Portugal paid more than €323,000 in damages for convictions by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in 2022, compared to €140,097 in the previous year, according to a report by the court’s Committee of Ministers released this Wednesday. released.
The 2022 annual report of the Committee of Ministers, charged with overseeing the implementation of ECtHR judgments, states that in nine cases full payment of damages awarded by the court has been recorded, pending “confirmation of full payment and/or arrears of interest in six cases for which the period specified in the judgment of the Court exceeds six months”.
Established in 1959, the ECtHR is an international court of the Council of Europe that hears complaints about violations of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
There are currently 46 member states, following Russia’s withdrawal in March last year, and they are obliged to respect the final decisions of the court, including the Russian Federation, in accordance with international law.
The number of suspended execution cases against Portugal at the Court of Strasbourg increased to 39 in 2022, compared to 28 in the previous year.
Of the 39 cases pending implementation by Portugal, three main cases were “classified under the improved procedure” and 12 main cases were “classified under the “standard procedure”.
Of the first three “one has been in treatment for five years or more” It is “five of the top cases in the standard procedure have been pending for five years or more (up from four in 2021 and three in 2020)”.
are under current affairs “a group of cases on the excessive length of civil and administrative proceedings and another group on overcrowding and the material conditions of prisons and the lack of effective solutions”promotes analysis.
The 16th annual report of the political body of the Council of Europe, to which the final judgment of the ECtHR is sent, states that it has received 16 cases from the European court against Portugal for monitoring its implementation (compared to 11 in 2021 and nine in 2020).
The 2022 balance sheet for Portugal states that the Committee of Ministers has closed five cases and that “authorities presented two action plans, 10 action reports and two communications”.
In addition to a summary of the main progress and challenges in the implementation of the Court’s judgments, this report for the first time includes country-by-country statistics and information on new, pending and closed cases, as well as on the payment of damages by defendant States.
During the year 2022, “marked by the aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, in flagrant violation of the Statute of the Council of Europe”the Committee of Ministers “Investigated 145 cases or groups of cases involving 32 states (including cases against the Russian Federation), 53 of which were reviewed more than once”.
also concluded “overseeing the implementation of 880 cases, including 200 major cases that required specific and often comprehensive action by states to prevent recurrence of violations”.
Among these states is Armenia, which held “constitutional and statutory changes regarding the government’s power to declare a state of emergency” and a judicial review of such decisions, while Croatia amended legislation on war crimes investigations and Greece amended criminal legislation regarding investigations of racially motivated crimes.
In the case of Lithuania, the constitution has been amended “to enable controversial politicians to stand as candidates in parliamentary elections after a certain period of time” and Turkey changed prison administration procedures to improve the protection of LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex) prisoners.
The Committee continued its investigation of the three pending state cases and eight cases or group of cases related to post-conflict situations or unresolved conflicts, which “are particularly challenging, time-consuming and difficult due to their political dimensions and complexity”the report said.
He adds that the commission has received a record number of contributions from civil society organizations and national human rights organizations (217 from a total of 29 states), which considers these announcements “a very encouraging development”.
According to the report, the Committee of Ministers faces a dual challenge: not only does it continue to increase the complexity and political and legal sensitivity of the issues analyzed, but it is also exacerbated by the “a large number of long-standing systemic or complex problems that have not been resolved by the states concerned”.
Source: DN
