Europe’s human rights court struggles to lay down the law
Nearly 10,000 judgments covering 46 countries have not been implemented.
▻http://www.politico.eu/article/human-rights-court-ilgar-mammadov-azerbaijan-struggles-to-lay-down-the-law
The most sophisticated system in the world for defending human rights is facing a test. So far, it’s failing.
Nearly 10,000 judgments of the European Court of Human Rights have not been put into effect by national governments. Some of those cases were ruled on as far back as 1992, and they cover all but one of the 47 member countries of the Strasbourg-based Council of Europe, the court’s parent body and the Continent’s leading human rights organization.
The failure to implement these judgments — detailed in a Council of Europe database — means that practices have continued across Europe, in many cases for years, after being ruled violations of human rights. These range from segregating HIV-positive prisoners in Greece, to police brutality in Bulgaria, to not properly investigating deaths of prisoners in Romania.
One case in particular could soon elevate this problem to a bigger political stage. The court ruled in 2014 that the detention of Ilgar Mammadov, an opposition leader in Azerbaijan, was a human rights violation — but he is still in prison three years later.