ANNAGI HAJIBEYLI v. AZERBAIJAN JUDGMENT 13 62. Citing the Court’s case-law extensively, the ICJ, intervening, stated that confidentiality of communications between lawyers and their clients was a well-established principle of international human rights law, recognised as an element of the right to a fair trial, as well as of the right to respect for private life, home and correspondence. The significance of lawyer-client confidentiality in any justice system for the effective protection of rights guaranteed under the Convention required particularly close scrutiny of any interference with such confidentiality, including searches of lawyers’ premises and seizure of documents. 63. The ICJ further summarised the Court’s case-law under Article 34 of the Convention, focusing particularly on the Court’s jurisprudence on acts directed at the lawyers or legal representatives of the applicants that were found to have discouraged or impaired the pursuance of an individual’s right of petition. The ICJ further stressed that, in assessing the impact of any acts by the authorities which might hinder an applicant’s effective exercise of the right of individual application, account should be taken of the national context. In this connection, the intervener pointed to the current situation in Azerbaijan as identified by various international organisations and NGOs who had expressed their growing concern at the treatment of human rights defenders in the country. B. The Court’s assessment 64. According to the Court’s case-law, a complaint under Article 34 of the Convention is of a procedural nature and therefore does not give rise to any issue of admissibility under the Convention (see Cooke v. Austria, no. 25878/94, § 46, 8 February 2000, and Ergi v. Turkey, 28 July 1998, § 105, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1998-IV). 65. The Court reiterates that Article 34 of the Convention imposes an obligation on a Contracting State not to hinder the right of individual petition. While the obligation imposed is of a procedural nature, distinguishable from the substantive rights set out in the Convention and Protocols, it flows from the very essence of this procedural right that it is open to individuals to complain of its alleged infringement in Convention proceedings. The Court also underlines that the undertaking not to hinder the effective exercise of the right of individual application precludes any interference with the individual’s right to present and pursue his complaint before the Court effectively (see Chaykovskiy v. Ukraine, no. 2295/06, § 84, 15 October 2009, with further references). 66. It is of the utmost importance for the effective operation of the system of individual petition guaranteed by Article 34 of the Convention that applicants or potential applicants should be able to communicate freely with the Court without being subjected to any form of pressure from the authorities to withdraw or modify their complaints (see Akdivar and Others