THE EXECUTION OF JUDGMENTS OF THE EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS

Supervision of the execution of judgments

According to the Convention, supervision of the execution of judgments is a matter for the Committee of Ministers alone. As the Committee of Ministers is composed of one representative of each State Party, and having regard to the principle that the Convention system establishes a mechanism of joint responsibility, a state has to justify itself before all the other states (especially where there is excessive delay in executing the judgment) and not merely to respond to requests for information from the Secretariat of the Committee. This arrangement has in reality become much more complex: the European Court has come to play a greater part in the process of supervising execution. However, it is above all the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe which, of its own motion, has imposed on the Committee of Ministers an increasingly institutionalised right of inspection. It should nonetheless be noted that societal authorities, and more particularly the victim (or the victim’s representative), play no part in this arrangement, being absent from the meetings of the Committee of Ministers. The execution of the judgment is therefore outside the control of the applicant (interstate applications are virtually nonexistent). It must nevertheless be added that NGOs, national institutions and applicants are able to make documents available to the Committee of Ministers, which may be similar to the actual oral arguments and may provide a starting point for consideration by the Department for the Execution of Judgments.95

The author will examine in turn the roles played by the Committee of Ministers, the European Court and the Parliamentary Assembly.

95.Under Rules 9.1 and 9.2 adopted in 2006 by the Committee of Ministers (see Appendix, p. 75). National authorities are also able to appear before the Committee of Ministers at the request of the Permanent Representative.

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