The Budget

According to Article 50 of the European Convention on Human Rights the expenditure on the European Court of Human Rights is to be borne by the Council of Europe. Under present arrangements the Court does not have a separate budget, but its budget is part of the general budget of the Council of Europe, whose budget is of the Court financed by contributions from member States in accordance with scales based on population and GDR For 2010 the Court’s budget amounts to just over 58 million euros- It covers the salaries of judges and staff and the various overheads official travel, translation, interpreting, publications, representation expenses, legal aid, fact-finding missions, etc.).

The Court receives voluntary contributions from different States as well. One possibility might be that the one-off investment could be financed by using such voluntary contributions. However, in order to cover the recurrent annual costs, the Court would need an appropriation in its regular budget.

So, the budget is subject to the approval of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe in the course of their examination of the overall Council of Europe budget. The Council of Europe is financed by the contributions of the 47 member States, which are fixed according to scales taking into account population and gross national product.

The Court’s budget for 2011 amounts to 58.960.100 euros. This covers Judges’ remuneration, staff salaries and operational expenditure (information technology, official journeys, translation, interpretation, publications, representational expenditure, legal aid, fact-finding missions, etc). It does not include expenditure on the building and infrastructure (telephone, cabling, etc).

The Registry has a Budget and Finance Office, which deals with the day-to day management of the Court’s budget, under the authority of the Registrar.

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The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe (French: Comité des ministres du Conseil de l'Europe) or commonly the Committee of Ministers (French: Comité des ministres) is the Council of Europe's decision-making body. It comprises the Foreign Affairs Ministers of all the member states, or their permanent diplomatic representatives in Strasbourg. It is both a governmental body, where national approaches to problems facing European society can be discussed on an equal footing, and a collective forum, where Europe-wide responses to such challenges are formulated. In collaboration with the Parliamentary Assembly, it is the guardian of the Council's fundamental values, and monitors member states' compliance with their undertakings.

In accordance with Article 46 of the Convention as amended by Protocol No. 11, the Committee of Ministers supervises the execution of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights. This work is carried out mainly at four regular meetings (DH meetings) every year. Documentation for these meetings takes the form of the Annotated Order of Business. The content of this document is made public, as are, in general, the decisions taken in each case. The Committee of Ministers' essential function is to ensure that member states comply with the judgments and certain decisions of the European Court of Human Rights. The Committee completes each case by adopting a final resolution. In some cases, interim resolutions may prove appropriate. Both kinds of Resolutions are public. Applicants can access the Resolutions adopted concerning their case (see the box "Adopted texts" below).