III Council of Europe
| Published date | 01 December 2009 |
| Date | 01 December 2009 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/016934410902700407 |
| Subject Matter | Part B: Human Rights News |
592 Intersentia
III COunCIl Of euROPe
L Z and Y H*
DIVISION OF TASKS WITHIN THE EUROPEAN COURT
OF HUMAN RIGHTS
e Europe an Court of Human Rights, which superv ises the compliance by States
with the European Convention on Human Rights, is since long being overwhelmed by
individual applications. e urgent need to adjust the control mechanism was a prime
reason for the adoption of Protocol No. 14 to the ECHR in 2004. e continui ng non-
entry into force of Protocol No. 14, due to the ref usal of Russia to ratif y the protocol,
has made the situation faced by t he European Court of Human Rights de teriorate
further, given the e ver-accelerating inux of new applications and a grow ing backlog
of cases.
Pending t he entry into force of Protocol No. 14, therefore, on 27 M ay 2009 the
member States have agreed i n Madrid to adopt a Protocol No. 14bis, limited to two
procedural measures, contained in Protocol No. 14 that would be most rapidly eective
in increasing the Court’s case-processing capacity, as a provisional i nterim measure.
Firstly, a single judge will be able to reject manifestly inad missible applications,
whereas now this requires a unan imous decision by a Committee of t hree judges.
However, a single judge may never decide on a case against the State for which he
or she has been elected. And secondly, the competence of t hree-judge committees is
extended to declare applic ations admissible and decide on their merit s where there
already is a well-establ ished case-law of the Court. Currently, these cases a re handled
by chambers of seven judges.
ere are three manners for an ECHR member State to give its consent to be bound
by Protocol No. 14bis: (a) by the acceptance of an A greement, adopted at the ses sion
of the Committee of Ministers in Mad rid on t he provisional application of c ertain
procedures under Protocol No. 14 to the ECHR; (b) by the ratication of Protocol No.
* Leo Zwaak is Assoc iate Professor, Utrecht University, the Net herlands and Yves Haeck is As sociate
Professor, Utrecht Universit y, t he Netherlands and Senior R esearch Fellow, Ghent University,
Belgium.
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