Junior Professional Programme – Assistant Lawyer – Hungary, Council of Europe

The Junior Professional Programme: the Assistant Lawyers’ scheme 

The Assistant Lawyers’ Scheme opens the doors of the European Court of Human Rights to legal professionals at the start of their career, giving them an opportunity to gain experience working within this European institution. They will benefit from regular working contact with experienced case lawyers, senior managers and the judges themselves. While dealing with individual applications originating from their own legal system and assisting senior colleagues in handling more complex applications, assistant lawyers benefit from the Registry’s in-house training programme and deepen their knowledge of the functioning of the European Court of Human Rights and the Convention case-law.

The Scheme serves the twofold objective of bringing new talent to the Registry and contributing to greater awareness and understanding of the Convention in the legal profession throughout Europe as assistant lawyers advance in their careers elsewhere. The length of employment of assistant lawyers under the Registry’s Assistant Lawyers’ Scheme is limited to four years.

Job mission

The principal duties of an assistant lawyer consist of assisting more senior members of staff in the preparation of correspondence with applicants and draft decisions in standard form cases.

* External recruitment procedure organised in accordance with Article 16 of the Regulations on Appointments

** Staff members or former staff members who are or have previously been employed in the framework of the Junior Professional Programme or Turnover Profiles will not be eligible again for any of the profiles under these schemes. The Council of Europe reserves the right to assess the admissibility of candidates who are or have previously been employed with the Organisation according to their contractual situation at the closing date of this competition.

Under the authority of the Registrar of the European Court of Human Rights and of a Head of a Division, the incumbent will be responsible for the following:

• examines and deals with applications in prima facie inadmissible cases and in cases which can be dealt with in a standard manner;
• drafts decisions, minutes, reports, notes and other documents;
• advises applicants, in correspondence or, if necessary, in interviews, on the conditions of admissibility of applications;
• attends the Court’s sessions and presents applications;
• assists one or more experienced case-lawyers, where necessary, in the preparation of Chamber cases for examination by the Court.

Please note that the incumbent may be required to perform other duties not listed in the vacancy notice.