Practical Guide on Admissibility Criteria Updated on 1 August 2021 This Guide has been prepared by the Registry and does not bind the Court. Practical guide on admissibility criteria Publishers or organisations wishing to translate and/or reproduce all or part of this report in the form of a printed or electronic publication are invited to contact [email protected] for information on the authorisation procedure. If you wish to know which translations of the Case-Law Guides are currently under way, please see Pending translations. This Guide was originally drafted in English. It is updated regularly and, most recently, on 1 August 2021. It may be subject to editorial revision. The Admissibility Guide and the Case-Law Guides are available for downloading at www.echr.coe.int (Case-law – Case-law analysis – Admissibility guides). For publication updates please follow the Court’s Twitter account at https://twitter.com/ECHR_CEDH. © Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights, 2021 European Court of Human Rights 2/109 Last update: 01.08.2021 Practical guide on admissibility criteria Table of contents Note to readers ........................................................................................... 6 Introduction ................................................................................................ 7 A. Individual application ............................................................................................................. 9 1. Purpose of the provision ................................................................................................... 9 2. Categories of petitioners ................................................................................................... 9 a. Physical persons .......................................................................................................... 9 b. Legal persons .............................................................................................................. 9 c. Any group of individuals ............................................................................................ 10 3. Victim status ................................................................................................................... 11 a. Notion of “victim” ..................................................................................................... 11 b. Direct victim ............................................................................................................. 11 c. Indirect victim ........................................................................................................... 12 d. Potential victims and actio popularis ......................................................................... 15 e. Loss of victim status .................................................................................................. 16 f. Death of the applicant ............................................................................................... 19 4. Representation ............................................................................................................... 19 B. Freedom to exercise the right of individual application ......................................................... 21 1. Principles and examples .................................................................................................. 21 2. Obligations of the respondent State ................................................................................ 23 a. Rule 39 of the Rules of Court ..................................................................................... 23 b. Establishment of the facts ......................................................................................... 24 c. Investigations ............................................................................................................ 25 I. Procedural grounds for inadmissibility .................................................... 25 A. Non-exhaustion of domestic remedies.................................................................................. 25 1. Purpose of the rule ......................................................................................................... 26 2. Application of the rule .................................................................................................... 26 a. Flexibility................................................................................................................... 26 b. Compliance with domestic rules and limits................................................................ 27 c. Existence of several remedies .................................................................................... 28 d. Complaint raised in substance................................................................................... 28 e. Existence and appropriateness .................................................................................. 29 f. Availability and effectiveness ...................................................................................... 30 3. Limits on the application of the rule ................................................................................ 32 4. Distribution of the burden of proof ................................................................................. 33 5. Procedural aspects .......................................................................................................... 35 6. Creation of new remedies ............................................................................................... 36 B. Non-compliance with the six-month time-limit ..................................................................... 38 1. Purpose of the rule ......................................................................................................... 38 2. Starting date for the running of the six-month period ..................................................... 39 a. Final decision ............................................................................................................ 39 b. Starting point ............................................................................................................ 40 i. Knowledge of the decision ................................................................................... 40 ii. Service of the decision ......................................................................................... 40 iii. No service of the decision ................................................................................... 41 European Court of Human Rights 3/109 Last update: 01.08.2021 Practical guide on admissibility criteria iv. No remedy available ........................................................................................... 41 v. Continuing situation ............................................................................................ 41 3. Expiry of the six-month period ........................................................................................ 42 4. Date of introduction of an application ............................................................................. 42 a. Completed application form ...................................................................................... 42 b. Date of dispatch ........................................................................................................ 43 c. Dispatch by fax .......................................................................................................... 43 d. Characterisation of a complaint ................................................................................ 43 e. Subsequent complaints ............................................................................................. 43 5. Special situations ............................................................................................................ 44 a. Applicability of time constraints to continuing situations concerning the right to life, home and property ........................................................................................... 44 b. Applicability of time constraint concerning the lack of an effective investigation into deaths and ill-treatment ................................................................................... 45 c. Application of the six-month rule as regards the conditions of detention .................. 46 d. Application of the six-month rule in cases of multiple periods of detention under Article 5 of the Convention ...................................................................................... 46 C. Anonymous application ........................................................................................................ 47 1. Anonymous application .................................................................................................. 47 2. Non-anonymous application ........................................................................................... 48 D. Substantially the same.......................................................................................................... 48 1. Substantially the same as a matter that has been examined by the Court ....................... 48 2. Substantially the same as a matter submitted to another procedure of international investigation or settlement ............................................................................................ 49 a. The assessment of similarity of cases ........................................................................ 50