The Court has published two documents (a pie chart and a table) which provide a snapshot of the current state of applications at the Court. The snapshot was taken exactly halfway the year, on 30 June 2010. As the table shows the majority of pending applications is still lodged against only four countries: Russia (27.9%), Turkey (12%), Romania (8.6%) and Ukraine (8.1%). To put things in an even starker perspective: 37 of the 47 state parties together only reflect 21% of the allocated pending applications. Improvements in a very select number of states to the national capacity of the judiciary, the quality of legislation, and the rule of law more generally thus seem to be key to strengthen the human rights situation in Europe. The statistical overview shows an equally distressing picture: the number of applications is still on the rise. Compared to the first half of 2009, the number of allocated applications rose with 6% to almost 30,000 (with the total number of incoming applications of course being even higher). One can see that the Court is already trying to make big shifts in efficiency with the rise in applications allocated to Committees of three judges and to single-judge formations rising more quickly (10%) than those allocated to Chambers of 7 judges (4%). Only the full overview at the end of this year wil show whether the entry into force of optional Protocol 14 (as of 1 June 2010) has started to make a palpable difference.
Court Statistics Halfway 2010
