Fair Trial In The Case Laws Made By European Court Of Human Rights

The Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms was drawn up within the Council of Europe. It was opened for signature in Rome on 4 November 1950 and entered into force in September 1953. Taking as their starting point the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the framers of the Convention sought to pursue the aims of the Council of Europe through the maintenance and further realization of human rights and fundamental freedoms. The Convention was to represent the first steps for the collective enforcement of certain of the rights set out in the Universal Declaration. Protocol No. 11, which came into force on 1 November 1998, replaced the existing, part-time Court and Commission by a single, full-time Court. European Court of Human Rights has played and still plays a vital role during the course of enforcing and protecting human rights in European Continent. European public order has been gradually shaped to limit sovereign of certain countries thanks to the various judgments made by the Court. Because of the supervision of the Court, the Convention becomes a constitutional file adjusting European public order and a common law guaranteeing European fundamental rights. Some hold that the Court is actually like the constitutional court in European Continent, aiming at protecting human rights and political rights of European people. The Court has a great effect not only on the contracting countries and European Union but also on the other legal systems in the world.Judgments made by the Court involve many different issues in the Convention,and among those, due procedure in the domestic laws is repeatedly concerned, which is directly related to the understanding of Article 6 — right to a fair trial. This paper tries to summarize the general rule and declined choice of the Court when interpreting and applying Article 6 through the careful selection and analysis of several typical cases from numerous judgments made by the Court in the recent years. The purpose of this paper is to set examples for China to follow during her course of reforming judicial system. China should learn from European Court of Human Rights and especially establish right to a fair trial to protect the rights of the defendants in numerous criminal cases.