ABSTRACT
The European Convention on Human Rights includes fewer rights than other human rights treaties. One of the rights missing is that of access to public service employment. Has this omission left European citizens completely unprotected against arbitrary refusal of employment in public service, or from arbitrary dismissal? This chapter responds to this question by comparing the Convention system with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. First, it engages with the Convention’s drafting history to trace the reasons why a right of access to public service positions is absent from the Convention’s text. After that, it briefly summarises the meaning of the right of access to employment in public service under Article 25 (c) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. It then proceeds to examine the extent to which the European Court of Human Rights has been able to provide protection to the different aspects of that right, in the absence of its express recognition. For this purpose, the chapter compares the Court’s case law under different Convention provisions with the case law of the Human Rights Committee under Article 25 (c) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
