Human Right to Court in the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms

The right to a fair trial has become a right of a universal nature. The idea of human rights is closely related to universal and equal treatment of all people, which means respecting the personal dignity of man. This dignity, as a condition for the individual to belong to the human species, constitutes the foundation, the basis for human rights, and the purpose, the culmination of the construction of these rights. The right to a fair trial is a subjective right of the individual, understood as an idea that any intervention in civil rights must depend on a ruling issued by an independent and impartial judicial body. On the other hand, the material scope of the right to court covers penal, civil and administrative rights decided upon by different courts according to their statutorily determined extent of jurisdiction. Although human rights are the rights of a particular human being, their protection is also an obligation of the State. It is the State which is obligated to ensure that the core of a specific human right is protected. This protection must be effective, thus not only does it apply to the content of the human right concerned, but it also comprises the procedure necessary to protect it so that the right is not illusory. The unique nature of the right to court makes it essential that the administration of justice in accordance with the principle of the right to a fair trial should be the subject of adjudication by courts and tribunals.