Draft Declaration 12.02.2010 

 

 

High Level Conference on the Future of the European Court of 
Human Rights 

 

 

The High Level Conference meeting at Interlaken on 18 and 19 February 2010 at the 
initiative of the Swiss Chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of 
Europe (“the Conference”): 

 

PP 1 Expressing the strong commitment of the States Parties to the Convention for the 
Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) and the 
European Court of Human Rights (“the Court”); 

 

PP 2 Recognising the extraordinary contribution of the Court to the protection of 
human rights in Europe; 

 

PP 3 Recalling the interdependence between the supervisory mechanism of the 
Convention and the other activities of the Council of Europe in the field of human 
rights, the rule of law and democracy; 

 

PP 4 Welcoming the entry into force of Protocol No. 14 to the Convention on [1 June 
2010]; 

 

PP 5 Noting with satisfaction the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon, which 
provides for the accession of the European Union to the Convention; 

 

PP 6 Stressing the subsidiary nature of the supervisory mechanism established by the 
Convention and notably the fundamental role which national authorities, i.e. 
governments, tribunals and parliaments, must play in guaranteeing and protecting 
human rights at the national level; 

 

PP 7 Noting with deep concern that the number of applications brought before the 
Court and the deficit between applications introduced and applications disposed of 
continues to grow; 

 

PP 8 Considering that this situation causes damage to the effectiveness and credibility 
of the Convention and its supervisory machinery and represents a threat to the quality 
and the consistency of the case-law and the authority of the Court; 

 

PP 9 Convinced that over and above the improvements already carried out or 
envisaged, additional measures are indispensable and urgently required in order to: 

 

i. achieve a balance between the number of judgments and decisions delivered 
by the Court and the number of incoming applications; 

 


ii. enable the Court to reduce the backlog of cases and to adjudicate new cases 
within a reasonable time, particularly those concerning serious violations of 
human rights; 

 

iii. ensure the full and rapid execution of judgments of the Court and the 
effectiveness of its supervision by the Committee of Ministers. 

 

PP 10 Considering that the present Declaration seeks to establish a roadmap for the 
reform process towards long-term effectiveness of the Convention system: 

 

 

The Conference: 

 

(1) Reaffirms the commitment of the States Parties to the Convention to the right 
of individual petition; 

 

(2) Reiterates the obligation of the States Parties to ensure that the rights and 
freedoms set forth in the Convention are fully secured at national level and calls 
for a strengthening of the principle of subsidiarity; 

 

(3) Stresses that this principle implies a shared responsibility between the States 
Parties and the Court; 

 

(4) Stresses the importance of ensuring the clarity and consistency of the Courts 
case-law and calls, in particular, for of a uniform and rigorous application of the 
criteria concerning admissibility and the Court's jurisdiction 

 

(5) Invites the Court to make maximum use of the procedural tools and the 
resources at its disposal; 

 

(6) Stresses the need for effective measures to reduce the number of clearly 
inadmissible applications, the need for effective filtering of these applications 
and the need to find solutions for dealing with repetitive applications; 

 

(7) Stresses that full, effective and rapid execution of the final judgments of the 
Court is indispensable; 

 

(8) Reaffirms the need for maintaining the independence of the judges, and 
preserving the impartiality and quality of the Court; 

 

(9) Calls for enhancing the efficiency of the system to supervise the execution of 
the Court’s judgments; 

Comment [N1]: This paragraph should 
be moved up to no. 8, as it is thematically 
related to para.7. 

 

(10) Stresses the need to simplify the procedure for amending Convention 
provisions of an organisational nature; 

 

(11) Adopts the following Action Plan as an instrument to provide political 
guidance for the process towards long-term effectiveness of the Convention 
system: 


 

 

Action Plan of the Interlaken Conference 

 

A. Right of individual petition 

 

1. The Conference reaffirms the fundamental importance of the right of individual 
petition as a cornerstone of the Convention system, which guarantees that alleged 
violations that have not been effectively dealt with by national authorities can be 
brought before the Court. 

 

2. With regard to the high number of inadmissible applications, the Conference invites 
the Committee of Ministers to consider measures that would enable the Court to 
concentrate on its essential role of guarantor of human rights and to adjudicate well-
founded cases with the necessary speed, in particular those alleging serious violations 
of human rights. 

 

3. With regard to access to the Court, the Conference calls upon the Committee of 
Ministers to consider any additional measure which might contribute to a sound 
administration of justice and to examine in particular under what conditions new 
procedural rules or practices could be envisaged, without deterring well-founded 
applications. 

 

B. Implementation of the Convention at national level 

 

4. The Conference recalls that it is first and foremost the responsibility of the States 
Parties to guarantee the application and implementation of the Convention and 
consequently calls upon the States Parties to commit themselves to: 

Comment [N2]: Calling upon the States 
Parties to commit themselves seems to be 
an unnecessary duplication. If the 
Conference, consisting of the States Parties, 
calls upon the States Parties to do 
something, that is a commitment. 

 

a) continuing to increase, where appropriate in co-operation with national 
human rights institutions or other relevant bodies, the awareness of national 
authorities of the Convention standards and to ensure their application; 

 

b) fully executing the Court’s judgments, ensuring that the necessary measures 
are taken to prevent further similar violations; 

 

c) taking into account the Court's developing case-law, also with a view to 
considering the conclusions from a judgment finding a violation of the 
Convention by another State, where the same problem of principle exists 
within their own legal system; 

 

d) ensuring, if necessary by introducing new legal remedies, whether they be 
of a specific nature or a general domestic remedy, that any person with an 
arguable claim that their rights and freedoms as set forth in the Convention 
have been violated has available to them an effective remedy before a national 
authority providing adequate redress where appropriate; 

 

e) considering the possibility of seconding national judges and, where 
appropriate, other high-level independent lawyers, to the Registry of the Court 

 


f) ensuring review of the implementation of the recommendations adopted by 
the Committee of Ministers to help States Parties to fulfil their obligations. 

 

5. The Conference stresses the need to enhance and improve the targeting and 
coordination of other existing mechanisms, activities and programmes of the Council 
of Europe, including the recourse by the Secretary General to Article 52 of the 
Convention. 

 

C. Filtering 

 

6. The Conference: 

 

a) calls upon States Parties and the Court to ensure that comprehensive and 
objective information is provided to potential applicants on the Convention 
and the Court’s case law, in particular on the application procedures and 
admissibility criteria. To this end, the role of the Council of Europe 
information offices could be examined by the Committee of Ministers; 

 

b) stresses the interest for a thorough analysis of the Court’s practice relating 
to applications declared inadmissible; 

 

c) recommends, with regard to filtering mechanisms, the following way to 
proceed: 

 

i. to encourage the Court to put in place, in the short term, a mechanism 
within the existing bench likely to ensure effective filtering; 

 

ii. .to invite the Committee of Ministers to examine the setting up of a 
filtering mechanism within the Court going beyond the single judge 
procedure and the procedure provided for in i). 

 

Comment [N3]: In this section, the 
Conference now “recommends to 
encourage” and “recommends to invite”, 
which implies that someone else needs to 
encourage and invite. We assume that the 
Conference itself encourages and invites, 
and that the text should be adjusted to 
clarify this. 

D. Repetitive applications 

 

7. The Conference: 

 

a) calls upon States Parties to: 

 

i. facilitate where appropriate, within the guarantees provided for by 
the Court and, as necessary, with the support of the Court, the adoption 
of friendly settlements and unilateral declarations; 

 

ii. cooperate with the Committee of Ministers, after a final pilot 
judgment, in order to adopt and implement in practice general 
measures capable of remedying effectively the structural problems at 
the origin of repetitive cases. 

 

b) stresses the need for the Court to develop clear and predictable standards for 
the “pilot judgment” procedure as regards selection of applications, the 
procedure to be followed and the treatment of adjourned cases, and to evaluate 
the effects of applying such and similar procedures; 


 

c) calls upon the Committee of Ministers to: 

 

i. consider whether repetitive cases could be handled by judges 
responsible for filtering (see above Section C); 

Comment [N4]: In section C para. 6 the 
text no longer refers to a separate body of 
judges, but more generally to a new 
filtering mechanism. The text in this 
paragraph should be amended accordingly. 

 

ii. bring about a cooperative approach including all relevant parts of the 
Council of Europe in order to present possible options to a country 
required to remedy a structural problem in a judgment. 

 

E. The Court 

 

8. Having regard to the need for maintaining the independence of the judges, and 
preserving the impartiality and quality of the Court, the Conference calls upon States 
and the Council of Europe to: 

 

a) ensure, if necessary by improving the transparency and quality of the 
selection procedure at both national and European levels, full satisfaction of 
the Convention’s criteria for office as a judge of the Court, including 
knowledge of public international law and of the national legal systems as well 
as proficiency in at least one official language. In addition, the Court's 
composition should comprise the necessary practical legal experience. 

 

b) grant to the Court, in the interest of its efficient functioning, the necessary 
level of administrative autonomy within the Council of Europe,. 

 

9. The Conference, acknowledging the responsibility shared between the States 
Parties and the Court, invites the Court to: 

 

a) avoid reconsidering questions of fact or national law that have been 
considered and decided by national authorities, in line with its jurisprudence 
according to which it is not a fourth instance court, ; 

 

b) apply uniformly and rigorously the criteria concerning admissibility and 
jurisdiction and take fully into account its subsidiary role in the application 
and interpretation of the Convention; 

 

c) give full effect to the new admissibility criterion provided for in Protocol 
No. 14 and to consider other possibilities of applying the principle de minimis 
non curat praetor. 

 

10. With a view to increasing its efficiency, the Conference invites the Court to 
continue improving its internal structure and working methods and making maximum 
use of the procedural tools and the resources at its disposal. In this context, it 
encourages the Court in particular to: 

 

a) make use of the possibility to request the Committee of Ministers to reduce 
to five members the number of judges of the Chambers, as provided by 
Protocol No. 14; 

 


b) pursue its policy of identifying priorities for dealing with cases and continue 
to identify in its judgments any structural problem capable of generating a 
significant number of repetitive applications. 

 

F. Supervision of execution of judgments 

 

11. The Conference stresses the urgent need for the Committee of Ministers to: 

 

a) develop the means which will render its supervision of the execution of the 
Court’s judgments more effective and transparent. In this regard, it invites the 
Committee of Ministers to strengthen this supervision by giving increased 
priority and visibility not only to cases requiring urgent individual measures, 
but also to cases disclosing major structural problems, attaching particular 
importance to the need to establish effective domestic remedies; 

 

b) review its working methods and its rules to ensure that they are better 
adapted to present-day realities and more effective for dealing with the variety 
of questions that arise. 

 

G. Simplified Procedure for Amending the Convention 

 

12. The Conference calls upon the Committee of Ministers to examine the possibility 
of introducing by means of an amending Protocol a simplified procedure for any 
future amendment of certain provisions of the Convention relating to organisational 
issues. This simplified procedure may be introduced through, for example: 

 

a) a Statute for the Court; 

 

b) a new provision in the Convention similar to that found in Article 41(d) of 
the Statute of the Council of Europe. 

 

 

Implementation 

 

In order to implement the Action Plan, the Conference: 

 

(1) calls upon the States Parties, the Committee of Ministers, the Court and the 
Secretary General to give full effect to the Action Plan; 

 

(2) calls, in particular, upon the Committee of Ministers and the States Parties to 
consult with civil society on effective means to implement the Action Plan; 

 

(3) calls upon the States Parties to inform the Committee of Ministers, before the 
end of 2011, of the measures taken to implement the relevant parts of this 
Declaration; 

 

(4) invites the Committee of Ministers to determine, on the basis of an evaluation 
of the effects of Protocol No. 14 and of the implementation of other relevant 
measures, whether additional budgetary means need to be provided to the Court 


and to the Committee of Ministers in order to ensure that the backlog can be 
reduced and that new cases can be decided within a reasonable time; 

 

(5) invites the Committee of Ministers to follow-up and implement before June 
2011, where appropriate in co-operation with the Court and giving the necessary 
terms of reference to the competent bodies, the measures set out in this 
Declaration that do not require amendment of the Convention; 

 

(6) invites the Committee of Ministers to issue terms of reference to the 
competent bodies with a view to preparing, before June 2012, specific proposals 
for measures requiring amendment of the Convention; these terms of reference 
should include proposals for a filtering mechanism within the Court and the 
study of measures making it possible to simplify the amendment of the 
Convention; 

 

(7) invites the Committee of Ministers to evaluate, during the years 2012 to 2015, 
to what extent the implementation of Protocol No. 14 and of the Interlaken 
Action Plan has improved the situation of the Court. On the basis of this 
evaluation, the Committee of Ministers should decide, before the end of 2015, on 
whether there is a need for further action. Before the end of 2019, the Committee 
of Ministers should decide on whether the measures adopted have proven to be 
sufficient to assure sustainable functioning of the control mechanism of the 
Convention or whether more profound changes are necessary. 

 

(8) asks the acting Swiss Chairmanship to transmit the present Declaration and 
the Proceedings of the Interlaken Conference to the Committee of Ministers of 
the Council of Europe; 

 

(9) invites the future Chairmanships of the Committee of Ministers of the 
Council of Europe to follow-up on the implementation of the present 
Declaration.