“The past judicial year has been marked by both celebrations and challenges”, said Mattias Guyomar, President of the European Court of Human Rights, on Thursday 29 January, at the presentation to the press of the Annual Report 2025.
The celebrations will focus largely on the 75th anniversary of the European Convention on Human Rights and the challenges it poses, not least of which is the fact that a number of EU Member States are challenging the Court’s case law on migration.
On this point, Mattias Guyomar reaffirms that it is not for the Court, a judicial body, to answer a political question.
“Alain Berset, Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Michael O’Flaherty, Commissioner for Human Rights, and Theodoros Rousopoulos, President of the Assembly, have taken public positions that I cannot take, because the independence of the Court must be safeguarded”, he said.
On the other hand, he has a duty to “inform the debate”, in particular “by taking part in the work” carried out within the Council of Europe’s Steering Committee for Human Rights (CDDH) in order to prepare the Political Declaration that will be adopted at the end of the Conference of Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the 46 Member States of the Council of Europe, scheduled for 14 and 15 May in Chișinău, under the Moldovan Presidency.
The Court’s aim is not to take part in the political debate, but to provide information and clarify its case law so that discussions can be informed.
“We don’t deal with these cases dogmatically, but casuistically”, adds Abel Campo, Deputy Registrar representing the Court at the CDDH. “Our compass is pragmatism, applying the Convention to events that occurred in a specific context while remaining faithful to the values of our founding text”.
Reviewing the figures for the past year, Registrar Marialena Tsirli described 2025 as “a very productive year”.
While the Court received 11,587 applications, i.e. 18% more than the 9,832 received in 2024, it reduced its stock of pending cases by 11%, from 60,350 to 53,450 (including 18,464 from Turkey, the biggest source of pending cases since the attempted coup in 2016).
This very good result can be explained by the increase in the number of cases heard in 2025, which rose from 36,819 in 2024 to 38,573, an increase of 5%, emphasises the Registrar, who also points to the greater efficiency of judicial work reformed by the Interlaken Process.
Asked by Agence Europe about the EU’s prospects for accession to the European Convention on Human Rights, Mattias Guyomar pointed out that the process had resumed since the EU Court of Justice issued a negative opinion in 2014 on the compatibility of the agreement reached at the time with EU law.
“The European Commission reintroduced a new request for compatibility at the end of 2025”, he adds. “For our part, we are working to be ready when the time comes to adapt our operations to the membership of a non-State organisation represented by a judge sitting within our ranks”. (Original version in French by Véronique Leblanc)