Council of Europe: Romania closed the third-most ECHR-related leading cases in 2023

The latest annual report from the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers highlights significant progress on implementing rulings from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in 2023, whilst underlining that several important challenges remain. According to its findings, Romania closed the third-most leading cases in 2023 (12), alongside Türkiye (21), Bulgaria (14), and Poland (also 12).

According to the report, the Committee of Ministers was able to close 982 cases during the year following steps taken by member states. This included 180 ‘leading’ cases requiring specific, and often wide-ranging, measures to make sure the same human rights violations did not happen again.

Furthermore, many important advances took place – across many different member states – in cases that were still pending at the end of the year. The total number of cases against member states pending before the Committee onDecember 31, 2023, was 3,819, of which 1,071 were leading cases. This figure remained relatively stable over the course of the year, despite a high number of new cases being transmitted to the Committee by the Court.

Romania had the second-highest total number of cases pending full implementation (476) at the end of 2023, alongside Ukraine (766), Türkiye (446), Azerbaijan (337), and Italy (249). The country also had the second-highest number of ‘leading’ cases – requiring specific, and often wide-ranging, measures to make sure the same human rights violations do not happen again – pending full implementation at the end of 2023 (115), alongside 124 for Türkiye, 103 for Ukraine, 89 for Bulgaria and 66 for Italy.

Romania also closed the second-highest total number of cases in 2023 (121), alongside Hungary (123), Türkiye (111), Serbia (96), and Ukraine (75).

Moreover, according to the same report, Romania closed the third-most leading cases in 2023 (12), alongside Türkiye (21), Bulgaria (14), Poland (also 12), and Ukraine (10). The country had the third-highest number of leading cases pending for more than 5 years at the end of 2023 (53 in total), alongside Türkiye (72), Ukraine (69), Bulgaria (51) and Italy (33).

Overall, the report also highlights greater engagement in the implementation process on the part of both member states and civil society in 2023. A record number of action plans and action reports were submitted by member states, and the number of submissions from civil society organizations and national human rights institutions continued to grow.

Russia’s continuing aggression against Ukraine continued to have a major impact on the system, severely affecting Ukraine’s capacity to promptly implement rulings from the Court. Due to its determination and close cooperation with the Council of Europe, Ukraine nevertheless managed to close 75 cases in 2023. In contrast, no progress was reported in any of the cases pending against the Russian Federation, which totals a further 2,566 cases and so makes up 40% of the Committee’s overall pending caseload.