Strasbourg, 26/01/2005 (Agence Europe) - At a press conference in Strasbourg on 25 January, the President of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), Luzius Wildhaber, called for speedy ratification of the 14th Protocol to the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) to accelerate the introduction of the new filtering system for dealing with cases brought before the court. The Protocol was opened for signature on 13 May 2004 but has only been ratified by six Member States so far. It can only come into force once all states party to the European Convention of Human Rights have ratified it.
According to figures released on 25 January, in 2004 the European Court of Human Rights issued 718 rulings, 588 of which confirmed at least one violation of the Convention of Human Rights. The Court noted that in addition, a further 20,348 cases had been referred to it, which could not be tried at the Court. The number of completed cases rose 17.5% in 2004 on 2003. It is estimated that some 45000 cases were referred to the Court in 2004 (up around 16% on 2003).