Over the years there has been a steady rise in the number of applications to the European Commission of Human Rights that are introduced through a lawyer.

The 1990 commission survey showed that these now represent about 45% of all applications.The increasing involvement of lawyers reflects a growing awareness of the practical importance of the convention.

Initially its process was mainly the preserve of academics and pressure groups.

Such involvement precipitated significant legislative changes, especially to mental health law, prisoners' rights, corporal punishment, telephone tapping, homosexual discrimination, Northern Irish interrogation procedures and access to children in care.The usefulness of the convention process is, however, now being seen in many practical areas: for instance, challenges to legal aid refusals, gagging injunctions, excessive airport noise, satellite broadcasting restrictions and access to social services files.Increasingly, practitioners are appreciating the potential scope of art 8 (the right to privacy) and art 1 to the first protocol, which protects the right to 'peaceful enjoyment of possessions' and has been held to cover such matters as planning, licensing and compulsory purchases.

Indeed, the fairness of the UK's entire town and country planning inquiry system is itself being scrutinized by the commission.An application to the commission may be initiated by letter or fax.

Its complaints procedure lacks all but the most rudimentary of formalities.

UK complainants must be victims of a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights (or the first protocol) and must lodge their initial letter of complaint within six months of the exhaustion of their domestic court remedies.The initial letter to the commission should identify the essential details of the complaint and the domestic remedies attempted.

In due course the details must be transferred to an application form (which the commission supplies).Where the application is made by a representative on behalf of the complainant, the commission requires a simple letter of authority to be signed (it provides a standard form).

The commission's rules place little restriction upon who can act as the applicant's representative, permitting 'a lawyer or any other person resident in a convention country, unless the commission at any stage decides otherwise'.Legal aid is available to individual applicants (subject to a means test), but only after a complaint has been communicated to the government - most are rejected befo re reaching this stage.

Legal aid is, however, only available before the commission to cover the cost of 'a barrister, solicitor or professor of law or a professionally qualified person of similar status'.

Legal aid covers, in appropriate cases, the cost of more than one lawyer; for example, counsel and solicitor.

It is paid by the Council of Europe, and represents only a nominal payment towards professional fees.

Its great benefit is that it covers expenses, such as air fares, or allowances for hotel expenses, incurred in attending oral hearings in Strasbourg.Council of Europe legal aid is not paid on a time-costed basis, but by fixed figures to cover specified work: for instance, 1,695 French francs (approximately £235) for preparing written observations on the government's response to the complaint.While the commission permits litigants in person and imposes few restrictions upon who may act as representatives, the court rules are more strict.

The court requires applicants to be represented and restricts representation to barristers and/or solicitors (although the president has discretion to waive this requirement in appropriate cases).The human rights of lawyers have been considered by the court and commission on a number of occasions in respect of both a lawyer's internal professional obligations and the lawyer/client relationship.Curiously, professionals have made a high proportion of the few complaints submitted under art 4 of the convention which prohibits slavery, forced or compulsory labour.In Van Der Mussele v Belgium (1983) 6 EHHR 163, the applicant barrister complained that during his pupillage he was required to do free legal representation work, which amounted to about a fifth of his total duties.

The court, while regarding the situation as most unsatisfactory, did not consider the amount so disproportionate as to come within art 4.

It also noted and relied upon the fact that he had voluntarily entered the profession with knowledge of the practice about which he complained.A complaint by a notary was similarly rejected.

He had protested about a professional restriction requiring the acceptance of lower fees from non-profit making organisations but the commission considered that this condition was known to him when he entered the profession.

The court has yet to find a violation of art 4.In Ezelin v France (1991) 14 EHHR 163 a lawyer took part in a public demonstration protesting about certain court decisions.

He was disciplined by the Bar council, receiving a reprimand.

The court held that arts 10 and 11 (freedom of expression and assembly) had been violated; that lawyers should not be discouraged, for fear of disciplinary sanctions, from making clear their beliefs on such occasions.

The freedom to take part in a peaceful assembly was of such importance that it could not be restricted by such a sanction, however minimal.The same freedom has not, however, been extended to the magistracy or judiciary.

Thus, where a judge was reprimanded for having distributed political leaflets, which criticized the administration of justice, the commission found that the sanction was permitted as being necessary for the maintenance and impartiality of the judiciary.There is a gulf between a lawyer participating in a peaceful protest, and the making of insulting statements about the judiciary.

Where barristers had been disciplined for having stated (among other things) that the 'rule of law is maintained by state hirelings with fascist experience', the commission considered that their suspension from practice for severa l months did not violate the convention.The commission and court consider that an individual's ability to confer with his or her lawyer in private is fundamental to the convention, and have subjected to a very high degree of scrutiny any restriction upon this right.In S v Switzerland (1991) 14 EHHR 670, the applicant was convicted of charges involving the use of explosives and arson.

His conversations with his lawyer were listened to by the police, and he complained that this violated the convention.

The state sought to justify this 'particularly drastic' action because of what it alleged was the extraordinarily dangerous character of the applicant and the risk of collusion with his lawyer.

The court held that without sufficiently cogent evidence to establish such allegations (which it held that the Swiss authorities had not provided) such an interference violated the convention.The convention not only protects a defendant's right to consult a lawyer in private, it also requires that free legal aid be made available in criminal proceedings where the individual has insufficient means, when the interests of justice so require.In Granger v UK (1990) 12 EHHR 460, legal aid for an appeal (against conviction for perjury and a five-year sentence) was refused because counsel advised that it would not succeed, although the solicitor disagreed.

The appeal went ahead with the defendant appearing in person, opposed by a QC and junior counsel for the Crown.

The court had little difficulty in finding a violation of the convention right to legal aid in this case.In Quaranta v Switzerland (1991) series A, No.205 the applicant, who had a long criminal record, was refused domestic legal aid for drugs-related charges for which he was then sentenced to six months' imprisonment.

Although not a complicated criminal matter, the court held unanimously that the convention had thereby been violated.In McDermitt v UK (1987) DR 52/44, the applicant was charged with breach of the peace and obstruction of a police officer, the maximum sentence for which was nine months' imprisonment.

Legal aid was refused on the ground that it was not in the interests of justice.

The prosecution was by a qualified lawyer and the solicitor representing the applicant continued to act for him (thereby rendering the applicant liable to an account).The commission considered the case sufficiently serious to convene an admissibility hearing, although prior to this a friendly settlement was concluded with the applicant receiving an ex gratia payment and payment of his costs.Where an applicant succeeds before the Court of Human Rights, in general it orders the state to pay his or her reasonable costs.

The court is prepared to make such an order even where the applicant is clearly not in a position to make such a payment to his or her lawyer (had the complaint been unsuccessful).In Pakelli v Germany (1983) 6 EHHR 1 the successful applicant's lawyer did not issue him with a fee note until four years after the submission of the complaint and even then stated that it would be in order for the applicant to defer payment having regard to the applicant's financial circumstances.The government objected to paying the lawyer's fee, but this was rejected by the court, holding that: 'A lawyer will be acting in the general interest if he agrees to represent or assist a litigant even if the latter is not in a position to pay him immediately.'The court accepts that the Council of Europe legal aid rates are not the correct measure in assessing the applicant's reasonable costs.

It has , however, emphasised the need for human rights lawyers to be moderate in the fees they charge.In Young James and Webster v UK (1982) 5 EHHR 201 (which concerned a trade union closed shop) the court held that: 'The high costs of litigation may themselves constitute a serious impediment to the effective protection of human rights.

It would be wrong for this court to give encouragement to such a situation in its decisions awarding costs.

It is important that applicants should not encounter undue financial difficulties in bringing complaints under the convention and the court considers that lawyers in contracting states will co-operate to this end in fixing their fees.'The court considered in the Young case that a reasonable way of assessing the costs would be for them to be taxed by a taxing master.

In the circumstances, however, it awarded costs of £65,000 in addition to the Council of Europe legal aid that the applicants had received.The convention system is undergoing a period of dynamic change.

Allied to the inexorable growth in the number of complaints has been a rapid rise in membership of the Council of Europe with the accession of many east European countries.

membership currently stands at 32 states with a total population in excess of 400 million.

A number of applications are outstanding, including those from the Russian Federation and the Ukraine.

Ultimately the convention may affect the lives of 800 million Europeans.At the same time, there has been an unprecedented willingness by the UK's judiciary to accept the relevance of the convention in domestic proceedings, especially as an aid to statutory interpretation and common law clarification.Indeed, in relation to the latter category, in Derbyshire County Council v Times [1992] 3 All ER 720 Lord Justice Butler-Sloss held that: 'Where there is an ambiguity, or the law is otherwise unclear or so far undeclared by an appellate court, the English court is not only entitled but, in my judgment, obliged to consider the implications of the relevant part of the convention' - which in this case was art 10.There is little doubt that the convention will be of increasing relevance to all proceedings within the UK, even if its ultimate incorporation into domestic law is further delayed.

What is certain is that at the conclusion of any domestic proceedings, a lawyer must not only consider whether the disappointed client has any possibility of pursuing his or her claim to Strasbourg, he or she must also know how to initiate and pursue such an application.