New guidelines published by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) will make it harder for people facing deportation to ask for the order to be suspended.

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The ECHR is struggling to cope with a 4,000 percent increase in the number of requests to suspend extraditions and deportations since 2006 - an "alarming" situation, according to ECHR president Jean-Paul Costa.

Under ECHR rules, requests to temporarily suspend an extradition or expulsion order are only granted in exceptional circumstances, if the person risks "serious, irreversible harm" in returning to their homeland.

The ECHR is not "a European appeal court concerning legal decisions over asylum and immigration at a national level", Costa said back in February.

"If national courts have taken into account the risks to make a fair decision concerning cases of immigration and asylum, there should be no reason for the ECHR to intervene, except in truly exceptional circumstances," he said.

Under the new guidelines, applicants will have to clearly set out their reasons for wanting to stay on in their country of residence and provide an evaluation of the risks facing them if they return home.

Applicants will now also have to submit their request as soon as possible before they are due to be deported.

Between October 2010 and January 2011 alone, the ECHR received 2,500 requests to suspend extraditions to Iraq, 1,930 of which came from people living in Sweden, which the ECHR granted.

The scond biggest number of requests in 2010 came from Britain, where more than 2,000 people attempted to delay their deportation.

Of the 246 requests accepted in the first half of 2011, the greatest number came from France, from people wanting to avoid deportation to nations including Greece, Sri Lanka and Sudan.

The ECHR will start releasing six-monthly updates of the numbers of interim requests made and accepted.

Source: AFA