This on-going research pertains to the execution of the judgments of the European Court for Human Rights (hereafter the ‘ECHR’ or the ‘Court’) by Greece and its competent authorities. The research spans the period from 1991, when the Court issued the first judgment against Greece in the Philis case, to the end of 2017. The research focuses on two periods: prior to the 2011 reform of the control mechanism provided by the ECHR and from 2011 henceforth. The research will include all measures adopted by the domestic legislative, administrative and judicial authorities in order to comply with the judgments of the European Court and the relevant decisions of the Committee of Ministers as of January 1992.
During the years 2018-2019 the following data have been collected, so as to compile a list of the measures undertaken by the Greek authorities in order to comply with the judgments issued by the European Court of Human Rights. The list contains the individual as well as the general measures adopted by the Parliament or the administrative authorities, especially the ministries. In addition to the payment of compensation to the victims, specific measures are the dissemination of the judgments of the European Court, the adoption of concrete administrative guidelines that the competent authorities must comply with and the adoption of a specific judicial (or quasi-judicial) remedy. Moreover, the list includes cross-references between the various judgments issued by the European Court with respect to the legal issues treated by the Court itself. The last part of the list contains the final resolutions adopted by the Committee of Ministers with respect to the closure of a single case or group of similar cases as classified by the Committee itself.
In a second step, a separate list has been drafted with respect to the judgments issued by Greek administrative courts which treat the European Convention as having a direct effect to the domestic legal order; in this respect there will be a number of separate charts illustrating where and how the Greek courts apply the judgments of the European Court when they refer directly to them.
Since the research also has a comparative aspect, the research team decided to focus upon the states of Cyprus, Croatia, Germany and Poland for purposes of a comparative analysis. Therefore, the list composed for those countries was based on the relevant data collected and categorized as it has been done for Greece. Accordingly, in the next stage of the research the charts for the four countries will be drafted according to the example of Greece.
The results of the first part of the research were presented in a conference held in Athens on 19 February 2020.
Research conducted by: Dr. Eleni Micha, Ms. Stavroula Trekli
Research Assistants: Athanasios Plexidas, Maria Vasilaki