Case Study: European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) achieves instant, scalable public access to 90,000+ judgments with WorkShare Compare Server

European Court of Human Rights - Customer Case Study

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which must make its judgments publicly accessible to users across 47 member states, needed a way for millions of annual visitors to securely search and share an expanding library of over 90,000 judgment-related documents. The challenge was to build an intuitive, high‑performance search and dissemination platform that leveraged legacy investments in SharePoint and Hummingbird DMS while supporting heavy traffic spikes (up to ~5,000 simultaneous users after major rulings).

Workshare delivered a platform based on Workshare Compare Server that integrates the ECHR’s HUDOC database with Microsoft FAST search and a SharePoint-hosted Web 2.0 UI. The solution provides granular, personalized search refiners, push/pull document distribution, and scalable infrastructure—enabling users to find and access relevant case law within seconds and improving overall relevance, usability, and capacity to distribute rulings widely.

ECHR

John Hunter

Head of IT