Cyprus among the countries respecting ECHR payment deadlines

Cyprus is among the Council of Europe member states that respect payment deadlines vis-à-vis damages awarded by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), contrary to Russia, Ukraine and Turkey which top the 2018 list of those who missed the deadlines.
 
According to data contained in the 12th Annual Report of the Committee of Ministers regarding the supervision of ECHR judgments and decisions, Cyprus respected its payment deadlines in 2018 and 2017 and has no pending payments outside the deadline. Nicosia paid damages in one case in 2017 and one in 2018. Moreover, by the end of last year, the Committee of Ministers was awaiting confirmation of payments made in two cases. Cyprus awarded damages worth €45,800 in 2018.
 
At the same time, Moscow missed the payment deadline in 159 cases of human rights violations, and the same holds true for Kiev in 47 cases and for Ankara in 46 cases. The three countries combined amount for two thirds of the 389 cases with out-of-deadline payments in 2018.
 
The report, which was unveiled recently, also notes that the Committee of Ministers closed the supervision of a total of 2,705 cases in 2018, most of which involved Russia (385 cases), Turkey (372 cases) and Ukraine (318 cases).
 
With respect to Cyprus, the supervision of five cases was closed by the Committee of Ministers, nine cases were pending and six new cases were brought before the Committee for supervision. The total number of pending cases with respect to all 47 member states is 6,151, of which 1,248 were leading cases and 4,903 were repetitive cases. Russia had 1,585 pending cases, Turkey 1,237 and Ukraine 923.
 
“Judgments from the European Court of Human Rights have improved people’s lives in many different ways across the whole continent, but they mean little if they are not put into practice,” said Council of Europe Secretary General Thorbjørn Jagland, according to a Council of Europe press release.
 
Jagland also said that the report “clearly shows that we are moving in the right direction.” “Many complex and long-standing problems have now been resolved, but there is still much work to be done,” he concluded.