“The measure of the European Court of Human Rights’s success should no longer be the total number of cases dealt with in a given period, but also the nature of the cases considered and the way in which the most important cases are dealt with”, said the Court’s President, Robert Spano, at a press conference on Tuesday 25 January, devoted to the Annual Report of the Strasbourg-based Court for the year 2021.
According to Mr Spano, it is a matter of defending “a new strategy” based on the prioritisation introduced in 2009 and now completed by the identification of “impact cases” on society, legislation, or new issues.
These impact cases, which numbered more than 500 at the beginning of the year, include issues such as the pandemic, discrimination against sexual minorities, covert surveillance of journalists, and the right to a healthy environment.
This new approach requires having “a Court that matters” in these difficult times we are navigating, said Robert Spano.
As for the numbers, they are indeed down: 36,000 cases were dealt with in 2021 (8% less than in 2020) and 70,150 remained pending (62,000 in 2020), 70% of which still concern Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, and Romania.
However, Mr Spano tempered, the number of Grand Chamber or Chamber judgments (428 relating to 1,037 applications) is up by 9% compared to 2020. This is an important trend to note, as these judgements are the ones that deal with the most complex and serious issues.
See the Court’s Annual Report 2021: https://bit.ly/3KNn00U (Original version in French by Véronique Leblanc)