Strasbourg to give detailed reasoning on applications declared inadmissible

Since Protocol No 14 came into force in 2010, a single judge has been able to declare an application inadmissible.

The court said it was forced to adopt a summary procedure to clear the backlog of applications, which stood at 100,000 in 2011.

However, the backlog has now been “eliminated” and the court has adopted a procedure which will “strike a balance between addressing a legitimate concern about the lack of individualised reasoning and maintaining an efficient process for handling inadmissible cases”.

Instead of receiving a decision letter, applicants will now receive a decision of the court sitting in single judge formation in one of the court’s official languages and signed by a single judge, accompanied by a letter in the relevant national language.

The decision will include, in many cases, reference to specific grounds of inadmissibility. However, the court will still issue global rejections in some cases, for example, where applications contain numerous ill-founded, misconceived or vexatious complaints.