Supervision of the execution of the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights – 2nd annual report 2008

This annual report presents the Committee of Ministers’ activities in 2008 concerning the supervision of the execution of the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights. It underlines the very close links between good execution, the proper implementation of the European Convention on Human Rights in the Council of Europe’s member states and the case-load of the European Court of Human Rights. The report contains an introduction by the Chairs of the special Human Rights meetings held by the Committee of Ministers to supervise the execution process and a number of remarks by the Director General of Human Rights and Legal Affairs regarding developments in 2008. The execution process and ongoing reform work are also described. Appendices present detailed statistical information, both in general and by state. An important appendix is the thematic overview of major developments in the execution of pending cases. Themes relate to such matters as actions of security forces, detention, aliens, the functioning of the judiciary, freedom of religion, expression and association, the right to property, discrimination, etc. The Committee of Ministers’ recent Recommendation (2008)2 is also presented. This text provides a number of recommendations to member states to improve their capacity to implement the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (e.g. to designate a co-coordinator of the execution process). This is the second report since the Committee of Ministers decided in 2006 to publish annual reports (see Rules of the new Rules for the supervision of the execution of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights and of the terms of friendly settlements). The first report, for 2007, was presented in March 2008.