In its 2020 Report published on 31 March, the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers notes progress in the execution of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights, but calls for further efforts to address systemic problems such as ill-treatment and deaths caused by law enforcement officials and conditions of detention.
In addition, three types of cases pose challenges: inter-State cases, individual applications related to post-conflict or unresolved conflict situations (e.g. between Russia and Georgia or Turkey and Cyprus) and judgments relating to Article 18 of the European Convention on Human Rights on the prohibition of undue limitation of rights and freedoms.
As stated at its 130th session, held under the Greek Presidency in November 2020, the Committee of Ministers reaffirms that, in addition to the responsibility of the respondent States to implement the Court’s judgments, “further high-level political commitment is also necessary to resolve some of the more intractable problems”.
It also notes that it has received “an unprecedented number of formal communications from NGOs and national human rights institutions” concerning the execution of judgments in 28 member States, with the Commissioner for Human Rights providing the first five communications in this context.
In total, 983 cases were closed in 2020 and 5,233 judgments have not yet been fully executed. Link to the report: https://bit.ly/39xgomg (Original version in French by Véronique Leblanc)