Draft Declaration 03.02.2010 Interlaken Ministerial Conference 

ADDITIONAL NORWEGIAN COMMENTS ON THE BUDGET 

Reference is made to previous Norwegian comments, including Norway’s statement at the informal 
meeting at the Council of Europe 9 February. Norway’s comments have been made available on the 
Conference website. 

In light of the discussions at the informal meeting, we would like to reiterate our firm support for the 
budgetary provision in the draft Declaration, which we consider to be an essential element. 

The provision reads as follows in its current form: “In order to implement the Action plan, the 
Conference (4) invites the Committee of Ministers to provide the Court and the Committee of 
Ministers with the necessary budgetary means to ensure that the backlog can be reduced and that 
pending cases can be decided within a reasonable time.” 

Our impression at the informal meeting was that some member States cannot accept this provision. 

In the Warsaw Summit Action Plan, the Heads of State and Government declared as follows “We 
shall ensure the long-term effectiveness of the European Convention for the Protection of Human 
Rights and Fundamental Freedoms by all appropriate means. To this end we shall provide the 
European Court of Human Rights with the necessary support and implement all the reform 
measures adopted at the 114th session of the Committee of Ministers in May 2004, in accordance 
with the modalities foreseen.” 

We think that if the Court is not provided with the necessary budgetary means, a growing number of 
cases will not be decided within a reasonable time-limit and the Court’s already enormous backlog 
will continue to grow to unmanageable proportions. This would impair the right of individual 
petition. 

The wording used in para. 4 in the implementation part of the draft Declaration (cited above), does 
not mean that the Court’s budget must continue to grow indefinitely. As we have stated before, 
Norway agrees that the Court cannot continue to grow indefinitely. That is one of the reasons why 
we also support the other measures in the draft Declaration and have made some additional 
proposals. And that is also why we have previously put forward a proposal to consider the need for 
additional admissibility criteria, a proposal which received little support. However, it is unlikely that 
the other measures in the Declaration will substantially reduce the flood of incoming applications to 
the Court in the short or medium term. In the meantime, the Court will need additional budgetary 
means in order to decide cases within a reasonable time.