The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in 2015 accepted slightly over 1,000 applications against Moldova, which is a decrease of 8.5% on 2014. Jurists of the Legal Resources Center of Moldova, who analyzed the ECHR activity report for last year, consider it is highly improbable that the decline is due to the improvement of the human rights situation in the country. They believe this is due to the 27.7% decrease in the general number of complains submitted to the ECHR in 2015, IPN reports.
In an event held to present the analysis, the Center’s chairman Vladislav Gribincea said the decrease in the number of applications is also due to the fact that the ECHR in 2011-2015 rejected over 7,800 Moldovan applications without an explicit motivation. The large number of rejected applications can discourage the lawyers who met with refusal to go again to the ECHR. The lack of improvements in ensuring the observance of human rights results also from the high rate of Moldovan applications per capita. In 2015, Moldova ranked third out of 47 Council of Europe member states by the number of complaints per 10,000 people (2.84). In 2014 and 2013, Moldova ranked fourth.
According to Vladislav Gribincea, the high number of applications filed to the ECHR shows that the people’s confidence in the national judicial system is low. Since 1998 until 2015, the ECHR recorded 11,800 applications against Moldova. On December 31, 2015, over 1,200 of these (10.4%) were still pending, Moldova ranking 11th by the number of pending cases. 94.4% of the pending cases(1,142) were distributed for examination to panels of seven or three judges, which means that they have chances to be successful. “Thus, the number of applications examined by the ECHR during the next few years is expected to rise,” said the jurist.
By December 31, 2015, the ECHR passed 316 decisions on Moldovan cases, 19 of which last year. Based on the 316 decisions, the Government was obliged to pay over €14.2 million damages. Among the most often violations ascertained are the non-fulfillment of decisions adopted by national courts, inappropriate investigation of cases of ill-treatment and death and detention in poor conditions.
By the number of decisions, Moldova outstrips Germany, Spain, the Netherlands and Portugal. These countries joined the European Convention on Human Rights long before Moldova and have a much larger population.
