The President of the Court, Dean Spielmann, was recently interviewed in the BBC programme HardTalk, known for its tough questioning of guests. This is the excerpt the BBC used to advertise the show:
Eight hundred million Europeans' fundamental rights and liberties are supposed to be safeguarded by the European Court of Human Rights. It is an institution steeped in European idealism and ambition, but does it work? HARDtalk speaks to the President of the Strasbourg based Court, Dean Spielmann. Critics condemn it as an undemocratic, unaccountable infringement on national sovereignty; do they have a case?