II Council of Europe
| Author | Leo Zwaak,Yves Haeck |
| Date | 01 March 2009 |
| Published date | 01 March 2009 |
| DOI | 10.1177/016934410902700106 |
| Subject Matter | Part B: Human Rights News |
66 Intersenti a
II COunCIl Of euROPe
Y H and L Z*
1. MOTIVES OF THE NONRATIFICATION OF PROTOCOL
NO. 14 TO THE ECHR BY THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION
AND REPLY OF THE PARLIAMENTARY ASSEMBLY OF
THE COUNCIL OF EUROPE
In a very instruct ive Memorandum, the Committee on Lega l Aai rs and Human
Rights of the Parliamentar y Assembly of the Council of Europe gives an i nteresting
insight into the motives of the non-ratication of Protocol No. 14 to the ECHR by the
Russian Federation, while at the same time rebutting those motives advanced by the
Russian Federation.1
e Memora ndum indicates that Protocol No. 14 to the ECHR seek s to tackle:
(1) the need to deal with a huge number of pla inly inadmissible applications (around
95 percent of decided c ases) brought before the European Court of Human Rig hts;
and (2) a large number of mainly well-founded, repetitive applicat ions deriving
from structu ral or systemic defects in various national systems, in ot her words
two of the three principal problems presently facing the Cour t (the third being the
accumulation of a substantial backlog of pend ing cases). ose problems prevent the
European Cou rt’s judges to concentrate t heir eorts on the most important ca ses in
the Court’s docket. Importantly, Protocol No. 14 seeks to tackle the rst two problems
by reducing the level of judici al involvement i n respect of clearly inadmissible and
repetitive ca ses. In 200 6, the number of incoming applications was over 50,000, but
despite more than doubling t he Court ’s Registry sta in the previous seven years,
over 20,000 applications were le unadd ressed. In 20 07 a lone, there were 79,400
applications pending. Even with the advent of the Protocol No. 11 reforms, the
European Court had only managed to handle 1,500 of the 2,300 applications allocated
to a decision body each month. And t he situation has only gotten worse, the total of
pending applications hav ing recently reached the 100,0 00. e result of this capacity
* Both Yves Haeck and Leo Zwaak a re lecturers at Utrecht University, the Nether lands. Yves Haeck is
also senior res earch fellow at Ghent University, Belg ium.
1 AS/Jur (2008) 45, 5 September 2008 , ajdoc45 2008.
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