The UK and Reform of the European Court of Human Rights

The UK holds the Chairmanship of the Council of Europe until mid-May 2012. The UK Government supported proposals to reform the European Court of Human Rights contained in the Interlaken and Izmir Declarations, but submitted further proposals for reform in the draft Brighton Declaration on 23 February 2012. These proposals reflected among other things Government concerns about the intervention of the European Court in decisions that the UK courts had reached after a thorough examination of the issues and with respect to the European Convention on Human Rights.

The Prime Minister, David Cameron, would like the Court to take more account of the principles of subsidiarity and the margin of appreciation in its decision-making, both to allow national authorities to reach conclusions based on their own particular circumstances, but also to reduce the ever-increasing workload of the Court. The High Level Conference meeting at Brighton on 19 and 20 April 2012 adopted a Declaration containing proposed reforms to the Court mechanisms and somewhat weakened texts on the margin of appreciation and subsidiarity.

Any such proposals must be agreed by a unanimous decision of all 47 CoE States to amend the European Convention by means of an amending protocol.