Timeline for submitting communications under Rule 9 on cases on the agenda of the CMDH meetings

All communications received from NHRIs and CSOs are sent immediately by the Council of Europe Secretariat to the state concerned.

If the state responds within five working days, both the communication and the response are brought to the attention of the CM and made public.

If there is no response within these five days, the communication is transmitted to the CM but is not made public. It is only made public ten working days after it was sent to the state, together with any response received within this time limit.

A state response received after these ten working days is circulated and published separately upon receipt.

NHRIs and CSOs may submit communications to the CM on any case at any time during the execution process, regardless of whether the respondent state has submitted an action plan or action report.

Any communication relating to a case due to be examined at a specific CMDH meeting should be sent as soon as possible after the consolidated indicative list of cases of the CMDH meeting is made public.

Under the CM’s rules of procedure, the respondent state is required to submit an action plan or action report at the latest six months after the date on which the Court’s judgment becomes final. The national reflection procedure should, therefore, start shortly after the judgment becomes final. The views of NHRIs and CSOs may sometimes be useful at an early stage.

All action plans and action reports submitted by respondent states are immediately posted on the CM website (“Documents” – “Latest DH docs”) and available on HUDOC-EXEC, except in the very rare cases where a request for confidentiality is made by the state concerned.

After a CMDH meeting, the order of business of the meeting, with the relevant decisions and other documents, are published on the Execution Department’s webpage on CMDH meetings.  

NHRIs and CSOs can check the indicative annual work programme for examination of cases which is published after the December CMDH meeting every year and updated after every CMDH meeting. They can also check the the preliminary draft list of cases proposed for detailed examination for the next CMDH meeting on the home page of the Execution’s Department website. This list is available online after each CMDH meeting, together with the list of cases listed for detailed examination at future HR meetings by decisions of the Committee.