Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights: A Practitioner’s Handbook determine “minor” complaints”534 and to allow it to “concentrate on cases […] which raise prima facie issues of importance.”535 The new criterion certainly has the potential of adding a degree of discretion536 to the Court’s arsenal of admissibility standards, although an initial assessment suggests that the Court is using the tool cautiously.537 The provision contains two safeguard clauses: the first provides that respect for human rights may indeed command the examination of an application that would otherwise be minor in character; and the second excludes any rejection for lack of significant disadvantage of cases that have not been duly considered by a judicial body at the domestic level. The second safeguard clause will be deleted once Protocol No. 15 enters into force.538 In practice, as the Court explained in Korolev v. Russia, “[i]t is common ground that [the] terms [significant disadvantage] are open to interpretation and that they give the Court some degree of flexibility.” 539 “[A] violation of a right,” the Court added, “however real from a purely legal point of view, should attain a minimum level of severity to warrant consideration by an international court.” 540 The Court thus explicitly linked the “disadvantage” criterion of Article 35 (3) (b) of the Convention to the “minimum level of severity” standard established in its jurisprudence Article 3. Other language employed, for instance that “[t]he assessment of this minimum level is, in the nature of things, relative and depends on all the circumstances of the case,” 541 reminds us of the same jurisprudence.542 534 Alastair Mowbray, “European Convention on Human Rights: Institutional Reforms Proposals and Recent Cases”, in Human Rights Law Review, vol. 3, 2003, pp. 301–21. 535 Michael O’Boyle, “On Reforming the Operation of the European Court of Human Rights”, in European Human Rights Law Review, vol. 1, 2008, p. 5. 536 See Rudolf Bernhardt, “The Admissibility Stage: The Pros and Cons of a Certiorari Procedure for Individual Applications”, in Ulrike Deutsch and Rüdiger Wolfrum (eds.), The European Court of Human Rights Overwhelmed by Applications: Problems and Possible Solutions, Springer, 2009, pp. 29–36. 537 Alexander H. E. Morawa, “The European Court of Human Rights’ Rejection of Petitions where the Applicant has not Suffered a Significant Disadvantage. A Discussion of Desirable and Undesirable Efforts to Safeguard the Operability of the Court”, in Journal of Transnational Legal Issues, vol. 1, 2012, pp. 1–24. 538 Article 5 of Protocol No. 15. 539 Korolev v. Russia (dec.), no. 25551/05, 1 July 2010. 540 Ibid. 541 Vyacheslavovich Ladygin v. Russia (dec.), no. 35365/05, 30 August 2011. 542 Korolev v. Russia (dec.), no. 25551/05, 1 July 2010 explicitly refers, mutatis mutandis, to Soering v. the United Kingdom, no. 14038/88, 7 July 1989, § 100. 543 Korolev v. Russia (dec.) no. 25551/05, 1 July 2010. See also Finger v. Bulgaria (dec.), no. 37346/05, 10 May 2011, § 70, and Luchaninova v. Ukraine, no. 16347/02, 9 June 2011, § 47. In Ladygin v. Russia (dec.), no. 35365/05, 30 August 2011, the Court reasoned: “Although the applicant’s subjective perception is relevant, this element does not suffice for the Court to conclude that the applicant suffered a significant disadvantage.” 146