Moldova is among the first 12 countries with largest numbers of applications submitted to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). The relation between the number of complaints and the population places Moldova on the top of the list. The statements were made at a news conference on Wednesday by the president of the NGO “Lawyers for Human Rights”, Vitalie Nagacevschi, Info-Prim Neo reports. According to Vitalie Nagacevschi, the ECHR has publicized the statistics of the cases it got, on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of enacting Protocol 11 to the Convention for the Defense of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, which canceled the European Commission of Human Rights, and the ECHR became permanent. According to the statistics, on October 1, 2008, some 79,000 cases were pending before the Court. Most of the cases envisage Russia – 25,000 (26.4%), Turkey – 10,750 (11.3%), Romania – 9,500 (10%) and Ukraine – 8,400 (8.9%). 2,350 (2.5%) complaints envisage Moldova. From November 1, 1998 to October 1, 2008, 126 decisions were issued against Moldova, of which in only one they did not find the Convention to have been violated. In most of its decisions, the ECHR found violating the right to a fair trial and to ownership protection. At the time, the number of decisions finding torture is growing, as well as the violations of the right to freedom and safety and to the freedom of speech. “Also the number of complaints attributed to a decision-making body has soared since 2001, when the Communist came in power,” Vitalie Nagacevschi said. The Lawyers for Human Rights assess that in 2008, 2.662 million euro will be given to people winning by ECHR decisions, as other 320,000 euros will be got following amicable transactions. “During these 10 years, Moldova has been as a champion in losing trials. But it's not quantity that matters, but the fact that intensity and the type of the violations committed by the Moldovan authorities are not so often met in Europe,” lawyer Alexandru Tanase stated. Although the ECHR was set up as a mechanism to control the way in which the Convention is observed, as far as the Moldovan Government is concerned, the ECHR is the fourth and the last hierarchic court that can verify the legality of the writs issued by the national courts. “This is not something normal and it is obvious that the large number of complaints to the ECHR and the large number of sanctions is directly proportional with the violations occurring in this country,” Alexandru Tanase said. The barrister has also remarked that after the ECHR finds violations of the human rights, the Moldovan authorities do not undertake steps to make sure such violations won't happen. “As long as this approach does not change, even more sentences will come from the ECHR and the sums to be paid by the tax-payer for the Government's mistakes will be bigger and bigger,” Alexandru Tanase stated. Lawyer Janeta Hanganu has sated that lately the ECHR prefers to consider jointly the similar cases in order to warn there is a system problem in the country. Thus on October 9, the ECHR notified about 8 complaints against Moldova. The plaintiffs are former employees of the Education Ministry, fired form 2004 to 2007. Although each of them won in the national courts, the Ministry declines to hire them again and to pay their salaries for forced deprivation of jobs. “In this case the question is not about lacking funds to execute court writs, even invoked by authorities, but about bad faith,” Janeta Hanganu said. The barristers say this case may deprive the state budget of half a million lei, as the prosecutors should investigate whether former Education Minister Victor Tvircun is liable to be searched penally.