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Mammadov v. Azerbaijan (Eur. Ct. H.R.)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 March 2020

Kanstantsin Dzehtsiarou
Kanstantsin Dzehtsiarou*
Affiliation:
Kanstantsin Dzehtsiarou is a Professor in Human Rights Law in the School of Law and Social Justice of the University of Liverpool. His research interests are spread between interpretation of the European Convention of Human Rights, reform of the European Court of Human Rights, administration of international justice, and comparative and constitutional law.
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Extract

The judgment of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR, or the Court) in Mammadov v. Azerbaijan was the first “infringement procedure” judgment pursuant to Article 46(4) of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR, or the Convention). This procedure was introduced to the Convention by Protocol 14, which entered into force in 2010. The idea behind it was that the Committee of Ministers—the body of the Council of Europe that supervises the execution of judgments of the ECtHR—could return the case to the Court to confirm that the responded state had failed to enforce it. Although there are quite a few instances of non-execution, this procedure has not been in use because it is difficult to initiate and its results are uncertain. The Mammadov judgment was a test of the effectiveness of infringement procedures, but it failed to provide a definitive answer as to whether such procedures were effective in terms of state implementation of ECtHR judgments. The applicant in this case was a political prisoner and the Committee of Ministers fruitlessly tried for a number of years to force Azerbaijan to release him. Soon after the Article 46(4) request reached the Court, the Azerbaijani authorities conditionally released the applicant. That said, all other negative consequences of his criminal conviction, such as an inability to run for election, have yet to be removed, so the judgment has not been implemented in full.

Type
International Legal Documents
Information
International Legal Materials , Volume 59 , Issue 1 , February 2020 , pp. 35 - 88
Copyright
Copyright © 2020 by The American Society of International Law

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References

ENDNOTES

1 Initiation of the procedure requires two-thirds of the Committee of Ministers to agree to transfer the case back to the ECtHR.

2 For a more in-depth discussion of the Article 46(4) ECHR procedure, see Fiona de Londras and Kanstantsin Dzehtsiarou, Mission Impossible? Addressing Non-execution Through Infringement Proceedings in the European Court of Human Rights 66 Int'l & Comp. L.Q. 467 (2017).

3 The first case where Article 18 was claimed successfully was Gusinskiy v. Russia, App. No. 70276/01, Eur. Ct. H.R.

4 This is the most authoritative composition of the Court, consisting of seventeen judges.

5 For more detail, see Fiona de Londras and Kanstantsin Dzehtsiarou, Great Debates on the European Convention on Human Rights (2018), 168–174.

6 Veronika Fikfak, Changing State Behaviour: Damages Before the European Court of Human Rights, 29(4) Eur. J. Int'l L. (2018), p. 1091.

7 See, e.g., Oleksandr Volkov v. Ukraine, App. No. 21722/11, Eur. Ct. H.R. In this case, the Court established that reinstatement of the judge whose position was terminated in violation of the ECHR was the only possible way to implement this judgment.

8 Mammadov v. Azerbaijan, App. No. 15172/13, Eur. Ct. H.R., ¶ 176.

9 1344th meeting, April 24, 2019, H46-1 Ilgar Mammadov v. Azerbaijan, App. No. 15172/13, Supervision of the execution of the European Court's judgments.

10 Explanatory Report to Protocol No. 14 to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, amending the control system of the Convention, ¶¶ 16–17.