Does Ukraine fulfill the decisions of the European Court of human rights?

On 11 February the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe adopted the Intermediate Resolution on the fulfillment of the court decision on the case «Sovtransavto Holding» vs. Ukraine. The resolution is called «intermediate» because Ukraine has not fulfilled the decision completely yet.

According to rule No. 7 of the Regulations adopted by the Committee of Ministers for the application of part 2 of Article 46 of the European Convention on the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms (obligatory fulfillment of Court decisions and the Committee of Ministers’ authorities in the surveillance over the fulfillment), the intermediate resolution is adopted mainly for rendering the information about the progress in the fulfillment of the decision and, in case of need, for making remarks and recommendations concerning the fulfillment of the decision.

Some time ago, when the Parliament did not adopt the law about the fulfillment of decisions of the European Court of human rights, Minister of Justice Oleksandr Lavrynovich stated that, in spite of the absence of such law, decisions were fulfilled all the same. He was right in a certain sense. Yet, the considered resolution shows the erroneousness of such statements.

There are two obligatory ways of the fulfillment of decisions of the European Court of human rights: the fulfillment in relation to the victim (individual measures, such as compensations, reconsideration of cases in accordance with new circumstances, restoration of rights, etc.), and the general measures (fulfillment of the decisions in wider sense, such as introduction of changes into legislation or administrative practices with the purpose to prevent similar violations in future).

When the minister said about the fulfillment of the court decision, he meant only the first part: the individual one. As to the second part, the system of taking the necessary general measures for the prevention of future similar violations is absent in Ukraine, which is vividly illustrated by the resolution of the Committee of Ministers.