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Supervision of the Execution of Judgments and Decisions Of SUPERVISION OF THE EXECUTION OF JUDGMENTS AND DECISIONS AND JUDGMENTS OF EXECUTION THE OF SUPERVISION SUPERVISION OF THE EXECUTION OF JUDGMENTS AND DECISIONS OF THE EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS 2017 OF THE EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS RIGHTS HUMAN OF COURT EUROPEAN THE OF – 2017 COUNCIL OF EUROPE 11th Annual Report COMMITTEE OF MINISTERS of the Committee of Ministers SUPERVISION OF THE EXECUTION OF JUDGMENTS AND DECISIONS OF THE EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS 11th Annual Report of the Committee of Ministers 2017 French edition: Surveillance de l’exécution des arrêts et décisions de la Cour européenne des droits de l’homme. 11e rapport annuel du Comité des Ministres – 2017 All requests concerning the reproduction or translation of all or part of this document should be addressed to the Directorate of Communication (F-67075 Strasbourg Cedex or [email protected]). All other correspondence concerning this document should be addressed to the Directorate General of Human Rights and Rule of Law. Cover design and layout: Documents and Publications Production Department(SPDP), Council of Europe Photos: © Council of Europe This publication has been copy- edited by the Department for the Execution of Judgments of the European Court of Human Rights. © Council of Europe, March 2018 Printed at the Council of Europe Contents I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 7 II. INTRODUCTION BY THE CHAIRS OF THE HUMAN RIGHTS MEETINGS 9 III. REMARKS BY THE DIRECTOR GENERAL OF THE DIRECTORATE GENERAL OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND RULE OF LAW 11 IV. IMPROVING THE EXECUTION PROCESS: A PERMANENT REFORM WORK 17 V. COOPERATION ACTIVITIES 23 VI. MAIN RECENT ACHIEVEMENTS 27 VII. GLOSSARY 53 APPENDIX 1 – STATISTICS 57 A. New cases 57 A.1. Overview 57 A.2. Leading or repetitive 57 A.3. Enhanced or standard supervision 58 A.4. New cases – State by State 59 B. Pending cases 62 B.1. Overview 62 B.2. Leading or repetitive 62 B.3. Enhanced or standard supervision 63 B.4. Pending cases - State by State 64 C. Closed cases 67 C.1. Overview 67 C.2. Leading or repetitive 67 C.3. Enhanced or standard supervision 68 C.4. Closed cases – State by State 69 D. Supervision process 72 D.1. Action plans / Action reports 72 D.2. Interventions of the Committee of Ministers 72 D.3. Transfers 73 D.4. Contributions of civil society 73 D.5. Main themes under enhanced supervision 74 D.6. Main States with cases under enhanced supervision 75 E. Length of the execution proces 75 E.1. Leading cases pending 75 E.2. Leading cases closed 78 F. Just satisfaction 80 F.1. Just satisfaction awarded 80 F.2. Respect of payment deadlines 82 G. Additional statistics 85 G.1. Overview of friendly settlements and WELC cases 85 G.2. Friendly settlements endorsed by the Court 87 Page 3 APPENDIX 2 – MAIN CASES OR GROUPS OF CASES PENDING 89 APPENDIX 3 – MAIN CASES CLOSED 109 APPENDIX 4 – NEW JUDGMENTS WITH INDICATIONS OF RELEVANCE FOR THE EXECUTION 121 A. Pilot judgments which became final in 2017 122 B. Judgments with indications of relevance for the execution which became final in 2017 123 APPENDIX 5 – THEMATIC OVERVIEW OF THE MOST IMPORTANT DEVELOPMENTS IN THE SUPERVISION PROCESS IN 2017 125 A. Actions of security forces 125 B. Right to life – Protection against ill-treatment: specific situations 143 C. Detention 145 C.1. Lawfulness of detention and related issues 145 C.2. Conditions of detention and medical care 154 C.3. Actions of detention authorities in remand centres and prisons 163 C.4. Detention and other rights 165 D. Reception / Expulsion / Extradition 166 D.1. Lawfulness of detention and reception conditions 166 D.2. Lawfulness of expulsion or extradition 168 E. Slavery and forced labour 175 F. Functioning of justice 176 F.1. Access to a court 176 F2. Fairness of judicial proceedings – civil rights 176 F.3. Fairness of judicial proceedings – criminal charges 180 F.4. Length of judicial proceedings 184 F.5. Prohibition of double conviction 192 F.6. Respect of the final character of judicial decisions 193 F.7. Enforcement of domestic judicial decisions 194 F.8. Organisation of the judiciary 200 G. No punishment without law 201 H. Home / Private and family life 203 H.1. Right to home 203 H.2. Domestic violence 203 H.3. Abortion / Procreation / Filiation / Marriage 204 H.4. Acquisition, use, disclosure or retention of private information 206 H.5. Placement of children in public care, custody and access rights 209 H.6. Gender identity 210 H.7. Specific situations 210 I. Environmental protection and hazards 211 J. Freedom of thought, conscience and religion 211 K. Freedom of expression 212 L. Freedom of assembly and association 219 M. Right to marry 225 N. Protection of property 226 N.1. Expropriations, nationalisations 226 N.2. Other interferences with property rights 228 O. Right to education 234 Page 4 11th Annual Report of the Committee of Ministers 2017 P. Electoral rights 235 P.1. Right to vote and stand for elections 235 P.2. Control of elections 237 Q. Freedom of movement 238 R. Discrimination 238 S. Use of restrictions on rights for illegitimate purposes 242 T. Cooperation with the European Court and right to individual petition 243 U. Inter-State and related case(s) 244 APPENDIX 6 – THE COMMITTEE OF MINISTERS’ SUPERVISION UNDER THE NEW WORKING METHODS 247 Introduction 247 A. Scope of the supervision 248 B. New supervision modalities: a twin-track approach to improve prioritization and transparency 251 C. Increased interaction between the Court and the Committee of Ministers 254 D. Friendly settlements 256 E. Unilateral declarations 256 APPENDIX 7 – WHERE TO FIND FURTHER INFORMATION ON THE EXECUTION OF JUDGMENTS? 257 APPENDIX 8 – REFERENCES 259 A. CMDH meetings in 2016 and 2017 259 B. General abbreviations 260 C. Country codes 261 INDEX OF CASES 263 Contents Page 5 I. Executive summary he supervision of the execution of judgments from the European Court of Human Rights in 2017 has been marked by continued efforts to enhance T dialogue and experience sharing with a view to speeding up the execution. Results are very encouraging. The number of cases closed reached an all-time high thanks to a new policy of enhanced dialogue with States, resulting in more – and timelier – closure decisions in the face of positive developments. In 2017, the Committee of Ministers closed 3 691 cases compared to 2 066 in 2016, including many repetitive cases in which individual redress had been provided. In particular, there has been an important increase, over 30%, in the closure of cases revealing structural problems which had been pending before the Committee for more than five years. As a result, the total number of cases pending at the end of the year has decreased by around 25%, and is now down to some 7 500 (as compared to some 11 000 in 2014). The number of structural problems under supervision also decreased by around 7 %. Concrete progress was noted in the solution of important, and often long-standing, problems including inadequate control of police actions, poor detention conditions, inefficient judiciaries, ensuring compensation or restitution for properties nation- alised under former communist regimes and excessive restrictions of freedom of assembly and association. The report also highlights numerous specific advances such as improved criminali- sation of torture and hate crime, improved protection against unlawful detention, improved risk assessment in asylum procedures and the extension of the right to family reunification to same-sex couples. The report shows that there are good reasons to be optimistic about the Convention system’s capacity to meet current and future challenges. However, means must be found to improve the system’s capacity to overcome situations of resistance or raising difficulties of different kinds and to provide better support to States in addressing complex execution processes, including in situations relating to unresolved conflict zones. Page 7 Czech Republic Mr Emil RUFFER Denmark Mr Arnold DE FINE SKIBSTED Croatia Mr Miroslav PAPA II. Introduction by the Chairs of the Human Rights meetings he main challenge for the Council of Europe directly after the major changes in the early 1990’s was to ensure basic European unity, based on respect for human T rights, the rule of law and democracy-democratic security. This challenge was successfully met and today 47 European States have accepted the European Convention on Human Rights and the obligation to abide by the European Court’s judgments. Numerous efforts were made to guarantee the long term efficiency of the Convention system, including as regards implementation of the Court’s judgments and the Committee of Ministers supervision thereof. These were, however, not sufficient notably because many long standing and persistent structural problems were too important and complex to be rapidly overcome. The high numbers of complaints and violations found became a challenge in itself, stressing the importance of ensuring more rapid progress in solving the underlying problems, and in particular the development of effective domestic remedies. The Interlaken-Izmir-Brighton-Brussels process has provided a constructive dialogue on how to overcome these problems and ensure the future functioning of the Convention system, a dialogue which will shortly be further advanced through the new high-level conference organised by the Danish Chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers, in Copenhagen, on 12-13 April 2018. Present results include a reinforcement of the domestic capacity to execute judg- ments in many States and an enhanced dialogue and sense of shared responsibil- ity between all involved, both domestically and within the Council of Europe. The perspective of an imminent entry into force of Protocol 16, allowing a more direct dialogue between the European Court and the highest domestic courts, is a wel- come further development.
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