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Since then, there have been thousands of domestic cases in which parties have attempted to raise points based upon the HRA and ECHR. The overwhelming majority of them have been unsuccessful and this perhaps illustrates the need for legal advisers to understand more fully the jurisprudence under the ECHR. Nevertheless, there are potential points to be raised under the ECHR, mainly relating to the following provisions; Article 6 (right to a fair trial), Article 8 (right to family life/privacy), Article 10 (freedom of expression). Article 1(Protocol 1) (right to property). The key for a practitioner is to spot a potential HRA/ECHR point and arm oneself with the case law to understand the point more fully.
The starting point when evaluating web based materials or indeed any research tool is to narrow down the potential sources. A quick search under the heading "Human Rights Act" will produce a list of more than 4,000 web sites which make reference to the HRA. Most of them are of no use to the practitioner who needs to identify case law that is relevant to the issue in hand.
Research tools which can help to pinpoint case law that addresses a potential issue are therefore of great value. However, in my view there are certain essential requirements that such tools must comply with to enable the lawyer to use his or her time most effectively and to be as confident as possible that nothing has been missed out.
Thus, when engaging in legal research it is important that any source of information is easy and quick to access, up to date, comprehensive and (ideally) free!
With those criteria in mind, I shall list sources on the web in two categories, firstly the free materials and then the subscription based services. I should add at this stage that all the subscription based services generally offer free trial subscriptions and that is how I was able to access and evaluate their services.
The European Court of Human Rights ("EctHR") website (www.echr.coe.int) contains the excellent HUDOC search engine. Accessible in both English and French, it is possible to search for cases on the basis of key words, the identity of the parties or the provision of the ECHR. A search will produce a list of relevant materials in reverse chronological order and you can obtain transcripts online.
You should also be aware of the Press Releases issue by the Registrar of the Court. These identify, inter alia, forthcoming judgments and the areas of the ECHR that are involved. You will also be able to access and download the ECHR and the Rules of the EctHR from the website.
If you are only interested in carrying out a search of ECHR jurisprudence from Strasbourg, then this site will cater for all your needs. However, you will probably want to check what has been happening in our domestic Courts. For that, you can start by arming yourself with a free copy of the HRA (and most of the ECHR) by downloading it from the Stationery Office website (www.hmso.gov.uk) .
Next you will want to check whether there is any domestic case law dealing with the Section of the HRA or Article of the ECHR that you have identified as being potentially applicable. A very good free site which contains materials for the UK and certain Commonwealth jurisdictions is the British and Irish Legal Information Institute (BAILII) (www.bailii.org). The data for the system comes from existing published and un-published CD ROMs or is based upon materials supplied directly from Courts, government departments and other organisations. A boolean search for "Article 6 AND extradition" produces 24 cases, including most of the main cases. An additional feature of this site is that recent cases are highlighted on the home page. BAILII and HUDOC will take you quite a long way for free!
To check whether the House of Lords has dealt with any human rights cases you can carry out a fairly limited search and obtain a copy of recent judgments from the parliamentary website (www.parliament.uk). You can also check the Court Service web site and the Smith Bernal free Casebase service although these contain only a relatively small number of cases and are thus of limited value.
Delia Venables provides a very useful list of these and other free web sites at www.venables.co.uk/sites.htm.
I shall briefly review the services below:
This service provides full text law reports of the European Human Rights Reports (EHHR), the Human Rights Law Reports - UK cases, domestic legislation, commentaries and articles. As to the latter, subscribers have access to the European Human Rights Law Review edited by Ben Emmerson QC and the loose-leaf work Simor & Emmerson - Human Rights Practice. The combination of access to law reports, commentaries and texts may be attractive to readers who want to develop a thorough understanding of the HRA/ECHR. Westlaw UK also offers transcripts of Human Rights cases online, the Human Rights Legal Journals Index, with abstracts of articles on human rights cases, and the daily current awareness feed of the latest developments on human rights cases, legislation and discussed legal issues.
Lawtel provides subscription based services for accessing, inter alia, UK and EU law services. Lawtel Human Rights enables the subscriber to search for human rights cases both from the EctHR and the domestic Courts. One very useful feature of the Lawtel free-text search facility is that the search results are produced in a way which provides the case name and summary of the legal principles involved. That enables a quick screen review to take place and for a more detailed "head note" to be accessed for a particular case. Many transcripts of cases which are produced in a search are also available through this service although some transcripts are only available (by e-mail/fax or post) for an additional fee. The specialised nature of Lawtel Human Rights is evident from the fact that a Human Rights Bulletin and e-mail alerter is provided to subscribers which contains a summary of the key domestic and EctHR cases as well as reference to relevant articles.
Justis provides a range of databases that can be subscribed to. As a companion to the main case law database (which contains domestic case law updated on a weekly basis), the Human Rights database encompasses case law from the EctHR, the ECHR and Protocols thereto as well as the HRA. Subscribers are provided with web access to the text "Companion to the European Convention on Human Rights" by Professor Rebecca Wallace. However, there is no access to articles or commentary on domestic case law dealing with human rights issue and readers may consider this to be a limitation.
This service also provides an e-mail alerter facility to subscribers either on a daily weekly or monthly basis. This service highlights cases, legislation, articles and other relevant developments in the field of human rights. Subscribers are given access to selected and recent human rights cases from All England Direct digests as well a full on-line access to the Butterworths Human Rights cases series and EctHR cases. On-line access is provided to the very useful text produced by David Pannick QC and Lord Lester "Human Rights law and Practice" together with the full text of the HRA and ECHR. Case commentaries are provided weekly by Doughty Street chambers.
A very good database if all you want to do is to search for and obtain transcripts of domestic cases. The free text or case reference search facility is very useful but the service is limited because it is confined to domestic cases only.
Jordans provides web based access to its UK Human Rights Reports service with the additional facility of e-mail case alerts which provide advance notice of forthcoming case reports. Again, the service is limited because there is no access to analysis or any form of commentary.
Before taking any decision, I suggest that you sign up for a free trial. You need to consider how comfortable you feel with the layout and design of the service as well as the range of services you require. My own advice would be that you may be best served by subscribing to a service that provides you with access to the widest possible search facilities in respect of domestic law, as well as a specialised element for HRA/ECHR issues.
Khawar Qureshi is a Barrister and Treasury Counsel practising at Serle Court, Lincoln's Inn. He practises mainly in the areas of Commercial and International law and has advised and appeared extensively for government ministers and departments on HRA related matters.
Email KMQureshi@aol.com.
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