CEDH · PRESS;GENERAL;ENG — 27 janvier 2004

.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 } .s32563E28 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt } .sBB9EE52A { font-family:Arial } .sCB9E0544 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:left } .sADADF4A7 { font-family:Arial; text-decoration:underline } .s9F8EB0C0 { width:18.63pt; display:inline-block } .s9E97F54A { width:85.05pt; display:inline-block } .s4DDA3AA3 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; font-style:italic } .sA36B60A1 { font-family:Arial; font-style:italic } EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS   040 27.1.2004 embargoed until: 12 noon   Press release issued by the Registrar   Critical year ahead for European Court of Human Rights   The European Court of Human Rights is facing “a critical year”, the Court’s President Luzius Wildhaber said today, with a new draft protocol to reform the Court’s structures and procedures due to be ready for discussion in May 2004.   Speaking at the Court’s annual press conference in Strasbourg, the President told journalists: “2004 will be a critical year for the European Court of Human Rights in terms of the next reform of the European Convention on Human Rights. As we have been saying for some time, the Court is struggling to cope with the ever-growing volume of cases pending before it – currently some 65,800 applications.”   “Under the current arrangements the Court is required both to filter out manifestly inadmissible cases and adjudicate on the important cases raising new or serious issues under the Convention. It is increasingly difficult to carry out both these functions effectively. The new protocol must tackle this problem.”   In the five years following the creation of the new Court (1999-2003), the Court has delivered 3,308 judgments, compared to 389 in the five preceding years. Despite this increase in productivity, the backlog of cases has continued to grow. There were 38,000 new applications in 2003, more than twice as many as the number of cases terminated over the year (17,950).   ***   Further information about the Court can be found on its Internet site ( http://www.echr.coe.int ).   Registry of the European Court of Human Rights F – 67075 Strasbourg Cedex Press contacts:   Roderick Liddell (telephone: +00 33 (0)3 88 41 24 92)   Emma Hellyer (telephone: +00 33 (0)3 90 21 42 15)   Stéphanie Klein (telephone: +00 33 (0)3 88 41 21 54) Fax: +00 33 (0)3 88 41 27 91   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. Since 1 November 1998 it has sat as a full-time Court composed of an equal number of judges to that of the States party to the Convention. The Court examines the admissibility and merits of applications submitted to it. It sits in Chambers of 7 judges or, in exceptional cases, as a Grand Chamber of 17 judges. The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe supervises the execution of the Court’s judgments.