European Human Rights Moot Court Competition I

Litigation before the ECtHR: pleading a case

Since the case is a real one, and since it was referred to the Grand Chamber, you have an excellent opportunity to watch the oral pleadings before the Court, to understand to procedure, and to try the same yourselves!

The task is challenging but it's a good one: watch the oral pleadings and try to replicate them - you can choose whether you just repeat the arguments used by the parties in the real case, or whether you improve them and come up with an even better pleading. (You can definitely do that! Since you already have the GC judgment, including separate opinions, you have many more arguments and you have a great advantage!)

The hearing before the Court is publicly available, you can find it via this link: https://www.echr.coe.int/web/echr/all-webcasts. Watch it, take good notes, think (again), and practice.

When you're ready, record your own oral submissions - you can choose whehter you want to do this for the applicant or for the French government. Your pleading should be between 5 and 10 minutes long, just submit a video file here: