On April 26, at the regular meeting of PACE Plenary Session the member of the RA NA delegation to PACE Arusyak Julhakyan gave a speech.
The MP noted:
“Thank you, dear Chair
Dear colleagues,
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During the last several days we have been reflecting to the importance of implementation of the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights, which is one of the essential problems our organization face. During yesterday’s discussion the president of the European Court of Human Rights stated that during the last 60 years the court has delivered over 26,000 judgments. However, as of March 2023, more than 6000 judgments of the Court have not been implemented and are still pending before the Committee of Ministers. This means that nearly 25% of the Court’s judgments have not been implemented by the member states, and this is a serious problem. The implementation of the interim measures issued by the Court is also of high importance, however, despite this, the Committee of Ministers has lack of power in this respect.
I would like to remind you that the conditions for membership for Council of Europe are pluralistic democracy, the rule of law and respect for human rights. Only those countries which fulfil these criteria can exceed. And the European Court of Human Rights is the only abiding mechanism which is supposed to guarantee, at least one of the three conditions of membership of this organization; the respect for human rights.
Not implemented judgments undermine the authority and functioning of the convention system. This is why we must reaffirm the binding nature of the judgments and decisions on interim measures of the European Court of Human Rights, further reinforce the execution of judgments by strengthening relevant cooperation activities, and enhancing the means at our disposal in cases of non-compliance.
Colleagues, what your respective states do when your citizens do not implement judgments of your domestic courts? You enforce the implementation, you apply sanctions, but what we do as a Council of Europe when a member state refrains from implementation of the ECHR judgments? We just acknowledge the fact and do not take necessary steps.
During the last 10 years Council of Europe member state Azerbaijan has not implemented nearly 80% of the ECHR rulings. This country is the leader among the member states of the Council of Europe in terms of the number of unexecuted judgments. And the statistics show that the number of non-implemented decisions by Azerbaijan is increasing year by year. This is a pure disrespect for human rights.
This country neglects not only the rulings of the ECHR, but also those of other international courts. For example, the binding order of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) which obligates Azerbaijan to take all measures to ensure unimpeded movement of persons, vehicles and cargo along the Lachin Corridor in both directions is still neglected and Azerbaijan continues blocking the road of life for 120,000 people in Nagorno Karabakh, thus creating a humanitarian catastrophe.
Ladies and gentlemen, we cannot ignore the shameful statistics of the unexecuted judgments. And when I say shameful, I mean it for this Council, because it shows that this organization should have taken proper actions in either introducing of new mechanisms for enforcement or by thinking about sanctions, including suspension of membership of states, which make zero effort to comply with the conditions of membership, in this case the respect for human rights.
Thank you.”
National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia
