting the interpretation of the Convention or the Protocols thereto; it must do so, under Rule 72 § 2 of the Rules of Court, where the resolution of a question might have a result inconsistent with the Court's case-law. Since the entry into force of Protocol No. 15, the parties can no longer object to relinquishment. It is nevertheless for the parties to point out, as early as their observations, the matters that justify examination by the highest formation.

Our role

• Assessing whether a request for referral is appropriate after an unfavourable, or partly unfavourable, Chamber judgment: analysis of the Chamber's reasoning, of the separate opinions, of the state of the case-law and of divergences between Sections.
• Drafting the request for referral: identifying the serious question and setting it against the existing case-law and against what is at stake for the other member States.
• Responding to a request for referral lodged by the Government, where the applicant has succeeded before the Chamber.
• Proceedings before the Grand Chamber: memorial, replies to the Court's questions, coordination with third-party interveners (Article 36 § 2), preparation and oral argument at the public hearing in Strasbourg.
• Representation in cases relinquished as early as the Chamber stage.
• Follow-up on the execution of Grand Chamber judgments, whose scope often goes beyond the individual case and requires the respondent State to adopt general measures.

Why the Grand Chamber calls for a distinct approach

A Grand Chamber judgment commits the Court for the future. The Grand Chamber examines the case as a whole, including questions of admissibility, and may depart from the Chamber judgment in either direction. The argument must therefore be conceived at the level of the system: what the Court is asked to do is to state the law of the Convention, not merely to decide a dispute.

We devote to these proceedings continuous monitoring of the case-law and a thematic analysis of Grand Chamber judgments, part of which we share in our Insights section.