ECHR Statistics for 2016 – Notes for GEORGIA
Judgments in 2016
- The European Court of Human Rights delivered a total of 993 judgments in 2016 for all countries of the Council of Europe, of which 829 (83.5%) found at least one violation of the European Convention on Human Rights.
- The Council of Europe member states with the highest number of judgments finding at least one violation of the human rights convention in 2016 were Russia (222 judgments out of 228 judgments delivered in total), Turkey (77) , Romania (71), Ukraine (70 judgments out of 73 judgments delivered in total), Greece (41) and Hungary (40).
- Like last year, there were only 4 judgments delivered on cases brought against Georgia, and in all cases a violation was found. The violations found concerned right to liberty and security, as well as right to a fair trial and right to respect for private and family life.
- Throughout the history of the European Court, from 1959 to 2016, a total of 68 judgments were delivered on cases brought against Georgia, in most of them (52) violations were found.
Pending applications
- For all the countries of the Council of Europe, 79,750 applications were pending before a judicial formation on 31/12/2016, a 23% increase compared to 01/01/2016; this backlog increased by around 1,250 applications per month
- The growth in applications in 2016 relates in particular to systemic problems concerning conditions of detention – these concern a limited number of countries, but are regarded as a priority; the court also saw a very large number of applications from Turkey in late 2016.
- The higher volume of incoming applications and the focus on more complex and time-consuming applications together led to the increase in pending cases.
- Of the 79,750 applications pending before a judicial formation on 31/12/2016, the highest number (18,171) is related to Ukraine (22.8%), 12,600 to Turkey (15.8%) and 8,950 to Hungary (11.2%). The share of applications against Russia has decreased; Russia is now 4th with 7,821 applications pending (9.8%). By the end of 2016, 2,077 applications against Georgia are pending before the Court – a figure comparable to 2,154 last year.
- Georgia is still among top-ten countries with the highest share of applications pending (2,6% of all the applications pending before the European Court are against Georgia).
- In relation to population, the number of Georgian cases allocated to a judicial formation in 2015 was 0.16 per 10,000 people – quite a low figure. The countries (not including San Marino and Liechtenstein) with the highest number of cases were Hungary (5.67), Romania (4.15), Montenegro (2.65), Armenia (2.51) and the Republic of Moldova (2.36). The countries with the lowest number of cases allocated to a judicial formation were traditionally Ireland (0.06 per 10,000 people), Denmark (0.08) and the UK (0.06).