PART 2: How to Bring a Case to the Court 2.2.6 ‘Well-Foundedness’ of the Application (Article 35 § 3) a) General Observations An application is ‘well-founded’ only if the Court is satisfied that there is a case to answer. The concept is related to that of an “arguable claim” of a human rights violation under Article 13 of the Convention.517 If the application on its face does not disclose a violation of the Convention, either because 1) the allegations are not sufficiently substantiated by the evidence (proffered by the applicant in the application form); or 2) because the complaint, even if substantiated, does not fall within the scope of Convention rights because, for instance, the ill-treatment complained of is not sufficiently severe to constitute a violation of Article 3, then the application will be dismissed as ‘manifestly ill-founded’. According to Article 35 § 3 of the Convention, the Court may declare any individual application that has passed the formal admissibility requirements and is not incompatible with the Convention inadmissible if it considers it to be ‘manifestly ill-founded’. Applications can be declared inadmissible on this ground both by Committees and Single Judges – i.e. without the application being communicated to the respondent Government, and without a formal decision, but rather by simple letter to the applicant – or by Chambers, and even in exceptional cases by the Grand Chamber.518 Applications relating to Article 3 violations should, firstly, be supported by evidence of the ill-treatment such as medical reports, eye-witness affidavits, custody records, court transcripts, domestic complaints, and any other documents showing that the ill-treatment occurred and that the complaints and relevant evidence were brought to the attention of the national authorities. Secondly, applicants must show that the alleged ill-treatment was severe enough to cross the threshold of the Article 3 prohibition. For purposes of the present handbook two of the above-mentioned requirements are of particular relevance: the risk of a failure to substantiate the allegations, and situations where the ill-treatment complained of is not sufficiently severe to amount to a breach of Article 3. 517 See Françoise J. Hampson, “The Concept of an “Arguable Claim” Under Article 13 of the European Convention on Human Rights”, in International and Comparative Law Quarterly, vol. 39, 1990, pp. 891–899. 518 See e.g. Gratzinger and Gratzingerova v. the Czech Republic (dec.), no. 39794/98, 10 July 2002. 141