The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in 2021 recorded over 630 applications against the Republic of Moldova, up 20% on 2020. “2020 was a pandemic year and the ECHR’s work was somehow affected by the pandemic, which influenced the number of applications down. The 2021 figure is similar to that for 2019, which was a pre-pandemic year,” Daniel Goinic, legal adviser of the Legal Resources Center from Moldova, stated in a news conference hosted by IPN.
He noted that the Moldovans in 2021 applied to the ECHR three times more often than the Europeans on average. 630 applications are a rather high figure against the size of the population and Moldova here ranks 12th out of the 47 Council of Europe member states.
On December 31, 2021, 1,038 applications submitted by Moldovans were pending, 92% of these having big chances of being successful. By the same date, the ECHR passed 541 judgments in Moldovan cases, 68 of which in 2021. The figure is one of the largest judging by the number of decisions pronounced during a year.
Out of pending cases, over 20% have been already communicated to the Government. 70% are examined by panels of three or seven judges, while 7% are applications assigned to one judge and, at first sight, seem inadmissible.
In total, the ECHR in 2021 registered over 42,000 applications and 43% of these were aimed against two countries: Turkey and the Russian Federation. Over 70% of the 70,000 pending applications were aimed against four states: the Russian Federation, Turkey, Ukraine, and Romania. Moldova ranked eleventh. The Hugh Court last year passed over 1,000 judgments, an increase of 27% on 2020. 47% of these referred to the Russian Federation, Ukraine, and Romania. Moldova ranked fifth.
In 2021, there were states against which the Court pronounced no conviction decision, such as the Czech Republic, Finland and Ireland, or states against which one or two judgments were passed, such as Sweden, Estonia and Germany. A conclusion about the efficiency of justice in these countries can be drawn from here, stated Daniel Goinic.
According to the head of the Legal Resources Center Vladislav Gribincea, the high number of applications filed to the ECHR points to the dysfunctions in the justice system. The judiciary and the prosecutors should do their job. Also, the detention conditions should be improved and the authorities should take attitude to the respects for the private life and the ownership right. A system will not change if it is not “pressed” to change. A good solution is to ensure a clear national monitoring system to see what happens after an ECHR judgment is passed, namely if the plaintiff obtains damages and if the state does not allow violations in continuation.
