Addressing Systemic Human Rights Violations at the European Court of Human Rights

Abstract

Over the past decades, the European Court of Human Rights has become overwhelmed by the massive numbers of applicants constantly lodging their complaints with the Court. In the early 2000s, the Court noted that over half of all its judgments concerned repetitive applications complaining of the same systemic violation, and introduced the pilot-judgment procedure in 2004.

The pilot-judgment procedure allows the Court to examine a complaint beyond the situation of the single applicant, directing the respondent State to solve the underlying problem and introduce remedies at the domestic level. The pilot-judgment procedure also allows the adjournment of all repetitive applications while pending the introduction of remedial measures at the domestic level.

However, since the introduction of the pilot-judgment procedure, the Court has routinely sought to address systemic human rights violations even outside the explicit application of the procedure. In so-called quasi-pilot judgments, the Court indicates general remedial measures but does not employ all elements of the ‘full’ procedure.

The characteristics of both pilot and quasi-pilot judgments vary extensively, and often it remains unclear why the Court selected a certain approach. Furthermore, distinguishing between pilot and quasi-pilot judgments is not always easy. The procedure crucially allows flexibility, but at the same time, to the outside eye the procedure appears unpredictable and inconsistent.

By studying how the Court has in practice applied relevant legal instruments, this thesis undertakes to clarify which considerations influence the selection of the approach. The thesis will show that although certain patterns in the practice of the Court can be detected, much remains inconsistent and lacking transparency.

The study will find that since the adoption of the first pilot and quasi-pilot judgments, some aspects have been streamlined and clarified. In case-law from the last ten years or so, the Court has been increasingly clear in the differentiation of pilot judgments from quasi-pilot judgments.

Yet, for the vast part, it remains unclear how the Court selects its response to a particular systemic problem. This thesis will find that the Court seems to take into consideration for example the level of cooperation of the respondent state and the complexity of the substantive issue at hand. Furthermore, when the Court has identified a systemic problem, its first response is only rarely a ‘full’ pilot judgment. More typically, the Court will employ the ‘full’ pilot-judgment procedure only after numerous declaratory and quasi-pilot judgments in respect of the same systemic problem have been delivered, but proved unsuccessful.