This month the newest
report on the supervision of the execution of judgments and decisions of the European Court of Human Rights was published. It covers the work of the Committee of Ministers in this regard over 2011. Although the Committee is becoming overburdened too by the work, just as the Court has now been for many years, there is - again like at the Court - a positive trend. A short quote from the report on numbers:
The number of cases closed by a final resolution in 2011 increased by almost 80% as compared to 2010 continuing the positive trend 2009-2010. Of particular interest is the number of leading cases closed, which in 2011 was again more than the double of the preceding year, with an increase of 128%. Between 2010 and 2009 the increase was 107%. The backlog of cases awaiting a final resolution has now been reduced.
And one can add,a as the report also shows that the number of new cases for execution supervision has for the first time in a decade importantly decreased (by 6%). The other side of the coin, and very worrying, is that the number of cases that has not been executed for over five years has grown by 48% in a year. Most of these relate to structural issues and therefore touch upon large numbers of individual human rights problems.
The report also includes information on progress made with the new supervision procedure introduced in 2011, in response to the 2010 Interlaken process, and the efforts to ensure the long term effectiveness of the system of the European Convention on Human Rights. This new procedure is meant to make the process both more transparant and more efficient. Due to it, the Committee can focus increasingly on key issues and structural problems (including those in pilot judgments). Considering the numbers above, this is truly necessary.
The report is again a rich source of information, including informative statistics per country and also info on cases arranged by theme.
The website of the Council of Europe about execution of judgments of the Court can be found
here and earlier annual reports can be retrieved
here. Finally, the measures which the Committee has developed as a follow-up to Interlaken are listed
here.
