CEDH · PRESS;GENERAL;ENG — 18 septembre 2008

.s800EAC49 { font-size:12pt } .sFE10DC93 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:center } .s29100277 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold } .s40F41F73 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:right } .sA1D3DA2E { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:justify } .sBB9EE52A { font-family:Arial } .s30870011 { font-family:Arial; font-size:8pt; font-weight:bold; vertical-align:super } .s83BE5C30 { font-family:Arial; font-size:8pt; vertical-align:super } .s4DDA3AA3 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; font-style:italic } .s7ED160F0 { text-decoration:none } .s3DC36BA9 { font-family:Arial; text-decoration:underline; color:#0069d6 } .sA36B60A1 { font-family:Arial; font-style:italic } .s32563E28 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt } .sC7EAD8B { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; text-decoration:underline } EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS   638 18.9.2008 Press release issued by the Registrar   European Court of Human Rights delivers its 10   000 th judgment   The European Court of Human Rights has today delivered its 10   000 th judgment, Takhayeva and Others v. Russia (no. 23286/04). The Court found violations of Articles   2 (right to life), 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment), 5 (right to liberty and security) and 13 (right to an effective remedy) of the European Convention on Human Rights concerning the applicants’ complaint that their relative disappeared after being abducted from their village in Chechnya by Russian servicemen (see today’s grouped press release, no. 637).   Set up in 1959, the Court delivered its first judgment in 1960, Lawless v. Ireland . By the time Protocol No. 11 entered into force on 1 November 1998 establishing a full-time Court and opening up direct access to the Court for 800 million Europeans, the Court had delivered 837   judgments. Seven years on at the end of 2005 the Court had delivered 5,968   judgments. Today, some three years and another 4,000   judgments later, the Court has delivered its 10   000 th judgment.   Commenting today in Strasbourg, Jean-Paul Costa, the President of the European Court of Human Rights, said: “These statistics testify to what has been achieved by the Court since the restructuring of the Convention machinery in 1998. They show that the right of individual application is today both an essential part of the Convention system and a basic feature of European legal culture. This achievement has to be considered, however, against the backdrop of the mass of applications the Court is now faced with and the need to ensure its continuing effectiveness. To reduce the Court’s workload, Governments, legislators and the judiciary in all the member States of the Council of Europe need to work together at national level to secure the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Convention and its Protocols. It is for the States to offer this protection themselves, as an essential condition for the rule of law, whether it be the right to life or the prohibition against torture or the right to liberty and security and to an effective remedy, or again the right to a fair trial or the freedom of expression. Only when such protection is a reality at national level will it be possible to prevent such grave violations as were found in the Court’s 10   000 th judgment delivered today.”   The Court currently has 94,650   applications pending before it requiring a judicial decision. In 2007, in addition to delivering 1,503   judgments the Court declared over 27,000   applications inadmissible.     ***   Further information about the Court can be found on its Internet site ( http://www.echr.coe.int ).   Press contacts Adrien Raif-Meyer (telephone: 00 33 (0)3 88 41 33 37) Tracey Turner-Tretz (telephone: 00 33 (0)3 88 41 35 30) Sania Ivedi (telephone: 00 33 (0)3 90 21 59 45)   The European Court of Human Rights was set up in Strasbourg by the Council of Europe Member States in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights.