Project Updates

League has participated in discussion on reform of the Strasbourg Court

The League responded to the invitation from the Ministry of Justice and, together with Brno Center for Human Rights and Democratization and Environmental Legal Service, contributed to the debate on how to streamline the work of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. The reform efforts will culminate in a conference held in Interlaken, Switzerland in February 2010, bringing together the Council of Europe member states to take measures that should bring ECHR from the current crisis.

The Court ended 2009 with about 150,000 pending cases. What put the Court in this situation was a combination of two factors: a rapid increase in the number of complaints stemming from the expansion of the Council of Europe in the 1990’s. This increase wasn´t accompanied by a corresponding increase in capacity to cope with these complaints. The result is the fact that even the complainants from the Czech Republic are often forced to wait for a decision for five or more years.

Our comments are based on the basis that the reform is to strengthen the chance of the population of the treaty states to obtain the protection of their human rights and not to weaken it. Therefore, we do not consider it appropriate to adopt the introduction of mandatory representation by a lawyer or the obligation to use the official language in the complaint.

On the contrary, states should be focused on an extensive information campaign, which will pay special attention to the competence of the court and its functions, to increase the court budget, which is far less than the budget of the Luxembourg European Court of Justice, and they should lead a discussion on how to penalize the state, which does not respect the judgments of the Court. The court should simplify the administrative transaction of complaints, which are based on clearly justified existing case law, and refocus its resources on the present complaint boards.

More information here.