The right to a fair trial in the light of the minimum guarantee of legal assistance in the practice of the European Court of Human Rights

The research attempts to form the essence of the modern understanding of the right to a fair trial through the prism of the minimum guarantee of legal assistance. Attention is drawn to the fact that the European Convention itself does not define the mechanism of its application, which in turn complicates its application by different states with certain differences in legal systems. In this regard, it is substantiated that by ruling on the application of the European Convention, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) sets the direction for building one of the most effective systems of human rights protection, which is subsequently manifested in the national systems of the Convention member states. In view of this, the article analyses the most important, key and modern practice of the ECHR in relation to consideration of applications for violation of the minimum guarantee of legal assistance in the context of violation of the right to a fair trial and summarises it, as well as identifies the risks of such an approach. In addition, the paper analyses the current conceptual vision of such transformations from the point of view of legal scholars, both academics and practitioners. In the course of analysis of modern ECHR judgments, the author found that in a significant number of them the Court indicates that the mere violation of the minimum guarantee of legal assistance does not automatically mean a violation of the right to a fair trial, and the author emphasizes the possible risks of such an interpretation, in particular, for the States which are leaders in violation of the guarantee of legal assistance, where the specifics of national systems reflect a systematic violation of this right. It is determined that the application of the minimum guarantee of legal assistance is not limited to criminal proceedings, and the court is not the only institution that must comply with this guarantee to ensure fairness of the proceedings. It is also emphasised that the practice of applying this guarantee cannot be limited to court proceedings only. The author also suggests improving the legal technique of implementing the European Convention into national legislation by amending its translation into Ukrainian.