Protocol No. 15 Amending the Convention on the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms

On April 24, 2021 the European Court of Human Rights (“ECtHR”) announced that, upon Italy’s ratification, Protocol No.15 (“Protocol”) of the European Convention of Human Rights (“ECHR”) has been fully ratified by all the Member States of the Council. The Protocol amends the Preamble to the Convention, which now includes a reference to the subsidiarity principle and to the margin of appreciation doctrine. Furthermore, the amendments made to the admissibility conditions and articles regarding candidate judges, as well as amendments to some other articles, entered into force as of August 1, 2021. Also, the 6-months period for applying to the Court after the final domestic decision is reduced to four months, starting from 1 February 2022.

The Protocol also brought the following changes to the Convention:

1-The final part of the Preamble of the Convention is amended by adding the following statement: “Affirming that the High Contracting Parties, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, have the primary responsibility to secure the rights and freedoms defined in this Convention and the Protocols thereto, and that in doing so they enjoy a margin of appreciation, subject to the supervisory jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights established by this Convention,”

2- With the paragraph added to Article 21 of the ECHR regarding the election of ECtHR judges, it is stipulated that the candidate judges must be younger than 65 years of age as of the date of their entry into the 3-person candidate list requested by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

3. Paragraph 2 of Article 23 of the ECHR, which states that the terms of office of ECtHR judges will end at the age of 70, has been abolished.

4. The provision in Article 30 of the ECHR, which seeks the consent of the parties for the withdrawal of an application in favor of the Grand Chamber, has been abolished.

5. The clause on the "admissibility criteria" regarding the rejection of individual applications on the grounds that "the applicant has not suffered any significant damage" has been amended. With the aforementioned amendment, the term stipulating that a case which has not been duly considered by a domestic tribunal cannot be rejected, has been deleted

6- The 6-months period foreseen for the application to the ECtHR has been reduced to 4 months. Accordingly, the 4-months period shall start to apply following the expiration of a period of six months after the date of entry into force of the Protocol [which corresponds to February 1, 2022].

7- The amendment requires the Protocol to enter into force on the first day of the month following the expiration of a period of three months after the date on which all High Contracting Parties to the Convention have expressed their consent to be bound by the Protocol. In this context, Protocol No. 15 entered into force on 1 August 2021. Accordingly, the amendment regarding the term for individual application regulated in Article 35 of the ECHR, shall take effect after 6 months upon the entry into force of the Protocol. Therefore, kindly note that, if a domestic final decision -referred to in Article 35 paragraph 1 of the ECHR- has been rendered before 1 February 2022, the application to be made on the basis of this decision will be subject to a 6-months period. For those rendered after February 1, a 4-months period shall be applied.

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