Speaker A
Welcome to this live question and answer session with the President of the European Court of Human Rights, Matthias Guyomar, and the Registrar of the Court, Marialena Tsirli.
Q&A with ECHR President Guyomar and Registrar Tsirli on court relevance, gender equality, case lodging, and digital reforms.
Key Takeaways
- The ECHR continues to play a crucial role in protecting human rights in Europe.
- Efforts toward gender equality in the court are ongoing but show positive milestones.
- Efficiency and transparency are balanced in judicial procedures, especially in single judge decisions.
- Digital modernization of court procedures is underway with an online application form planned.
- Strict formal requirements ensure the court can effectively process and examine cases.
Summary
- The European Court of Human Rights remains relevant as a guardian of individual rights and European public order amid global challenges.
- The court protects universal human rights for all individuals regardless of their background or status.
- Gender equality is progressing slowly; the first female registrar was elected in 2020 and the court's first female president in 2023.
- Most court staff are women (72%), but the judicial bench remains male-dominated with 16 women and 29 men judges currently.
- Single judge decisions handle the majority of cases, balancing efficiency and transparency in reasoning provided to applicants.
- The court introduced single judge inadmissibility decisions in 2010 to manage backlog, with ongoing efforts to improve transparency.
- An online application form is in development, expected to launch in 2027, incorporating AI for translation and form accuracy.
- Formal application requirements under Rule 47 remain strict to ensure proper case examination, following reforms since 2010.
- The court operates within a framework of shared responsibility with 46 member states of the Council of Europe.
- The Q&A session was moderated bilingually in English and French, reflecting the court's multilingual engagement.
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
My name is Rachel Condac and I will be moderating this session which will last 45 minutes. We've been receiving your questions during the last week.
Speaker A
And it's still possible to send in more questions using the link on the form.
Speaker A
Questions are coming in in English and French and I will ask the questions in both languages. So let's begin, President Matthias Guyomar.
Speaker A
A first a general question and the first question it relates to the role of the European Court of Human Rights in a changing world.
Speaker A
Is the court still relevant today?
Speaker B
Many thanks for this question and first of all, I want just to say good morning to all.
Speaker B
Since its creation in 1949, the court has changed the daily life of people.
Speaker B
Through the right of individual petition and thanks to its mandatory judgment, the European Court of Human Rights plays an impactful role.
Speaker B
It is the judicial body of the Council of Europe, political project built in 1949 to restore all over Europe after the Second World War, peace and justice, democracy, the rule of law and human rights.
Speaker B
But the world is changing and we are faced with turbulent times and the values that underpin the convention system and even the rule of law are called into question.
Speaker B
It's important to keep it in mind, but let me say that the court stands and within the framework of shared responsibility with all the national authorities of the 46 member states of the Council of Europe.
Speaker B
We stand through its judgment, the court both provide an effective protection to individual rights and defies some standards at the open level for the definition of the European public order as a constitutional court for human rights at the European scale.
Speaker A
President, you mentioned individual rights and we've received a question related to a criticism that the court just protects those who break the law and not those who abide by the law.
Speaker A
What do you say to that?
Speaker B
I often heard something like human rights are not for wrong people. This is fully a nonsense and I want to reverse that narrative.
Speaker B
Since its creation, the court has decided more than 1,100,000 cases for everyone. The court is a court for all, all people.
Speaker B
Before the court, there are no foreigners, detainees, criminals, victims of domestic violence, there are only human beings and human rights are universal and the role of the court is to secure this universal rights for all human people.
Speaker A
Thank you. Now over to you registrar, another general question that we've received, it's related to gender equality as International Women's Day is approaching on the 8th of March.
Speaker A
Why has it taken so long to have a woman registrar and more broadly, would you say there is gender equality in the court?
Speaker C
Yes, thank you and good morning from me too.
Speaker C
Well, this is not unique to the court. I think it has taken many national and international jurisdictions a long time before they see women reach the most senior administrative or judicial positions.
Speaker C
So in that sense, yes, my election reflects the evolution of mentalities that took place in the recent year, the fact that stereotypes break down.
Speaker C
So you're right, the court was established in 1959 and I was elected the first female registrar in 2020, that's a long time, but on the other hand, the registry staff is composed of women predominantly.
Speaker C
We have 72% of our staff who are women, as for our judges, we have currently 16 judges and 29 men, we have 45 judges now, one post is vacant, but one should not forget that in 2023, the court elected its first woman president, Judge Sifra O'Leary.
Speaker C
So, we're getting there.
Speaker C
Slowly but surely.
Speaker A
Thank you.
Speaker A
We are receiving a quite a lot of questions about the modalities of lodging a case before the court, so I'm going to select three, the first one concerns a so-called lack of detailed reasons which are given in single judge decisions.
Speaker A
What do you say to applicants who wish for more detailed reasoning?
Speaker B
There are several judicial bodies within the court and the competent judicial formation to for examining manifestly inadmissible applications is single judge.
Speaker B
A single judge, and let me say that out of around 38,000 cases decided by the court last year in 2025.
Speaker B
Around 27,500 cases were decided by a single judge.
Speaker B
It shows how important is this proceeding for the court.
Speaker B
The national judge, I mean the judge elected in respect of her country is never the single judge as regards the respondent state. Previously, I used to be the single judge for Ukraine.
Speaker B
And let me share with you my own experience.
Speaker B
The decision taken by a single judge, which is the rejection of an application as inadmissible, is based on a huge, huge work prepared by registry member staff and this is for the judge to check, to decide whether or not he or she follows the proposal.
Speaker B
And it's always possible for the single judge to refer the case to a collegial body.
Speaker B
If not, the decision is taken and a letter is sent to the applicant. This proceeding was introduced in 2010.
Speaker B
At a time when the backlog pending before the court was huge, so huge that for reasons of efficiency, it was needed to find a new way to address this category of cases.
Speaker B
But in 2015, the member states invited the court to provide more reasons and this is needed for transparency.
Speaker B
And we have to strike a fair balance between two different necessities, efficiency on the one hand, transparency on the other hand.
Speaker B
Let me say that the letter sent to the applicants provide some reasons.
Speaker B
Standardized reasons, global formula, no no more is needed, but in some cases, reference to the existing case law and more detailed reasons are given to the applicants.
Speaker B
It's important to imagine that if we do more at that level of manifestly inadmissible cases, could you imagine how demanding it would be for the court as regards judicial resources, which has to be allocated to cases which deserve time, adversarial proceeding and more detailed reasoning.
Speaker B
So, it's somehow a kind of compromise between these two needs, efficiency and transparency.
Speaker B
We work a lot.
Speaker B
But I want just once again to testify that nothing has is decided by the court without a huge commitment of all those who work at the court, registry and judges.
Speaker A
Thank you very much.
Speaker A
The second in this series of questions relates to the application form, registrar.
Speaker A
We've had a question asking, is the court moving to an electronic registration form?
Speaker C
Yes, thank you.
Speaker C
This is a top priority for us, develop an online application form.
Speaker C
We had this project before the pandemic, but we had to put it aside because we had to deal with other urgent matters to allow the court to work remotely.
Speaker C
Now we have resumed our work on that project and we are currently developing a prototype, which we will test internally at the court at the second half of this year.
Speaker C
And then we will call for bar associations and NGOs to make a full-scale external test. We plan to launch the first version of the online application form in 2027.
Speaker C
The first version will resemble the paper version, so to allow the applicants and their lawyers to have a smooth transition from paper to electronics and then we will see how we move forward.
Speaker C
We will introduce also some artificial intelligence elements that will enable the court to translate documents, transliterate names and also the applicants to make sure that they have accurately completed the online application form.
Speaker A
Thank you.
Speaker A
This leads me to a third question in the series, which is related to the formal requirements under Rule 47 and one question asks, will these still remain as strict?
Speaker C
Well, these requirements are there to enable the court to properly examine applications submitted before it.
Speaker C
The court was advised to do so when the reform process started back in 2010.
Speaker C
With the Interlaken reform process, we were told that we need to be a little bit more strict with the criteria and the requirements we have in order for the court to be able to thoroughly and well examine all complaints brought before it.
Speaker C
As I said just before, with the online application form, we will use artificial intelligence, which will also enable the applicants to properly tick all the good boxes, so they will not be able to submit the application form if all the requirements under Rule 47 are not properly met.
Speaker C
So that's already a good point for the for the applicants, but even now, when some requirements under Rule 47 are not met, we give the possibility to applicants or the lawyers to correct that omission and submit what's missing from the file within a short deadline.
Speaker C
So the only thing applicants and lawyers must really pay attention to is not to wait until the last moment to submit their application form because by the time they will be given to correct the omission, probably the fourth month time limit will have expired.
Speaker A
Thank you very much.
Speaker A
Je tourne maintenant au président Guyomar, on a reçu une question en français qui concerne la politique judiciaire.
Speaker A
Président Guyomar, comment conciliez-vous dans votre rôle de président la défense de l'indépendance judiciaire avec une pédagogie active auprès des opinions publiques et des responsables politiques?
Speaker B
Merci pour cette question, ça me permet de rappeler qu'il y a deux langues officielles à la cour, l'anglais et le français et que c'est une richesse de travailler dans dans les deux langues.
Speaker B
L'indépendance judiciaire dont vous parlez, c'est le principe cardinal de l'état de droit et comme président de la cour, je serai l'infatigable garant de cette indépendance.
Speaker B
Mais l'indépendance judiciaire ne serait suffirait à elle seule, elle doit avoir contrepartie une légitimité toujours réaffirmée de la juridiction.
Speaker B
Et j'ai fixé comme priorité lors ce que j'ai pris des fonctions de président en mai dernier pour mon mandat, les trois axes suivants qui sont autant de fondements pour la légitimité de la cour, efficacité, visibilité et responsabilité.
Speaker B
L'efficacité, nous venons d'en parler à plusieurs titres, c'est la bonne administration de la justice, nous avons fait beaucoup de réformes, nous allons encore en faire pour progresser, mais je veux dire que l'année dernière, à la fin de l'année dernière, comme notre rapport annuel l'a marqué, nous avons atteint le stock historiquement le plus bas depuis 20 ans.
Speaker B
53000 affaires pendantes là où il y a environ 15 ans, il y en avait 160000.
Speaker B
Mais l'efficacité ne sert pas si elle ne s'accompagne pas d'une visibilité, il faut bien juger, qualité des jugements, juger dans un délai raisonnable, juger avec une bonne politique de priorisation.
Speaker B
Mais il faut donner à voir ce que nous faisons et c'est un élément très important de visibilité.
Speaker B
Pour cela, nous devons réussir à parler en même temps à plusieurs cercles de d'interlocuteurs différents, ce que nous faisons aujourd'hui avec ce chat live, c'est que nous essayons de toucher le grand public et je remercie toutes celles et ceux qui nous écoutent ou qui nous posent des questions parce que cela fait partie du rôle aujourd'hui de toutes les juridictions de se donner à voir et se donner à connaître pour être mieux compris.
Speaker B
Alors cela évidemment un objectif, c'est d'obtenir l'adhésion des gens au système de l'état de droit et au rôle que la Cour européenne en particulier joue.
Speaker B
Sans l'adhésion des gens dans une société démocratique, le système ne tiendra pas.
Speaker B
Et c'est en cela aussi que nous rendons des comptes d'une certaine manière, c'est la responsabilité dont je parlais, accountability, on dirait en anglais, redevabilité en français.
Speaker B
Les juridictions doivent expliquer très clairement ce qu'elles font, quelle est leur politique judiciaire, quel est le rôle, ce qu'elles ont fait du mandat qu'elles ont reçu.
Speaker B
Alors pour cela, je crois que au lieu d'opposer indépendance qui serait l'idée de rester à l'écart du monde et engagement dans le monde, il faut combiner les deux en restant strictement indépendant, protégeant l'intégrité juridictionnelle de la cour.
Speaker B
Nous avons tout à gagner à aller au contact des personnes et à les embarquer dans une aventure collective pour leur redonner l'appétit pour les droits humains.
Speaker A
Merci beaucoup.
Speaker A
Vous avez parlé de visibilité et effectivement, on a reçu une question concernant la politique de communication de la cour.
Speaker A
Madame la greffière, pourriez-vous nous expliquer les innovations que la cour a mené?
Speaker C
Oui, c'est une priorité pour nous la communication.
Speaker C
Comme le président vient d'expliquer, il faut être visible, il faut expliquer.
Speaker C
C'est ce qu'on fait, mais aussi c'est ce qu'on fait pas.
Speaker C
Parce que nous pensons que la confiance du public à la justice est liée à la transparence de la du processus judiciaire.
Speaker C
Donc d'abord, c'est pour nous de diffuser notre jurisprudence, de rendre accessible nos connaissances aux praticiens dans chaque État membre du Conseil de l'Europe.
Speaker C
Et pour cela, je dois saluer la la plateforme de connaissance, le knowledge sharing platform que on a externalisé en 2022 dans les deux langues officielles du Conseil de l'Europe, l'anglais et le français.
Speaker C
Et qui permet maintenant à chaque avocat, juge, praticien, étudiant de d'avoir une mine de connaissance et d'information les mêmes que nos juges et nos membres du greffe ont à l'air disposition quand ils font leur travail.
Speaker C
Qui plus est, cette plateforme de connaissance, on vient de la traduire en début de l'année dernière dans trois langues non officielles, l'ukrainien, le roumain et le turc.
Speaker C
Et nous voulons bien la traduire si nos finances le permettent dans d'autres langues non officielles et pour nous maintenant la priorité, c'est l'allemand parce que ça touche aussi un grand public.
Speaker C
Et ensuite, on a vraiment de innover, on fait par exemple maintenant des petites vidéos pour expliquer les affaires de grande chambre de d'une façon simple et compréhensible.
Speaker C
On fait des actions pédagogiques pour toucher les jeunes publics, comme le président vient de le dire, nous voulons toucher des gens qui sont en dehors de des cercles de nos interlocuteurs habituels.
Speaker C
Nous ouvrons aussi nos palais de justice.
Speaker C
En septembre dernier, dans le cadre des célébrations pour les 75e anniversaire de la convention, nous avons tenu des portes ouvertes qui ont eu un net succès.
Speaker C
On a accueilli plus de 4000 personnes de tous milieux dans nos dans notre bâtiment avec des actions pédagogiques.
Speaker C
Nous avons parlé des travaux préparatoires, nous avons expliqué le travail de la cour, le travail des juges, le travail du greffe.
Speaker C
Et nous continuons, nous avons aussi maintenant une présence accrue dans les réseaux sociaux.
Speaker C
Nous sommes maintenant sur LinkedIn.
Speaker C
La cour a son compte.
Speaker C
Le président a les siens.
Speaker C
J'ai les miens.
Speaker C
On essaie de toucher le plus grand nombre de de gens pour démystifier un peu ce qu'on fait.
Speaker A
Thank you very much.
Speaker B
Oui, si je peux juste ajouter quelque chose à ce que madame la la greffière vient vient de dire.
Speaker B
C'est très important de réussir et toutes les juridictions aujourd'hui sont confrontées au même défi à rester dans le champ judiciaire parce que nous nous ne pouvons pas sortir de ce rôle-là, c'est notre mission et nous devons rester intégralement dans le champ judiciaire.
Speaker B
Et euh sortir euh euh du palais, sortir de nos habitudes pour aller toucher les les gens par une communication qui soit pertinente, c'est-à-dire qui touche à l'objet de ce que nous faisons, mais qui touche au cœur des gens aussi.
Speaker B
Et je voudrais dire, c'est très important que tout le monde comprenne que nos jugements sont faits avec des raisonnements juridiques.
Speaker B
Avec une logique qui est la garantie de la bonne justice.
Speaker B
Mais nous devons aussi faire comprendre aux gens que la justice est humaine, faite par des personnes humaines pour des personnes humaines et que cette dimension du cœur est essentielle.
Speaker B
C'est ça qu'il faut réussir à faire partager.
Speaker A
Thank you very much.
Speaker A
I'd like to move on to another topic because we're receiving a lot of questions regarding the stock of Turkish cases.
Speaker A
And I'm sorry that we won't have time to answer, you won't have time to answer all of these questions.
Speaker A
But perhaps I could summarize to say that a lot of the questions we've received relate to the length of time that the court is taking to process these Turkish cases.
Speaker A
And I'd like to ask you, President Guyomar, is justice delayed, justice denied?
Speaker B
Yes, justice delayed is justice denied.
Speaker B
This is absolutely true and the court has to decide in reasonable time.
Speaker B
Within a reasonable time.
Speaker B
This is absolutely important.
Speaker B
We call it, we made some improvement as regard the length of proceeding.
Speaker B
And we will pursue our efforts to improve more.
Speaker B
But let me say something about the statistics.
Speaker B
Since 2016, the court has received approximately 130,000, 130,000 cases against Turkey alone.
Speaker B
And as regard our docket, out of the 53,000 pending cases.
Speaker B
Around 28,000 are against Turkey.
Speaker B
This is a huge challenge for the court to manage to decide all these cases at this consultative level.
Speaker B
Second point.
Speaker B
Political, social time frame are not the same as judicial time frame.
Speaker B
We have to decide cases in due time, but never in a hurry.
Speaker B
Justice requires a certain time.
Speaker B
Adversarial proceedings, full examination of the admissibility and the merits of each cases, deliberations, reasoning, delivery, it takes a lot of time.
Speaker B
And if the court wants to just play its role with the needed quality and full respect for both parties, it takes a certain time.
Speaker B
And let me say also that for urgent urgent matters, there is Rule 39 proceeding, which allows the court on the spot to indicate if needed to prevent an irreparable harm.
Speaker B
To indicate interim measure.
Speaker B
This is complementary.
Speaker B
As regards the Turkish cases, I would like just to add another thing.
Speaker B
The prioritization of the cases is the most appropriate answer to be given to this challenge.
Speaker B
And this is for the court to identify the impact cases which raise systemic issues as leading case or impact case to decide them.
Speaker B
And then it will be more it will be easier.
Speaker B
Just to decide massive or repetitive cases in line with these leading case.
Speaker B
And this is what is done.
Speaker B
Not only as regards Turkish cases, but notably to tackle with this so important docket of of cases versus Turkey.
Speaker A
And if I may.
Speaker A
Just to follow up from this, we've received another question about a possible influx of applications from Turkey concerning dismissal of civil servants, members of the judiciary, military officials and other officials.
Speaker A
People are asking, what special measures has the court put in place to deal with these?
Speaker B
Indeed, the court is currently confronted with a significant influx of cases coming from Turkey.
Speaker B
And since mid-October last October 2025, the European Court has received more than 7,000 cases concerning the dismissal of civil servants in Turkey.
Speaker B
Or military officials or numbers of the judiciary.
Speaker B
And the court and the registrar, I want just to express my my sincere gratitude for the commitment of the more than 700 member staff of the registry for the commitment to the court and the efficiency of the judiciary.
Speaker B
With the registry, it has been decided just to innovate just a bit.
Speaker B
To to to be capable of well addressing this unprecedented influx of cases.
Speaker B
Applications submitted to the court must be accompanied in in that matter by a cover page available at the court's site.
Speaker B
And this cover page is an essential and received document that will facilitate the identification, registration and pre-pending of applications.
Speaker B
It's important just to have a clear idea of what it means.
Speaker B
All fit in the cover page are filed in electronically and that what's completed, the cover page will be printed.
Speaker B
And a new QR code has been just put in place.
Speaker B
To facilitate both from the applicant side and both from the court side.
Speaker B
The registration and the adjudication of these massive flux of Turkish cases.
Speaker B
It's what I call efficiency.
Speaker B
And this is absolutely important just to remain agile to accommodate what occurs in the current situation.
Speaker B
And the court is is agile.
Speaker A
Thank you.
Speaker A
I'd like to move now to some cases that we're receiving about Russia.
Speaker A
Madam Registrar, can you explain how the court is dealing with the pending cases against Russia?
Speaker C
Yes, thank you.
Speaker C
Let me explain, Russian Federation was expelled from the Council of Europe in March 2022 and a few days later, the plenary court met to decide on the consequences of this cessation of membership of the Russian Federation from the Council of Europe and interpreting the convention, it decided the following.
Speaker C
It decided that Russia would continue to be a high contracting party to the convention until 16th September 2022 for six more months, that is to say.
Speaker C
It also decided that it would continue to deal with applications pending against the Russian Federation for alleged acts or omissions that may constitute violations of the convention.
Speaker C
That have occurred until that date, until the 16th September of 2022.
Speaker C
This is what we call residual jurisdiction.
Speaker C
So then we had to face to find a good balance between the realities.
Speaker C
At the time we had almost 17,000 individual cases pending against Russia and almost 6,000 conflict related cases.
Speaker C
So we had to find a balance between the figures we had and the the means we had to to deal with this with these cases.
Speaker C
We grouped the cases in three categories, the first were the cases that required full judgment, cases very important for the international accountability of of the Russian Federation under the convention system.
Speaker C
And there we gave full judgment and we have almost finished with these cases as well.
Speaker C
Then were the cases that were a little bit more repetitive, which we dealt with more expedited procedure.
Speaker C
And we have also finished these cases as well.
Speaker C
So what remains are the conflict related cases.
Speaker C
But I need to stress once again that currently the European Court of Human Rights, it's the only international jurisdictions that holds Russia accountable for the alleged violations under the convention system.
Speaker A
Could I just ask another question there that we've just received?
Speaker A
What is the point of the court processing these cases against Russia if Russia is not engaging with the court or the Council of Europe?
Speaker A
President.
Speaker B
Let me say again what you just, Madam Registrar, said, it is so important to keep in mind that for the time being, the court, the European Court of Human Rights is the only international jurisdiction before which in the international legal order, Russia is held responsible.
Speaker B
And this is accountability for Russia.
Speaker B
This is so important.
Speaker B
And the role played by the court within the Council of Europe is fully complementary with other bodies.
Speaker B
And I just want to mention the registry of damages.
Speaker B
There are complementary roles.
Speaker B
And it will be the same with some other structures or institutions which are planned, let me add something about one of the most important judgment decided by the court since its creation, I mean the interstate case delivered last July on the 9th of July 2025.
Speaker B
In Netherlands, the Netherlands and Ukraine versus Russia, which which concerns the conflict in Eastern Ukraine since 2014 and even since the beginning of military operation in February 2022.
Speaker B
And I want just to flag one specific question at stake in this case, which is the abductions of children, three groups of Ukrainian children from Ukraine to Russia.
Speaker B
But the the the case concerns also the downing of flight MH17.
Speaker B
That's why there were two interstate cases, Netherlands and and Ukraine versus Russia.
Speaker B
And this case, the court found many systemic violations of the convention and thus the court affirmed in the name of the European public order that the convention system cannot tolerate the erasure of a member state's legal identity under the pressure of force on individual freedoms, on political liberties.
Speaker B
By doing so.
Speaker B
The court did not simply apply the law.
Speaker B
The court documented the fact and provided history with a record bearing a legal seal.
Speaker B
Indeed, these matters for the victims and for the principles of international law.
Speaker B
The court judgment is a historical record.
Speaker B
A bill of accountability.
Speaker B
Message to future generations.
Speaker B
This is important.
Speaker B
And by doing so, the court shows how important is the convention system.
Speaker B
For all people, all member states, notably in turbulent times.
Speaker B
When the war is coming back.
Speaker A
Thank you very much.
Speaker A
It just reminds me, we've received a question in French and it relates to something that you've referred to.
Speaker A
Which is the convention is for all.
Topics:European Court of Human RightsMatthias GuyomarMarialena Tsirlihuman rightsgender equalitycase lodgingsingle judge decisionsdigital reformonline applicationCouncil of Europe
