Consolidated document¹ – New working methods
Twin-track supervision system

Preliminary remarks

In the context of the follow-up to the Conference and Interlaken declaration, the Deputies set up new working methods to respond to the need for strengthening the principle of subsidiarity and enhancing the effectiveness and the transparency of the supervision of the execution of the judgments of the Court.

At their 1092nd meeting (14-15 September 2010) (DH), the Deputies “endorsed the principle of the twin-track approach² concerning a new system for the supervision of the execution as set out in document CM/Inf/DH(2010)37, with the aim of implementing it as from 1 January 2011”.

Eventually, at their 1100th meeting (December 2010) (DH), the Deputies agreed on a number of practical modalities for the implementation of this new supervision system.

1. Guiding principles of the new working methods

1.1 Under the principle of subsidiarity, responsibility for execution lies on the States³. The supervision of execution is the collective responsibility of member States in the framework of the Committee of Ministers.

1.2 The supervision of the execution of judgments is carried out in a continuous manner, detached from the DH meetings’ schedule⁴. In this respect, all cases for which execution is pending are placed on the agenda of each DH meeting of the Deputies until the supervision of their execution is closed⁵. Cases to be examined at a Human Rights meeting are included in the order of business⁶.

1.3 The cases are divided into two parallel and interdependent procedures: a standard procedure (simplified), which is the norm, and an enhanced procedure for cases meeting a number of criteria (see below). Only cases for enhanced supervision, or cases proposed to be transferred under enhanced procedure, can be examined on the merits in the context of Human Rights meetings, with or without debate, once on the order of business of a given meeting.

2. Criteria for the classification of cases

2.1 In accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, all cases are examined under the standard procedure⁷. Therefore, all cases are placed under the standard procedure unless, because of its specific nature, a case requires consideration under the enhanced procedure.

2.2 At their 1100th meeting, the Deputies agreed that the indicators to examine cases under the enhanced supervision procedure be as follows:
- judgments requiring urgent individual measures;
- pilot judgments;
- judgments disclosing major structural and/or complex problems as identified by the Court and/or the Committee of Ministers;
- interstate cases.

2.3 The Committee of Ministers may decide to examine any case under the enhanced procedure following an initiative of a member State or the Secretariat. The request may be made at any stage of the supervision procedure. Both Member States and the Secretariat should be mindful of the selected indicators when requesting a case to be considered under the enhanced procedure.⁸

2.4 In practice, at each Human Rights meeting, the Secretariat prepares a list of new judgments and decisions on friendly settlements, and prepares draft decisions with a view to classifying them under standard or enhanced procedure. For each case proposed under enhanced procedure, the Secretariat applies the relevant criteria or the affiliation to a previous case already classified under enhanced procedure.

3. Obligation by States: action plans and reports

3.1 Member States must provide an action plan and/or an action report⁹ as soon as possible and in any case at the latest within six months of a judgment becoming final¹⁰.

i. An action plan¹¹ is a plan setting out the measures the respondent State intends to take to implement a judgment of the Court, including an indicative timetable. The plan shall, if possible, set out all measures necessary to implement the judgment. Alternatively, where it is not possible to determine all measures immediately, the plan shall set out the steps to be taken to determine the measures required, including an indicative timetable for such steps.

It is axiomatic that action plans could contain information on measures already taken.
Action plans are evolving documents and should be regularly updated with information on the progress achieved with respect to their implementation. They should be amended if the initial plans prove unachievable or inappropriate in view of new developments.

ii. An action report¹² is a report by the respondent State setting out all the measures taken to implement a judgment of the European Court of Human Rights, an/or an explanation of why no measures, or no further measures, are necessary.

3.2 Action plans and action reports are put on line on the website of the department for the Execution of judgments, as well as on the Committee of Ministers’ website as DH-DD documents. They are usually made public except where a motivated request for confidentiality is made at the time of submitting the information¹³.

3.3 At each Human Rights’ meeting, a list of the action plans/reports received is distributed and appended to the working documents. It is accompanied by draft decisions to take note of the action plans and to invite the authorities of the member States concerned to keep the Committee of Ministers regularly informed of developments in their implementation.

3.4 In the absence of action plan/report within the deadline, the Secretariat will send a reminder to the State concerned. The absence of action plan/report or explanations after this reminder, will motivate the transfer from standard to enhanced procedure¹⁴.

4. Practical modalities of the standard procedure

4.1. The Committee of Ministers’ involvement in the standard procedure is limited to verifying whether or not action plans or action reports have been presented by member States. This verification is done through decisions regularly adopted to this effect¹⁵. This formal involvement of the Committee is not only necessary for the smooth functioning of the execution process but also contributes to its transparency and visibility¹⁶. The Committee only intervenes at the end of the process to note the closure of the case, after an evaluation by the Secretariat of the action reports received.

4.2. The Secretariat makes a preliminary assessment of the action plans/reports by the respondent States. The Secretariat may contact the national authorities if further information and clarifications are necessary¹⁷.

4.3 When there is agreement between a member State and the Secretariat on the content of the action report, the case is presented to the Committee of Ministers with a proposal for closure¹⁸ (generally with the preparation of a draft resolution closing the examination of the case).

5. Practical modalities of the enhanced procedure

5.1 The Committee of Ministers exercises its supervision through decisions adopted at the Human Rights’ meetings¹⁹. This supervision of the execution is carried out in two practical ways: decisions adopted without debate or at the end of a debate. Holding a debate or not is proposed in the draft order of business²⁰, under the responsibility of the Chair, and must be approved by the Committee²¹.

5.2 The Secretariat, in parallel, makes all efforts to respond positively to requests from States for a targeted co-operation with a view to facilitating the execution process²².

6. Transfer from one modality of supervision to the other

6.1 A case may be transferred from one procedure to the other by a duly reasoned decision of the Committee of Ministers²³.

6.2 For example, the following situations can be envisaged²⁴:

i. Transfer from enhanced to standard:

- the Committee of Ministers is satisfied with the action plan presented and/or its implementation;
- the obstacles to the execution no longer exist;
- required urgent individual measures have been taken.

ii. Transfer from standard to enhanced:

- failure to present an action report, or explanation in the deadline;
- in case of disagreement between a member State and the Secretariat on the contents of the action plan or report so that the Committee can provide guidance in order to assist the execution process;
- serious delay in the implementation of the measures announced in the action plan;
- persistent failure to supply information on the payment of just satisfaction.

7. Simplified supervision of the payment of just satisfaction²⁵

7.1. Operating principles: the principle is the registration by the Execution of Judgments Department of payments by Sates of sums awarded by the Court for just satisfaction, supervision is only carried out if the applicant contests the payment or the amount of the sums paid.

7.2. Practical arrangements for the supervision:
- a simple and standardised form²⁶ is put at the States’ disposal in the collaborative website of the Execution of Judgments Department;
- if an applicant has not made any complaint within two months of the date when the payment was registered, the payment is considered accepted according to the terms it has been made.
- the information on the payment are put on line on the Execution of Judgments Department's website.

7.3 The list of cases paid is appended to the working documents for each Human Rights meeting, for information, whereas a list of cases for which no payment has been received (or no information on the payment is available) comes with a draft decision noting the absence of payment of just satisfaction and inviting the State concerned to supply information confirming the payment owed.

7.4 In case of dispute with the applicant, the problem will be examined by the Execution Department and if need be, brought to the attention of the Committee of Ministers.

8. Closure of cases

The Secretariat prepares draft resolutions and submits them for adoption by the Committee of Ministers at each Human Rights meeting. The resolutions include a link to the adopted action reports. They are adopted without debate in principle.

9. Simplified documentation for the DH meetings

9.1 As all pending cases under consideration are being considered as included in the agenda of each meeting, no agenda is prepared for Human Rights meetings. The status of pending cases appears in the database on the Execution Department website.

9.2 Cases proposed for consideration at a given Human Rights meeting appear in the order of business of the meeting.

i. Preparation and content of the draft order of business

It includes a section on cases proposed for consideration under enhanced procedure with or without debate. Each case is accompanied by a list of reference documents, a brief description of the case, the state of execution, possibly more detailed notes.

For the cases proposed without debate, a draft decision is in principle prepared.

For those proposed with debate, the Secretariat is instructed to prepare as a rule preliminary draft decisions for all the cases under Article 34 of the Convention, appearing on the order of business, to be circulated with the revised draft order of business, unless the State or States under examination object(s). In case of an objection, the Secretariat will prepare points for consideration to guide the debate²⁷.

The draft order of business also includes a number of draft decisions on the management of the cases such as the classification of new judgments and new decisions of the Court, the supervision of the payment of just satisfaction, the transmission of action plans and the adoption of resolutions closing the examination of certain cases²⁸. All these draft decisions are in principle taken without debate.

Two documents are appended to the order of business:
Appendix 1 list of all the cases for which an action plan / action report has been received since the last meeting
Appendix 2 List of cases paid

A preliminary draft order of business is distributed one month before the meeting, under the responsibility of the Chair²⁹. Delegations have 10 calendar days before the date of the meeting to submit comments or proposed amendments to the draft order of business³⁰. After the expiry of this time-limit, a revised draft order of business is distributed on the basis of the comments received.

The Deputies approve the order of business at the beginning of the meeting. In order to increase transparency, for each Human Rights meeting, a first indicative list of cases to be included in the draft order of business for the following meeting is prepared³¹.

ii. Annotated Agenda and decisions: the order of business is considered as an internal document, not subject to the declassification rules. On the other hand, its content, as well as the decisions adopted at the end of the meetings are compiled in a public document entitled Annotated Order of Business and decisions adopted.

10. Rules for the supervision of the execution of judgments

The Rules of the Committee of Ministers for the supervision of the execution of judgments and of the terms of friendly settlements have not been modified to take into account the new working methods. They were considered sufficiently flexible to be adaptable to the new working methods.

---

Note ¹ This document takes into account the following documents : CM/Inf(2010)28 and CM/Inf(2010)28 rev, CM/Inf/DH(2010)37, CM/Inf/DH(2010)45 final, CM/Inf/DH(2011)29, as well as the decisions adopted in this respect by the Committee of Ministers.

Note ² Principles set out in documents CM/Inf(2010)28 rev and CM/Inf/DH(2010)37.

Note ³ See paragraph 2 of the decision adopted at the 1092^nd meeting, CM/Inf(2010)28 rev §3.

Note ⁴ See CM/Inf(2010)28 rev §6 ; CM/Inf/DH(2010)37, §§6-7

Note ⁵ Item 4 of the decision adopted at the 1100th meeting.

Note ⁶ Cf §9.

Note ⁷ See CM/Inf/DH(2010)37, §8

Note ⁸ CM/Inf/DH(2010)45 final, §10.

Note ⁹ This mechanism was set up as early as 2009, see document CM/Inf/DH(2009)29 rev : Action Plans – Action Reports - Definitions and objectives ; document CM/Inf/DH(2010)37, Appendix I.

Note ¹⁰ Since the 1059th DH Meeting, the Deputies adopted this rule. See CM/Del/OJ/DH(2009)1059 General Questions PUBLIC.

Note ¹¹ CM/Inf/DH(2010)37, Appendix I, §§5-6

Note ¹² CM/Inf/DH(2010)37, Appendix I, §§7

Note ¹³ Item 5 of the afore-mentioned decision, adopted on the working methods at the 1100th meeting.

Note ¹⁴ CM/Inf/DH(2010)37, §§27-28 and CM/Inf/DH(2010)45 final §20.

Note ¹⁵ See above : controls and sanctions provided concerning action plans/reports.

Note ¹⁶ CM/Inf/DH(2010)37, §12 and CM/Inf/DH(2010)45 final, §§11-15

Note ¹⁷ CM/Inf/DH(2010)37, §§ 15-16

Note ¹⁸ CM/Inf/DH(2010)37, § 15

Note ¹⁹ Document CM/Inf/DH(2010)37, §§20-21, and document CM/Inf/DH(2010)45 final, §16.

Note ²⁰ For further details, see below under orders of business.

Note ²¹ Cf §9 below.

Note ²² See document CM/Inf/DH(2010)45 final, §17 for details on this co-operation.

Note ²³ Document CM/Inf/DH(2010)37, § 24.

Note ²⁴ Document CM/Inf/DH(2010)37, §§ 25-30 and Appendix II, §§14-15.

Note ²⁵ Document CM/Inf/DH(2010)37, Appendix II and document CM/Inf/DH(2010)45 final, §§21-25.

Note ²⁶ Document CM/Inf/DH(2010)37, Appendix II, §5 contains such a form.

Note ²⁷ Decision adopted at 1150th meeting (September 2012) (DH), Item a, i.

Note ²⁸ Document CM/Inf/DH(2010)37, §31.

Note ²⁹ Document CM/Inf/DH(2010)37 §31.

Note ³⁰ Document CM/Inf/DH(2011)29, § 4

Note ³¹ Decision item b. adopted at the 1128th meeting, December 2011.