Human Rights of Armed Forces Personnel by OSCE participating States that are not party to the ECHR. In particular, the Court has stipulated certain criteria that legislation should meet (see Box 4.8 on the “quality of law” test). Accordingly, laws should be foreseeable and restrain the discretion of those to whom they confer powers, and safeguards should be put in place to guard against the abuse of such powers. Box 4.8: The European Convention’s “quality of law” test131 The Convention prescribes that limitations have to be made “in accordance with the law”. The case law of the European Court of Human Rights has said that, inter alia: 72 • Laws include common-law rules, as well as statutes and subordinate legislation. In this case, the Court has stated that, to qualify as “law”, a norm must be adequately accessible and formulated with sufficient precision to enable citizens to regulate their conduct.132 • A law that “allows the exercise of unrestrained discretion in individual cases will not possess the essential characteristics of foreseeability and thus will not be a law for present purposes. The scope of the discretion must be indicated with reasonable certainty”,133 and safeguards must exist against abuse of the discretion established by law.134 • As far as these safeguards are not written in the law itself, the law must at least establish the conditions and procedures for interference.135 131 Ian Cameron, National Security and the European Convention on Human Rights (Dordrecht/Uppsala: Kluwer Law International, 2000). 132 European Court of Human Rights, Sunday Times v. the United Kingdom (Application No. 6538/74, judgment of 26 April 1979), para. 49. 133 European Court of Human Rights, Silver and others v. the United Kingdom (Application No. 5947/72 6205/73 7052/75 7061/75 7107/75 7113/75 7136/75, judgment of 25 March 1983), para. 88. 134 Ibid., para. 90. 135 European Court of Human Rights, Klass v. the Federal Republic of Germany (Application No. 5029/71, judgment of 6 September 1978), paras 51-58; Kruslin v. France (Application No. 11801/85, judgment of 24 April 1990), para. 35; and Huvig v. France, (Application No. 11105/84, judgment of 24 April 1990), para. 34.