The European Court of Human Rights introduced stricter conditions for submitting applications on 1 January 2014. The first mayor change includes new application form, which must now be completed in full and submitted together with copies of the relevant supporting documents. The second major change concerns the interruption of the six months period of the final decision of the highest domestic court, within which an application must be made to the ECtHR. For the period to be interrupted, the application will now have to fulfil all the conditions set out in Rule 47 of the Rules of Court, which prescribes the above mentioned conditions. For more infomation, see the press release of the Registrar of the Court, available here.

It is important to bear in mind all the requirements for the admissibility of applications by the European Court of Human Rights, due to the extremely high percentage of applications, including those in relation to Montenegro, that the Court declares inadmissible every year because they do not meet the basic requirements. Of total 87 879 applications submitted in 2012, the Court declared inadmissible or struck out of the list of court cases more than 86 201, or 98%, because they did not meet the requirements, and made decisions only on 1678 applications. In relation to Montenegro, it dismissed 92% of submitted applications, and made decisions on only 27 applications.

The European Court has published on its website the documents updated in accordance with the new rules, in all official languages ​​of the Council of Europe member states. The new application form and notes how to fill it, as well as Rule 47 and the Convention on Human Rights are available here.