Although the Assembly, on the whole, agrees with the text of the draft protocol, it wishes to make the following proposals and recommendations to the Committee of Ministers with a view to strengthening and improving the text:
7.1 the new Court should be permanent and full-time;
7.2 as individual applicants do not need to be assisted by legal counsel the text of the draft protocol should be easily understandable by lay persons. An effort should be made to make the text as easily accessible as possible - provided this does not lead to any delay. For that reason a more logical order of the proposed provisions, the introduction of small headings above the articles, and a rewording (not a change of substance) of certain provisions is desirable;
7.3 the new Court should start with a clean sheet and not have to consider cases which have been dealt with half way. The existing Commission and Court should be allowed to finish all cases pending before them. This is also in accordance with Article 40, paragraph 6 of the Convention as it now stands and which reads: "The members of the Court shall hold office until replaced. After having been replaced, they shall continue to deal with such cases as they already have under consideration". The existing Court might be given eighteen months and the Commission two and a half years (instead of eighteen months) to do this. Article 5 of the draft protocol should therefore be amended to this effect;
7.4 the term of office of the judges should be maintained as it is under the present system (nine years) but without the possibility of re-election. The Assembly agrees however that the Court shall consist of a number of judges "equal to that of the High Contracting Parties" (Article 20 of the draft protocol) and no longer be "equal to that of the members of the Council of Europe" (Article 38 of the Convention) especially as it is now accepted that new member states should ratify the Convention within a year or so of having adhered to the Organisation;
7.5 provision should be made for all decisions of the Court, including the decisions on admissibility (Article 29 of the draft protocol) to be adequately justified;
7.6 the Assembly supports the idea that a chamber of the Court should be able to relinquish jurisdiction in favour of the Grand Chamber. Yet this should be a matter for the Court alone and the words "unless one of the parties to the case objects" at the end of Article 31 of the draft protocol should be deleted;
7.7 whenever possible, sessions of the chambers of the Court (including its Grand Chamber) are to be held in public;
7.8 the protocol should provide the framework for the new single Court. There is no need for an elaboration in detail and it must be kept in mind that changing the provisions of the protocol - once adopted and ratified - will need new negotiations, the drawing-up of another protocol and subsequent signature and ratification by all Contracting States. For these reasons provisions pertaining to the internal functions and organisation of the Court should rather be laid down in the Rules of Procedure of the Court;
7.9 it follows from this that it may be left open how the "referendars" who assist the judges are to be appointed. The words "chosen by them" in Article 25 should therefore be deleted;
7.10 it may not be necessary or desirable in all cases to separate the consideration of the question of admissibility from the consideration of merit. The word "shall" in the second sentence of Article 30 should therefore by replaced be "may".
7.11
