human rights, and the large number of individual applications already received proves that abundant use is being made of it.
Proceedings before the Commission
Broadly speaking, there are two stages: examination as to the admissibility of the application; examination of the application declared admissible; and drafting of the report.
1. Examination as to the admissibility of the application In examining if the application, governmental or individ- ual, could be considered admissible, the Commission verifies whether it is within its competence, as explained above, and whether it meets the conditions for admissibility laid down in the Convention. At this stage the Commission is exercising a judicial function, and no appeal lies against its decisions. The two conditions of admissibility are set out in Article 26 and have been held by the Commission to apply to both governmental and individual applications before applying to the Commission, a State or an individual must first exhaust all domestic remedies available for the effective redress of the alleged violation; secondly, the application must be lodged within six months from the date of the final domestic decision.
Five other conditions set out in Article 27 only apply to individual applications; an application must not be anony- mous; it must not be substantially the same as a matter already dealt with by the Commission or already submitted to another system of international settlement; it must not be incompatible with the provisions of the Convention; it must not be manifestly ill-founded; it must not be an abuse of the right of petition.
The Commission has already built up a large body of case-law on admissibility, and a great part of the Commis- sion's work consists of examining applications as to their admissibility. The overwhelming majority are rejected as inadmissible, in many cases after the Commission has con- sidered written pleadings or heard the oral arguments of the parties. By 1st May 1975, 134 individual applications had been declared admissible and 11 inter-governmental applica- tions. The list of these applications appears below.
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2. Examination on the merits of an application declared admissible
a) Attempt at friendly settlement
Once an application has been declared admissible, it is examined on its merits by the Commission. It must first establish the facts of the case, and in this sense it acts, mutatis mutandis, rather like an examining judge. It must also try, through conciliation, to effect a friendly settlement of the case. If it does secure such a settlement, on the basis of respect for human rights as defined in the Convention, it draws up a brief report recording the facts and the solution reached. This report is published by the Secretariat General.
b) Drafting of the report on the case
If the attempt at conciliation has failed, the Commission must draw up a report in which, after stating the facts, it gives its opinion as to whether the facts found disclose a breach of the Convention by the State concerned. Thus the proceedings before the Commission are not at this stage judicial, in the sense that they do not lead to an enforceable decision, but to a report containing an opinion. Though this opinion is not binding on the State concerned, experience over quite a long period shows that great importance is at- tached to it, and on several occasions it has been apparent that the action of States has been directly influenced by it. The reports of the Commission are of a confidential nature and only published if the case is referred to the Court, or if the Committee of Ministers so decides or, exceptionally, by decision of the Commission itself if a case is withdrawn after having been declared admissible.
The report containing the Commission's opinion is the starting-point of a new stage in the proceedings which, this time, will lead to a binding decision. The report is transmitted to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe. Two things may then happen :
the case may be referred to the European Court of Human Rights, either by the Commission or by a State concern- ed;
if it is not referred to the Court within three months the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe must take a decision on the case.
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