The number of court cases using the Human Rights Act continued to fall last year, according to new research.
Legal information providers Sweet and Maxwell Online said records showed an 18% fall to 394 in 2005/06 from 479 in 2004/05.
It was the third year in a row to show a decline and represented a 27% fall from the peak of 541 cases in 2002/03.
Head of public law and human rights at Bindman and Partners, Stephen Grosz, said: "We saw a huge surge in the number of cases implementing human rights arguments when this legislation was first introduced but there has been a gradual downturn over the past three years as the Act has been established by test cases.
"Everyone is now aware of the legislation and organisations have become more careful about complying with human rights obligations, so the Act has been successful on this account.
"On the other hand it certainly hasn't opened the floodgates to litigation as some doom-mongers warned."
However, more human rights cases are having far-reaching implications after going to senior courts, he added.
"What this trend does not take into account is the higher proportion of human rights cases reaching the Court of Appeal and the House of Lords," said Mr Grosz.
"The Human Rights Act is becoming central to more and more of the really important legal decisions that are being made in the UK.
"It has managed to keep a check on some of the Government's more authoritarian instincts which in the post-9/11 world has been a considerable achievement."
