The Right to Effective Defence in the Legal Practices of the European Court of Human Rights

Abstract

Whether categorized in a broader or a narrower sense, the principle of equality of arms is an essential element of the right to a fair trial and serves as a guarantee in criminal proceedings that the defence side (consisting of the defendant and the defence counsel) has such rights whose weights are comparable to the charge filed against the defendant. The right to defence (known as the 'right to effective defence’ in the legal practices of the European Court of Human Rights, in the acts on criminal proceedings being effective in several foreign countries as well as in the new Hungarian Act on Criminal Proceedings) is a nominated element of the right to a fair trial and, in a broader sense, is also an element of the principle of equality of arms (in a narrower sense, the right to defence falls out of the scope of the principle of equality of arms but shares multiple points of connection with it). In my study, I present the substance of the right to effective defence through the legal practices of the European Court of Human Rights.