Improving the “control of lawfulness of detention” in Russia is another matter raised by the 47-nation Council of Europe (CoE).
The CoE published its latest annual report on the implementation of judgments from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on Wednesday.
The report gives around 250 examples of reforms adopted to strengthen human rights, democracy and the rule of law across the 47 Council of Europe member states since 2010.
The Strasbourg-based Council’s committee of ministers is responsible for overseeing the execution of judgments from the European Court of Human Rights and the annual report is an in-depth look at the current state of the execution process, providing statistics and examples for 2016 as well as longer-term trends.
According to the CoE, the 2016 statistics show that widespread reforms of the ECHR system since 2010 “are bearing fruit.”
The report says a record number of cases were closed in 2016, but a total of 9941 cases had yet to be fully implemented at the end of the year (down from a peak of 11,099 in 2012).
It also says there was a drop in the number of pending cases revealing structural or systemic problems - known as “leading cases” - between 2015 and 2016, but there has been a steady growth in the number of leading cases that have been pending for over five years.
The report says the countries with the highest number of new cases to be implemented in 2016 were Russia (283), Romania (151), Greece (121), Turkey (114) and Ukraine (99).
The countries that closed the highest number of cases during 2016 were Turkey (274), Slovenia (265), Russia (261), Romania (214) and Poland (170).
According to the report, the countries with the highest number of cases pending at the end of 2016 were Italy (2350), Russia (1573), Turkey (1430), Ukraine (1147) and Romania (588).
The ECHR awarded a total of €82,288,795 in “just satisfaction” in 2016; of that, €20,473,112 was awarded to applicants in cases concerning Turkey, €15,127,537 in cases concerning Italy, €7,380,062 in cases concerning Russia, €4,168,864 in cases concerning Greece and €3,329,990 in cases concerning Hungary.
A CoE source said, “The execution of judgments is working well in the large majority of cases. A number of long-standing issues are on the way to being solved, such as reducing prison overcrowding in a number of countries, boosting judicial independence in Ukraine and improving the control of lawfulness of detention in Russia.
“Important steps have been taken to improve the effectiveness of domestic legal remedies in a number of countries and to strengthen national mechanisms for implementing ECHR judgments, including through increased involvement of national parliaments and NGOs.”
He added, “There are still a number of major outstanding problems to be resolved, linked to systemic or structural problems, such as the non-implementation of national court rulings and the scope of states’ responsibilities for implementing ECHR judgments in disputed territories.”