National countries should analyse case-law of the European Court of Human Rights (the ECHR) and foresee possible problems, which should be solved at national level, before the case arrives to the ECHR, said Danute Jociene (Danuté Jočiené), the judge of the ECHR from Lithuania, when meeting delegation of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Latvia in Strasbourg. Both she and Ineta Ziemele, the judge of the ECHR from Latvia, asked the Supreme Court to interpret laws gamely and to create national case-law, which is respected by the ECHR.

At the beginning of December, group of judges and employees of the Supreme Court in their business trip on exchange of experience, learned about work of the ECHR, participated as listeners in court hearing of the case X and Others v. Austria and met judges of the ECHR Danute Jociene, Ineta Ziemele and lawyers of the ECHR registry Kristaps Tamuzs, Inese Kurme and Lasma Liede.

Danute Jociene gave insight into statistics and problems of the ECHR, as well as its case-law in cases filed against Lithuania and Latvia.   

The main problem of the ECHR is great accumulation of cases. At present, there are 153 850 cases in the ECHR, more than half of them (54.6 per cent) are cases of four countries – Russia, Turkey, Italy and Romania. The second problem of the ECHR is a great number of cases rejected – approximately 90 per cent of cases are obviously inadmissible. Main reasons are those that the claim is not grounded with violation of human rights or the claimant hasn’t addressed in all national court instances. The third problem is a mechanism of control over execution of rulings.    

To review the most significant cases faster, the Plenary meeting of the ECHR states categories of cases to be reviewed primarily. At present, these are cases about interpretation of the European Convention on Human Rights, cases about right to life, cases about use of power and family cases.  

Procedure of receipt, registration and advancement of cases in the ECHR and the most topical problem issues were discussed with lawyers of the ECHR registry. Legal issues solved in latest judgments in cases against Latvia - Longa Yonkeu v. Latvia (violation of lawfulness of detention of an immigrant), Beiere v. Latvia (infringements, when placing an individual in mental hospital to carry out forensic psychiatric expertise in criminal proceedings) were analysed in details.  

Lawyers answered to questions about case-law of the ECHR in issues related to provocation in criminal proceedings and about anonymisation of court rulings. In rulings of the ECHR, personal data, in comparison to Latvia, is anonymized in particular cases, when the judge has accepted claimant’s request in concrete case. Those are rare exceptions, for example, in cases about adoption or change of a gender. Mostly, surname and other data is not anonymized, as an individual, when filing the complaint to the court, has made them public.  

At the final conversation of the visit, Ineta Ziemele, the judge of the ECHR, stressed particular problems of Latvian courts, asking the Supreme Court to pay attention to them as well, for example, observation of human rights in application of the Investigatory Operations Law, and assessment of significance of restriction of human rights in administrative cases.    

The delegation of the Supreme Court consisted of Peteris Dzalbe, the Chair of the Department of Criminal Cases of the Senate, Veronika Krumina, the Chair of the Department of Administrative Cases of the Senate, Raimonds Gravelsins, the judge of the Chamber of Civil Cases, Rasma Zvejniece, the Head of the Division of Communication, and Nora Magone, the assistant to the senator of the Department of Criminal Cases of the Senate.

 

Information prepared by

Rasma Zvejniece, the Head of the Division of Communication of the Supreme Court

E-mail: rasma.zvejniece@at.gov.lv, telephone: 67020396, 28652211