WORKSHOP ON HOW TO FILE COMPLAINT AT EURO COURT O HUMAN RIGHTS

ZAGREB, Feb 13 (Hina) - The Croatian Law Centre on Saturday organised a workshop on problems in the procedure for lodging complaints with the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights about alleged breaches of human rights. The workshop in Zagreb gathered Croatian judges, lawyers, law professors and students. Addressing the workshop on behalf of the Foreign Ministry, Ivana Goranic recalled that the new European Court of Human Rights came into operation last November, while the Commission had dealt with cases since 1953 when the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms entered into force. Speaking about preconditions for the instituting proceedings at the Strasbourg Court, Goranic said complaints can be lodged by individuals, groups of individuals, authorised associations from countries signatories of the Convention as well as by the countries themselves. Croatia signed the Convention in November 1996, while its national parliament ratified it in October 1997. As a rule, an application alleging a breach of the Convention cannot be lodged for cases of violations of the human rights which occurred before the State's signing of the Convention. One of the basic preconditions for bringing the case to the European Court is that all legal expedients ensured by a country has been exploited before a citizen decides to instigate proceedings in Strasbourg. In this way, the European Court makes possible for the contracting state to redress injustice and compensate damage. For Croatian nationals the final legal expedient is most often a ruling by the Constitutional Court. An applicant can remain anonymous, and has to file the application at the Strasbourg Court within six months after all legal expedients ensured by the judiciary of their country have been exploited. A country-signatory of the Convention which fails to obey a final adjudication of the Strasbourg Court can even be excluded from the Council of Europe. Commenting on the promptness of the European Court in dealing with cases, a lawyer, Cedo Prodanovic told workshop participants that according to data from 1996, the Court needed, on average, seven years to solve one case, while it took six years at Croatian courts. For the last twenty years the Commission has taken 2,000 cases for consideration, out of 29,000 forwarded to Strasbourg. Only 600 of them were transmitted to the Court, Prodanovic said adding that there was a slim possibility of bringing complaints under consideration. Participants in the workshop believed that potential complaints of Croatian citizens could refer mainly to the protection of property rights, freedom of expression, protection of political rights, discrimination problems, and difficulties in administrative proceedings, particularly in obtaining the citizenship. They also concluded that Croatian citizens were not aware of obstacles in the proceedings for lodging complaints before the Strasbourg Court and of great costs of the proceedings. (hina) ms