One of the suggestions indicated by the Committee in the above document of the day of 7 May 2010 is the obligation to pay fee at the time of lodging an application, regardless the applicant’s financial situation and country of origin. Another idea is to introduce a compulsory deposit submitted to the Court which would be refundable if the judgement finds that human rights were violated by the state. As we read in the document of 7 May 2010 the aim of imposition of fees is to decrease the amount of inadmissible complaints.
In the relation to the above, in the letter on 8 July 2010 the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights expressed its concern related to the above mentioned proposals. The letter was filled to Jean-Paul Costa, President of European Court of Human Rights, Piotr Świtalski, Ambassador of Poland in Council of Europe and Jakub Wołąsiewicz, Representative of Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Foundation appealed to oppose the Committee of Experts on the Reform of the Court proposals, as they hinder the Court’s system of protection. The Foundation also asked for re-examination and and re-consideration of the Committee’s project of reform.
In the opinion of Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, introducing costs at the stage of lodging the application or at any other stage of the proceedings before the Court would discourage many of the applicants from filling the complaint. Although the aim of the regulation is to limit the number of inadmissible applications, introducing such a system will also deter well-founded applications lodged by the poorest and marginalized members of the populations, including prisoners and detainees. The risk linked to the eventual costs would discourage the a large numbers of applicants.
The introduction of costs waiver will not be efficient in Polish cases, as the interior system of waiver poses enormous problems and the experience of the domestic field would certainly have a psychological impact on applicants. The possibility to assess the financial capacity of the applicant by the Registry of the Court based in Strasbourg also seems illusory. On the other hand, if the financial situation would be assessed nationwide, most of the applicants would be unwilling to engage their national authorities in a process of verification.
Moreover, the system would require a diversification of fees depending on the applicant’s country of origin. The fees would need to be assessed as variations in the cost of living and the exchange rate of currencies would need to be considered and qualified. Such a proposal, however, introduces unclear diversification. Mean less to mention the barriers due to a lack of a common currency and high transactional costs.
Additional proceedings related to the Court fees, the need to examine and assess the financial situation of the applicant would prolong the proceedings before the Court, which are already lengthy, as applicants wait several years for resolution in their case.
Thanks to the complaints to the European Court for Human Rights, there has been developing standards of human rights protection that are used nowadays throughout the world. The meaning of the complaint – also in the process of establishing these standards – does not depend on the applicant’s financial situation – said Adam Bodnar, Secretary of the Board of the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights. People who lodged complaints in cases which became milestones in the jurisprudence of the Court, were often people who were poor, who were prisoners or widows. We are aware that the Court is overfilled with complaints, but it already possess the right to select the cases. Another mechanism which limits the access to the Court is contrary to the essence of European Convention of Human Rights – adds Adam Bodnar.
The letters of the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights were supported by eleven applicants who successfully lodged complaints in Strasbourg and subsequently received judgements in key Polish cases. These were inter alia: Helena Wojtas-Kaleta, Piotr Rachwalski, Andrzej Swat i Tomasz Bączkowski. They unanimously declared that if there have been fees for the applicants to the Court, it would not be possible for them to lodge a complaint.
