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PACE deplores poor implementation of European Court of Human Rights decisions

Xinhua, October 1, 2015 Adjust font size:

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), meeting for its plenary session in Strasbourg, adopted a resolution Wednesday deploring the persistent slowness in the implementation of decisions from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and called for more firm measures.

"The Assembly deplores the delays in implementation and the lack of political will of certain States parties to implement judgments of the Court," declared the parliamentarians in their resolution.

"Since 2000, the Assembly has debated seven reports and adopted seven resolutions and six recommendations on the subject of the implementation of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights," recalled the rapporteur to the PACE Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, Klaas de Vries of the Netherlands.

It was therefore the eighth report on the question in the last 15 years that the parliamentarians examined on Wednesday.

The ECHR, supranational tribunal which delivers decisions nearly every day concerning the 47 member states of the Council of Europe (CoE), suffers regular critiques in regards to its real efficiency.

The ECHR's detractors have also been raised to denounce what they call a "government of judges." Some states contest the legitimacy of its judgments, sometimes even its existence, and consequently do not go to great lengths to implement its decisions.

"Nothing excuses the inaction or the strike against law which undermines the credibility of the ECHR," argued French PACE member Pierre-Yves Borgn' during the debate which preceded the resolution's adoption, calling to "dare appeal the procedure on negligence" and to deliver "heavy sanctions" in cases of noncompliance with the court's decisions.

PACE "remains deeply concerned about the high number of non-implemented judgments pending before the Committee of Ministers" underlines Klaas de Vries's report. Nearly 11,000 such cases judged by the ECHR have not yet been followed up.

"Many of these cases concern structural problems in States parties, which continue to generate numerous similar applications to the Court," according to the parliamentarians.

The decisions are essentially declarations. It is up to the Committee of Ministers of the CoE to oversee their implementation. PACE is the body which elects a judge for every member state for a non-renewable term of 9 years. Endit