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London has spoken; Strasbourg has listened. Today s judgment from the human rights court, according to its president, stanley website Sir Nicolas Bratza stanley isolierkanne , is a good example of the judicial dialogue between national courts and the European court that Lord Phillips, president of the UK supr stanley travel mug eme court, had called for two years ago see my preview .Phillips and his fellow judges had declined to apply a rule laid down by the Strasbourg court and invited its judges to reconsider it. They have now done so.The rule relates to the admission of hearsay evidence. A strict reading of the human rights convention suggests that evidence cannot be admissible if the person who gives it is not available for cross-examination by the defendant s lawyers.That interpretation has now been modified by the Strasbourg judges. They agreed with their British counterparts that a conviction based solely or decisively on the statement of an absent witness would not automatically result in a breach of article 6 of the convention, the right to a fair trial. However, there would still a breach of the defendant s rights unless there were counterbalancing factors, including strong procedural safeguards, to compensate for the difficulties caused to the defence and the dangers of relying on hearsay evidence. The question in each case is whether there are sufficient counterbalancing factors in place, including measures that permit a fair and proper assessment of the reliability of that evidence to take place,