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The Declaration will be formally adopted tomorrow under UK Chairmanship of the Council following this week’s High Level Conference on the Strasbourg Court’s future. It will stress the importance of national implementation of the European Convention to reduce pressure on the Court of Human Rights. In the UK, the Human Rights Act incorporates the Convention into British law – but many other Council of Europe States do not have similar legislation. The Declaration will urge members to introduce greater domestic rights protection to ease the Court’s workload.

Elsewhere the Brighton Declaration will also recognise the importance of recent reforms to tackle the Court of Human Rights’ backlog. The Court has introduced a priority policy and new working methods and is on track to reduce its build-up of inadmissible cases by 2015. But it will also highlight the pressure being put on the Court by repetitive violations of the European Convention by some Member States. While the backlog is often presented as evidence of the Strasbourg Court’s inefficiency, the Court is a victim not only of its own success but also the significant increase in the number of Council of Europe Member States.

Isabella Sankey, Director of Policy for Liberty, said: “This Declaration will rightly recognise the value of national responsibility for the Convention and in the UK our Human Rights Act ensures precisely that.
 
“It’s just a shame that politicians seem happy to talk up our strong implementation at the Council of Europe, yet so keen to try and scrap the HRA here at home.
 
“Repealing the HRA would force more British people to appeal to Strasbourg and remove the vital role of British courts – instead of attacking it Ministers should recognise its potential as a model for the rest of Europe and beyond.”

The Brighton Declaration, which will be published in full tomorrow morning after its formal adoption, will also omit various drastic proposals which would have undermined the right of individual petition, such as amending the Convention to narrow the Court of Human Rights’ admissibility criteria. It will highlight the importance of the right of individual application to the Court and urge Council of Europe Member States not to hinder it.

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