Roma Rights 1, 2010: Implementation of Judgments

26th, July, 2010

Improving the Effectiveness of the Implementation of Strasbourg Court Judgments in Light of Ongoing Reform Discussions

Constantin Cojocariu¹

The system of human rights protection instituted by the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR or the Convention) is rightly considered to be the most successful and innovative in the world. However, in the past 15 years the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR or the Court) has faced escalating challenges threatening its very existence. The most significant problem is that the Court is overwhelmed by a mounting number of cases. In May 2010, the number of cases pending before a judicial formation within the Court had risen to 126,200, representing a 60% increase since the beginning of the year.² Managing this caseload is an increasingly difficult task causing very long waiting times, which are potentially in breach of the fair trial rules included in the Convention. This crisis has engendered an extensive debate, which has now been ongoing for many years. It aims at identifying the best solutions for stemming the flow of cases and restoring the effectiveness of the Court. The reform discussions have led to the publication of many reports (by the Evaluation Group,³ Lord Woolf,⁴ the Group of Wise Persons⁵ and the Court⁶), declarations, recommendations, resolutions and at least one Protocol to the Convention (No. 14). The process received fresh impetus from a high-level inter-governmental conference, which took place in February 2010 and led to the adoption of the Interlaken Declaration.⁷ Therein, the 47 Council of Europe Member States formally reaffirmed their commitment to the Convention and the Court and adopted an action plan “as an instrument to provide political guidance for the process towards the long-term effectiveness of the Convention system,”⁸ including a timeline for its implementation.

This article provides a non-exhaustive account of the main themes of the discussions aimed at improving the implementation process and examines the main achievements of the reform process in that context. States are primarily responsible for enforcing the Convention in their jurisdiction, under the supervision of the Committee of Ministers. In addition, the Court and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) have the ability to influence the process to ensure better execution. I will examine the international dimensions of the implementation process in light of the wider debates concerning the reform of the Court.

This article should provide some useful background to the discussion hosted by the current issue of Roma Rights, which focuses on the perceived poor implementation of ECtHR judgments concerning Romani applicants. Claims that the States’ records of implementing Roma rights judgments is poorer compared to judgments concerning other categories of claimants are not supported by empirical evidence. Recent research concludes that “on the whole […] minority-related judgments are not characterised by slower or delayed implementation in comparison to the other cases.”⁹ On the other hand, a detailed understanding of the challenges and opportunities presented in the implementation process would assist Roma rights advocates in maximising their chances of achieving full compliance with judgments of the Court in their area of interest.

The efficiency and transparency of the process of supervision conducted by the Committee of Ministers

Under Article 46.2 of the Convention, the Committee of Ministers is responsible for supervising the enforcement of the Court’s judgments, namely payment of just satisfaction, implementation of individual measures bringing an end to the consequences of the violation for the individual concerned and general measures aimed at preventing similar violations in the future. The Committee of Ministers meets four times a year to analyse progress in the execution of judgments either at the level of Ministers of Foreign Affairs, or more frequently, at the level of Deputies (the Permanent Representatives of Member States of the Council of Europe).

The nature of the activity of supervision undertaken by the Committee of Ministers is subject to some controversy. Although Article 46.1 of the Convention spells out a State’s duty to implement Court judgments, implying in turn that the activity of supervising the enforcement of judgments is legal in nature, many inside the system insist it is a political process.¹⁰ The features of the process certainly seem to point in that direction: the procedure before the Committee is not adversarial and the decision to accept potential communications from NGOs is discretionary (see below). Furthermore, the Committee of Ministers has said in the past that it is “paramount that supervision of execution is treated as a cooperative task and not an inquisitorial one.”¹¹ Considering the fundamental flaws of the current system, which is based on peer pressure and the common responsibility of Council of Europe Member States for ensuring the effectiveness of the system, certain preferences have been expressed towards adopting a more judicial approach to the process of supervision. Thus, Erik Fribergh, the Registrar of the Court, argued recently that:

Enforcement issues are becoming more and more judicial and it would seem to me that in the future reform work, one issue that could be taken up is whether the enforcement issues should not be entrusted to a more quasi-judicial organ. This could be a separate body, or one operating under the auspices of the Committee of Ministers. I think a lot could be achieved to solve many enforcement issues if for instance a Panel of five to seven legal/judicial experts were entrusted with that duty.¹²

Growing awareness that deficient implementation at the national level is at the root of the caseload problem experienced by the Court has placed the spotlight firmly on the effectiveness of the process of supervision conducted by the Committee of Ministers. The Committee was criticised for its lenient approach in dealing with States and for the inaccessibility of the process of supervision.¹³ In response, the Committee of Ministers has taken great strides to improve the process over time, replacing an originally lax approach with a more rigorous type of supervision.

It is fair to admit at the same time that the Committee of Ministers is faced with significant challenges outside of its control. The Court’s heavy case load is slowly shifting to the Committee of Ministers, while a more rigorous approach to the process of supervision translates into an increase in the length of execution. According to statistics, the workload of the Committee of Ministers has increased threefold in the last ten years based on the number of new cases and has quadrupled in terms of the number of pending cases. The number of cases transmitted by the Court to the Committee increased by 90% between 2008 and 2009 and the number of pending cases increased by 19%.¹⁴

The Committee of Ministers is guided in its work by the Rules of Procedure adopted in 2001 as revised in 2006¹⁵ and the Working Methods adopted in 2004.¹⁶ In the initial phase of the execution process, within six months after judgments become final, States are expected to provide an action plan with a specified timeframe for the measures envisaged. An execution timetable is established on the basis of information submitted by States and a publicly available status sheet is opened. Cases come up for examination by the Committee at regular six-month intervals until the Committee is satisfied that the State concerned has executed the judgment. However, the Rules do not make any reference to the timing of the States’ communications with the Committee. In case of delays or other obstacles in the execution process, a more robust framework for execution may be imposed on States. Throughout the execution process, the Committee may make use of a series of means of pressuring States to comply including interim resolutions, press releases, etc. (see below).

One of the flaws of the system is that the Committee is not able to scrutinise the suitability of action plans submitted by States in the initial phase of execution. Based on the principle of subsidiarity, States have the latitude to decide the nature and scope of individual or general measures that they have to adopt in order to execute Court judgments. Furthermore, doubts persist concerning the quality of evidence required from States to prove execution has been successful. The Committee of Ministers has become increasingly strict in this regard over time. The evidence it requires from the State may range from changes in the practice of national courts, especially in the approach of higher and constitutional courts to enacting legislation. However, the process has been criticised on the basis that “what the Committee regards as sufficient evidence that the violation has been remedied varies from case to case with little apparent rationale.”¹⁷ Furthermore, it is doubtful that the Committee possesses the expertise required to assess the effectiveness of measures taken by States in the context of execution of complicated cases.

The aforementioned shortcomings are somewhat mitigated by allowing the limited participation of the applicant and civil society and by improving the transparency of the process. The Committee’s Rules of Procedure, as amended in 2006, provide that the Committee may consider any communication from the applicant with regard to the payment of just satisfaction or the taking of individual measures and any communication from non-governmental organisations and national human rights institutions. One significant objection is that the decision as to whether to take the position of the applicant or civil society into account is discretionary. Furthermore, according to Philip Leach:

NGOs and national human rights institutions across Europe are not fully aware of the possibilities, nor the mechanics, of engaging in this process, and so the Council of Europe could very usefully hold workshops or seminars to facilitate civil society engagement specifically in the implementation process (with a focus on states where there is still civil society activity and on states with the most serious, or most numerous violations).¹⁸

Romani organisations have yet to make full use of the possibility of communicating with the Committee during execution proceedings in relation to cases they have an interest in. The Committee of Ministers has received extensive information from NGOs in relation to the implementation of the landmark judgment D.H. and Others v The Czech Republic¹⁹ concerning the practice of segregating Romani children in special schools.²⁰ Although it is still too early to assess its impact on the execution process, the expertise offered by NGOs can only be beneficial, especially considering the complexity of the measures required in this case.

NGOs also made a significant contribution in a critical phase of the implementation process in a block of cases concerning the anti-Roma pogroms which took place at the beginning of the 1990s in Romania, grouped around the judgment of Moldovan and Others v Romania.²¹ Two documents were submitted to the Committee in relation to these cases by the European Roma Rights Centre and a coalition of Romanian NGOs respectively, in response to the Romanian Government’s claims that its action plan including a set of community development measures had been successfully implemented. The NGOs demonstrated that the Romanian Government had failed to implement many of its commitments, which in turn triggered increased scrutiny from the Committee and a request for more detailed information as well as an updated calendar of execution.

The Committee of Ministers has made considerable progress in improving the transparency of the execution process. The website on the execution of judgments has changed radically from a headache-inducing amorphous mass of information to a much friendlier and easy-to-use tool. The website now contains such information as the meeting agendas (published in a basic format in advance of the meeting and in an annotated format afterwards) or the Committee decisions. The Committee has published detailed annual reports on its execution activities since 2007 and explanatory guides on issues such as the payment of just satisfaction.

Despite the progress achieved, there is still room for improving the process of execution before the Committee of Ministers. This stance is confirmed by the Interlaken Declaration which called on the Committee of Ministers to “develop the means which will render its supervision of the execution of the Court’s judgments more effective and transparent.”²² Some authors are of the opinion that absent a substantial restructuring of the institutional architecture provided by the Convention, particularly through granting the Council of Europe a supranational character, which in any case would be very unlikely, the potential of further changes in the mechanism of supervision conducted by the Committee of Ministers is quite limited.²³

The interaction between the Committee of Ministers and States

Although the overall rate of compliance with Court judgments is positive,²⁴ the Committee of Ministers is confronted with substantial and growing enforcement problems. Unfortunately, the Committee is currently ill-equipped to pressure recalcitrant States into implementing Court judgments.

The Committee adopted a system of prioritisation of cases for debate during its meetings based on a set of criteria which include the applicant’s situation, whether the case represents a new departure in case-law or illustrates a potential systemic problem or whether there has been a significant delay in execution. Similar criteria are used to shorten procedural intervals normally applicable during the supervision process. It is reasonable to assume that more pressure will be exerted if cases are debated during the Committee’s meetings. At the same time only a very small fraction of cases are actually discussed – 20-30 cases from an agenda which includes as many as 2,000-3,000 cases for every meeting.²⁵

The proliferation of repetitive applications, many of which result from problems already addressed by the Court in its case-law, led to increasingly urgent calls for the Committee to prioritise the execution of cases revealing structural or systematic problems to prevent similar applications reaching the Court in the future.²⁶ Considering that these currently make up over half of the judgments issued by the Court, repetitive cases may end up dominating the Committee’s meetings.²⁷ A focus on complex and sensitive systemic problems giving rise to repetitive applications may detract attention from more isolated cases, which may, however, raise important human rights issues. Roma rights judgments, most of which involve violations of Articles 2 and 3, and are still relatively few in number and may therefore receive comparatively less attention during the execution process. However, this situation may change as the focus of litigation shifts towards violations of other rights included in the Convention, such as the right to education, which affect larger numbers of people and originate in structural/systemic problems which may in turn warrant priority treatment from the Committee of Ministers.

The Committee may increase the intensity of the “soft” pressure applied on States in response to delays or refusals to comply with Court judgments. The Committee may apply a variety of measures, such as stronger insistence during its meetings on the State’s duty to comply, increasingly frequent examinations of the case and persistent communications between the chair of the Committee and various officials of the State concerned. The strongest means of pressure available to the Committee during the execution stage is adopting interim resolutions which record progress or the lack thereof, inviting States to take further measures or even threatening them with more serious measures in case of a lack of compliance. The Committee may even issue successively more strongly-worded interim resolutions, which may be accompanied by press releases, public statements by the Chair or special decisions. Such steps have been increasingly utilised by the Committee with mixed results.

According to Protocol 14, which entered into force on 1 June 2010, the Committee has the opportunity to refer a case back to the Court in two situations: if the execution of a final judgment is hindered by a problem of interpretation of the judgment and in case of a refusal from a State to abide by a final judgment to which it is party. The explanatory report anticipates that the latter procedure will be utilised by the Committee only in “exceptional circumstances”.²⁸ Finally, the Committee of Ministers may also request the ultimate sanction, based on Article 8 in conjunction with Article 3 of the Statute of the Council of Europe - the suspension or the termination of the membership of the State concerned. This sanction has not been employed so far and can be seen to be of limited use. It is felt that if recalcitrant States were ejected from its ranks, the Council of Europe would lose that modicum of influence that comes with membership and the mechanism of peer pressure, and therefore such a sanction would ultimately be counterproductive.

An idea which is aired periodically - and then abandoned - in the framework of discussions regarding Court reform is that of introducing fines to be paid by States for failure to comply with Court judgments.²⁹ This approach is questionable considering the reasons why States fail to implement Court judgments in the first place. A Steering Committee for Human Rights (CDDH) report from 2000 enumerates possible causes for the failure to adopt general measures as a result of binding Court judgments: political problems, the daunting scale of the reforms required, legislative procedures, budgetary issues, public opinion, casuistic or unclear judgments of the Court, the possible impact of compliance on obligations deriving from other institutions and bureaucratic inertia.³⁰ Comparative research undertaken in nine Council of Europe Member States identified “the sources of (non) compliance not in the wilful disobedience on the part of national authorities, but in the varying capacities of governments of member states to implement their provisions.”³¹ If the cause of non-implementation is not wilful obstruction, then any approach based on punitive measures, such as fining offending States or having the Committee of Ministers refer cases back to the Court, may not prove effective.

It follows that approaches whereby States are provided with technical, financial or other types of assistance in implementing their obligations is currently favoured. In the run-up to the Interlaken Conference, various governments supported the establishment of a separate Council of Europe body with the role of providing States with technical assistance in implementing complex general measures derived from judgments delivered by the Court. This proposal was ultimately abandoned, mostly on the basis that the new body might undermine the Committee of Ministers. A working group established inside the Court suggested that financial assistance may be sought from the European Union and/or other donor agencies to assist States which experience financial difficulties in complying with Court judgments. The actors involved in the execution process - the Court, the Parliamentary Assembly, the Committee of Ministers and States - are more actively interacting at all stages of the proceedings in order, for example, to deal more effectively with repetitive applications while they are pending before the Court or during the execution stage. At the same time, one cannot help but notice that such direct contacts usually exclude applicants or civil society.

An increasing role for the Parliamentary Assembly

The Parliamentary Assembly has exercised an increasingly active role in the process of implementation of Court judgments. It has done so by publishing reports, resolutions and recommendations, holding debates and tabling oral and written parliamentary questions. The Parliamentary Assembly’s Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights (CLAHR) in particular has published six reports on the implementation of judgments, with the seventh due in June 2010. The CLAHR focuses on “particularly problematic instances of non-execution” and sees its role as complementary to the existing system of supervision.³² Thus, in its activities it focuses on judgments and decisions which have not been fully implemented more than five years after their delivery and those raising important implementation issues, whether individual or general, as highlighted notably in the Committee of Ministers’ interim resolutions or other documents. In the course of its implementation activities, the CLAHR requests that States provide information on the individual and general measures adopted to implement the judgments addressed and carries out visits to the states concerned (in 2009-2010 to Bulgaria, Ukraine, Greece, Italy, Moldova, Romania, Russia and Turkey).

For its 2010 report, the CLAHR initiated a dialogue with national parliaments aimed at strengthening their involvement in the implementation of Court judgments. In his 2009 progress report, CLAHR-appointed Rapporteur Christos Pourgourides invoked the findings of a comparative research report, according to which State parties with strong implementation records are regularly characterised by active involvement of parliamentary actors in the execution process.³³ It makes sense that PACE should attempt to draw national parliaments into the execution process considering that it is composed of national Members of Parliament. Currently, national parliaments are involved in implementation activities on an exceptional basis only. The CLAHR stated in 2008 that not only do “very few parliamentary mechanisms exist with a specific mandate to verify compliance of [draft legislation] with ECHR requirements” but “parliaments in very few states exercise regular control over the effective implementation of Strasbourg Court judgments.”³⁴

In the provisional version of his 2010 report, Mr Pourgourides refers to several national good practice examples of systematic national parliament involvement in the implementation process.³⁵ Thus, for instance, the Dutch Agent before the Court presents an annual report to the Parliament concerning judgments delivered by the Court against the Netherlands, as well as other judgments of relevance in the Dutch context. Parliamentarians then have the opportunity to scrutinise the contents of the report, to consider the measures taken by the Government in this context and to make recommendations. A similar procedure was introduced under the Azzolini Law in Italy.³⁶ In the United Kingdom, the parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights monitors the Government’s response to adverse Strasbourg judgments and publishes its findings in an annual report.

The Court's more proactive approach

In recent years, the Court has adopted a more active approach in relation to the matter of redress for violations of the Convention. Thus, the Court has developed a practice of giving indications under Article 46 as to the most appropriate individual and general measures needed to provide redress. In fact, Article 46 is the central component of the “pilot judgment procedure”,³⁷ which aims to manage repetitive applications more efficiently. Furthermore, the practice of asking States to take certain individual measures to remedy the violation found under Article 41 of the Convention, other than payment of just satisfaction, has become increasingly frequent. As noted by one scholar, the Court’s newly found confidence contributes significantly to the execution process:

There are three particular advantages to the Court being more specific about the kind of systemic action required by national authorities: compliance with the judgment is less open to political negotiation in the Committee of Ministers, it is easier to monitor objectively both by the Committee and by other bodies such as NGOs and other domestic human rights agencies, and a failure by relevant domestic public authorities to comply effectively is, in principle, easier to enforce by both the original litigant, and others, through the national legal process as an authoritatively confirmed Convention violation.³⁸

Roma rights advocates should seek to take advantage of this new approach by developing their argumentation under Articles 41 and 46 of the Convention and requesting that more specific wording is included in judgments. The same rationale applies, mutatis mutandis, to friendly settlements and unilateral declarations made by the Government under Article 37.1(c) which are expected to proliferate over the following period as ways to manage more effectively the Court’s caseload.³⁹

Finally, it has been suggested that the Court could be inclined in the future to review the States’ compliance with its judgments as a free-standing complaint under Article 46 and thus revise its previous case law on the matter.⁴⁰ This possibility is envisaged as similar to, but distinct from, the infringement proceedings provided for by Protocol 14 (see above).

Conclusion

The ongoing reform process has been partially successful in improving the process of implementing Court judgments, particularly through further streamlining the process and through encouraging a more cooperative approach among the actors involved. In particular, the Committee of Ministers rendered the process of supervision more transparent and allowed some limited involvement of the applicants and civil society. Execution proceedings have become more effective by spelling out in more detail the procedural steps that States have to take during the supervision process. Furthermore, the Committee now makes a vast amount of information available through its website aiming, among other goals, to assist States in executing their obligations. The Committee has made increasingly good use of the limited tools in its armoury aimed at pressuring States to fully execute their obligations. However, the character of their supervisory activity has remained fundamentally unaltered. The process is not adversarial but rather relies on soft power: peer pressure and political persuasion. More essentially, the Committee is not equipped to deal with States which refuse to comply or delay execution. The Court is exercising a more active role by making more detailed indications as to redress under Articles 41 and 46 of the Convention. Finally, the Parliamentary Assembly attempts to encourage national parliaments to be more active in this area and to constructively engage with Governments in difficult cases where implementation lags.

In the Interlaken Declaration, Council of Europe Member States have committed to a broad action plan for the reform of the Court. In reality, absent fundamental changes in the mechanism set up in the Convention, further efforts to tinker with current international procedures have relatively limited potential to achieve solutions to the problems experienced by the Court. As the Protocol 14 experience has demonstrated, building consensus around massive institutional reform is fraught with political difficulties. All of this means that the spotlight has to shift to the States’ records in implementing Court judgments and, in particular, to the biggest contributors to the Court’s caseload. From the beginning, States have had to implement the Committee of Ministers’ recommendations related to the implementation of the Convention, which have so far been largely ignored. More broadly, States have an obligation to do more to develop a genuine human rights culture and rule of law, and to improve the process of reception of the Convention in their domestic legal orders, including providing effective remedies for violations of Convention rights.

The reform process holds a number of lessons for Roma advocates. They should further expand and consolidate their arguments under Articles 13, 41 and 46 of the Convention in line with recent trends from the Court to adopt a more proactive approach to the matter of redress for the violations of Convention rights. Furthermore, they should improve their understanding and make full use of legal and advocacy possibilities offered by various institutional actors involved in the implementation process, such as the Committee of Ministers or the Parliamentary Assembly. More crucially, Roma advocates should be involved in the implementation process from the early phases and on a systematic basis, including by defining the most appropriate measures required for the full execution of Court judgments early on, monitoring Governments’ efforts in this context and providing their assistance to authorities to achieve full implementation.

Endnotes:

Constantin Cojocariu is a lawyer in the Europe programme at INTERIGHTS. In that capacity he has been involved in the work of a group of international NGOs monitoring the Court reform process.
European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), Statistical Information 1/1-31/5/2010, available clicking here. Six States were responsible for almost 70% of these applications: Russia, Turkey, Romania, Ukraine, Italy and Poland.
J. Harman, L. Wildhaber and H.C. Kruger, Report of the Evaluation Group to the Committee of Ministers on the European Court of Human Rights (27 September 2001).
Lord Woolf et al., Review of the Working Methods of the European Court of Human Rights, December 2005.
Report of the Group of Wise Persons to the Committee of Ministers (Strasbourg: Council of Europe, November 2006).
ECtHR, Opinion of the Court on the Wise Persons Report, 2 April 2007.
High Level Conference on the Future of the European Court of Human Rights, Interlaken Declaration, 19 February 2009, available clicking here.
Ibid.
Dia Anagnostou and Alina Mungiu-Pippidi, Why Do States Implement Differently the European Court of Human Rights Judgments? The Case-law on Civil Liberties and the Rights of Minorities, Juristras project comparative report, 2009, 27, available clicking here.
Philip Leach, “On Reform of the European Court of Human Rights”, E.H.R.L.R. Issue 6 (2009): 732.
Committee of Ministers, Human rights working methods – Improved effectiveness of the Committee of Ministers’ supervision of execution of judgments, CM/Inf(2004)8 Final, 7 April 2004, paragraph 1.3, available clicking here.
E. Fribergh, “Pilot Judgments from the Court’s perspective” (lecture, Stockholm Colloquy, 9-10 June 2008).
Philip Leach, The Effectiveness of the Committee of Ministers in Supervising the Enforcement of Judgments of the European Court of Human Rights, (P.L. 2006, AUT), 443-456.
Committee of Ministers, Supervision of the execution of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights, 3rd Annual report 2009, available clicking here.
Rules of the Committee of Ministers for the supervision of the execution of judgments and the terms of friendly settlements, available at: http://www.coe.int/t/dghl/monitoring/execution/Documents/CMrules2006_en.asp.
Human rights working methods - Improved effectiveness of the Committee of Ministers’ supervision of execution of judgments, available at: https://wcd.coe.int/ViewDoc.jsp?Ref=CM/Inf(2004)8&Language=lanEnglish&Ver=final.
Steven Greer, The European Convention on Human Rights: Achievements, Problems and Prospects (Cambridge University Press, 2006), 158.
Leach, On Reform of the European Court of Human Rights, 732.
ECtHR, D.H. and Others v The Czech Republic, Application no. 57325/00, 13 November 2007, available clicking here.
Based on information available on the Committee of Ministers’ website dedicated to the execution of ECtHR judgments, available at: http://www.coe.int/t/dghl/monitoring/execution/Default_en.asp.
ECtHR, Moldovan and Others v Romania, Application nos. 41138/98 and 64320/01, 12 July 2005, available clicking here.
Interlaken Declaration, paragraph 11.
For more information, see: Greer, The European Convention on Human Rights: Achievements, Problems and Prospects, 164.
David Harris, Michael O’Boyle and Colin Warbrick, Law of the European Convention on Human Rights, (Oxford University Press (Second edition), 2009), 881-883.
Ibid.
See, for example, the Interlaken Declaration, paragraph 11.
Despite the rule saying it should not be detrimental to new cases.
Council of Europe, Protocol No. 14 to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, amending the control system of the Convention: Explanatory Report, paragraphs 99-100, available at: http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/EN/Reports/Html/194.htm.
See, for example, European Commission for Democracy through Law (Venice Commission), Opinion on the Implementation of the Judgments of the European Court of Human Rights, available at: http://www.venice.coe.int/docs/2002/CDL-AD(2002)034-e.asp.
Eric Jurgens, Execution of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (July 2000), available clicking here.
Dia Anagnostou and Alina Mungiu-Pippidi, Why Do States Implement Differently the European Court of Human Rights judgments? The Case-law on Civil Liberties and the Rights of Minorities, 27.
Christos Pourgorides, Implementation of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights, Progress Report, 2009, available at: http://assembly.coe.int/CommitteeDocs/2009/ejdoc36_2009.pdf.
Ibid., paragraph 24.
Eric Jurgens, Implementation of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (2006), available at: http://assembly.coe.int/main.asp?Link=/documents/workingdocs/doc06/edoc11020.htm.
Ibid., paragraphs 21-51.
Italy, Azzolini Law, Italian Official Bulletin no.15, 19 January 2006.
“[W]hen the Court receives a significant number of applications deriving from the same root cause, it may decide to select one or more of them for priority treatment. In dealing with the selected case or cases, it will seek to achieve a solution that extends beyond the particular case or cases so as to cover all similar cases raising the same issue. The resulting judgment will be a pilot judgment.” ECtHR, The Pilot-Judgment Procedure: Information note issued by the Registrar, available clicking here.
Greer, The European Convention on Human Rights: Achievements, Problems and Prospects, 160-161.
Stakeholders involved in the reform process, including the Court, advocate for the increased use of friendly settlements and unilateral declarations as a means to dispose more efficiently of repetitive applications pending before the Court. See, for example, Interlaken Declaration, available clicking here, paragraph 7(a); and Steering Committee for Human Rights, CDDH final opinion on putting into practice certain procedures envisaged to increase the Court’s case-processing capacity, 30 March 2009, available clicking here, paragraphs 20-21, 35.
Harris et al., Law of the European Convention on Human Rights (USA: Oxford University Press, 2009), 881-883.

Roma Rights 1, 2010: Implementation of Judgments

Improving the Effectiveness of the Implementation of Strasbourg Court Judgments in Light of Ongoing Reform Discussions

The efficiency and transparency of the process of supervision conducted by the Committee of Ministers

The interaction between the Committee of Ministers and States

An increasing role for the Parliamentary Assembly

The Court's more proactive approach

Conclusion

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