Brussels, 25/01/2012 (Agence Europe) - The European Court of Human Rights may be seen by many as a constant. It is, however, under threat. It is caught between the exponential increase in cases referred to it by the citizens of the 47 member states of the Council of Europe (CoE) - some 160,000 cases are currently pending - and its annual budget of €59.96 million, pitifully low when compared with that, for example, of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). In 2009, the Hague-based court had a budget of €209 million; it closed 126 cases and currently has 25 cases opened. In August 2011, it had 919 officers, when the ECHR had 630.
The flagrant difference in human and financial resources is highlighted in the report drafted by Dutchwoman Marie-Louise Bemelmans-Videc who belongs to the centre-right European People's Party (EPP) and presented at the Council of Europe on Tuesday evening 24 January by her Socialist fellow-countryman Klaas De Vries, who is also a member of the CoE legal affairs and human rights committee. Beyond the worrying facts highlighted in the report, a further threat to the ECHR emerged during the debate - the United Kingdom, one of the founders of the CoE and first to ratify the European Convention on Human Rights which laid the foundations for the creation of the Court in 1959, has questioned its legitimacy. There are increasing calls in the UK for the government not to comply with the decisions of this supranational court. The British have found a number of the Court's rulings bitter pills to swallow and, in February 2011, the parliament in London refused to abide by the decision of the judges in Strasbourg that denying prisoners the right to vote is discriminatory. A UK law of 1870 was retained without amendment, despite the Strasbourg decision. Some are calling for the United Kingdom to pull out of the European Human Rights Convention - though that would, at present, seem very unlikely - but the spectre of such a move was raised in the debate on Tuesday evening, notably when UK Conservative Brian Binley of the European Democrat Group (EDC) railed against the “Court's surprising rulings” and suggested it “rein in its ambitions”.
This shift towards “repatriation” is emerging elsewhere, too, as Swiss Socialist Andréas Gross lamented that such a sentiment exists in his country. It now remains to be seen what the United Kingdom, which has held the presidency of the CoE since November of last year and will continue to do so until April, will do on the reform of the ECHR. Reform of the Court of Human Rights is one of its overarching priorities, announced UK European Affairs Minister David Lidington in a speech delivered that same morning to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), which is now keenly waiting to see how this commitment will be made reality. With regard to the endemic ills damaging the operation of the Court - and, therefore, its important link with citizens, it was underlined by some speakers, worried that the Court appear no more than a further bureaucratic machine - it was the common sense solutions highlighted by the rapporteur that came to the fore. To prevent over-congestion, repetition of cases must be avoided and, when a ruling is handed down, it must be ensured that it is incorporated in the law, not only of the state concerned, but also of all the member states that could potentially be affected. “Why was it necessary for France to wait until there was a ruling against it before it reformed its legislation on police custody, when a decision against Turkey should have caused it to do so long before being referred to the Court?” asked Rudy Salles (EPP, France). For that, the committee of ministers of the CoE would have become a body “where governments stop wanting to be nice to one another”, said Dutch Socialist Tineke Strik with some irony. This body, which is responsible for monitoring application of Court rulings has not shown sufficient pugnacity, PACE members have stated, and they seem determined to make their assembly a pressure force that they would like to see backed by national parliaments (VL/transl.rt)