From 1 February 2022 the time limit for submitting a case to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) will be reduced from six months to four months after the final ruling handed by domestic courts, usually a judgment of the highest court in the country concerned, state agency Hina said on Monday, citing a press release from ECHR.

The change to the time limit for applying to the Court “arises out of Protocol No. 15 to the European Convention on Human Rights, which has been signed and ratified by the 47 member States of the Council of Europe. The text amending the Convention entered into force on 1 August 2021 but provided for a transition period before the change became effective,” Hina said.

As the transition period ends on 1 February 2022, from that date onwards applicants and their lawyers will have to comply with the new time-limit; if they do not, their application will be declared inadmissible, the ECHR said.

Hina did not explain as to why the change is being implemented.

The ECHR is a Strasbourg-based international court founded in 1959. It decides about individual or international applications concerning the violation of civil and political rights contained in the European Convention on Human Rights. The Convention has been ratified by 47 countries, and Croatia did so in 1997.

More than 50,000 new applications are submitted to the ECHR every year.