Mr John Hirst By Email
11 March 2009
Dear Mr Hirst Thank you again for your recent query concerning the follow up to your European Court of Human Rights case, Hirst v UK. You will be interested to know that our Group Legal Director John Wadham last week visited the Committee of Ministers in the Council of Europe to discuss its work on executing judgments relating to the UK by the European Court of Human Rights. Mr Wadham raised his general concerns with the delay in the execution of the Court's judgment as referred to your judgment as an example. As a result of our discussions with the Committee of Ministers we are now currently considering in what ways we can assist them with the execution of judgments, particularly where there has been a considerable delay in implementing the judgments. We note that this would not however constitute direct legal assistance to yourself as the Commission is unable to fund and represent individuals in cases before the European Court of Human Rights and in any event of course your case has already been determined. We will be in touch with you again once we have made a decision regarding the type of work we will be undertaking.
In the interim if you have any queries regarding the above please contact me. Yours sincerely
Peter Reading Senior Lawyer Legal Policy