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ECHR: UK vs the rest

01 March 1994

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After a closed meeting in Strasbourg at the end of January, evidence emerged that UK is obstructing projected reforms which are needed to prevent the European Court of Human Rights from collapsing through overload and inefficiency. A report in the Observer claimed that ministers led by Home Secretary Michael Howard are reneging on agreements made last year to streamline the procedures whereby cases are currently scrutinised by up to three bodies - the Commission, the Committee of Ministers and the European Court on Human Rights. The plans involve replacing this cumbersome system by a single tier system, which would enable cases to be dealt with in under two years instead of five or more at present.

It was also claimed that, alone of the 32 signatory states of the Human Rights Convention, the UK registered that it might object to an automatic, permanent right for individuals to complain about their governments' behaviour when the treaty establishing the ECHR is revised. Currently, the right of individual petition is renewed every few years, with the UK government due to renew individual petitioning rights in 1996.

Observer, 6.2.94.

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