Yesterday, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe elected judges to the European Court of Human Rights in respect of four countries. The new Bosnian judge will be Mr Faris Vehabovic, judge and vice-president of the Bosnian Constitutional Court and ad hoc judge at the European Court in a number of cases. He obtained a large majority of votes (107 out of 184 votes cast). The new judge in respect of Croatia will be Ms Ksenija Turkovic, professor at Zagreb Law School and also ad hoc judge since this year at the European Court, amongst many other activities (133 out of 187 votes cast). From Moldova, Mr Valeriu Gritco has been elected (112 out of 188 votes). He is a practising lawyer in Moldova and board member of the Moldovan Bar association. Finally, the new judge in respect of Russia will be Mr Dmitry Dedov (120 out of 182 votes), a judge at Russia’s Supreme Commercial Court (at which he introduced teh idea of pilot jdugments, in parallel to the European Court’s, to unburden the Commercial Court’s work.
What is striking is that, in contrast to some of the election in respect of other countries earlier this year, all of these judges have been elected by wide margins of votes. One may note that this new group of judges represents a balanced mix of national judges, academics and practising lawyers, bringing a plurality of perspectives to Strasbourg. The newly elected judges will start working at the Courtin the coming months. Congratulations to them all!
More information (including CV’s of all candidates) can be found on the Parliamentary Assembly’s website.
