UK scores fewest human rights cases per head of population
The United Kingdom again had the smallest number, per head of population, of cases put before judges at the European Court of Human Rights, newly published figures for 2019 reveal.
According to the court's annual statistical analysis, the UK saw 0.05 applications per 10,000 of population "remitted to a judicial formation", the same as in 2018. The next best countries on this scale were Germany at 0.07, Ireland at 0.08, and France and Denmark at 0.10.
A total of 111 applications against the UK were received in 2019, and 12 judgments were delivered.
The report also records that the court's total caseload increased during the year, with allocated applications pending before the court increasing from 56,350 to 59,800. A total of 38,480 applications were declared inadmissible or struck out, a friendly settlement achieved in 1,688, unilateral declarations made in 1,511, and 880 judgments were delivered covering 2,187 applications.
Four countries accounted for more than two thirds of pending applications before the court: Russia at 25.2%, Turkey at 15.5%, Ukraine at 14.8% and Romania at 13.2%. The next highest was Italy at 5.1%, followed by five countries each with around 2-3%, and the remaining 37 states attracted the other 13.2% between them.
In summary the court reports: "2019 has continued to see an influx of priority applications. The challenge of reducing the backlog of non-repetitive chamber cases/priority cases remains. In this context the court and its registry continue to test and implement new working methods and procedures intended to streamline processing of this part of its caseload. In particular after 60 years of court judgments, there is well established case law in many fields and as a consequence more applications can and will be adjudicated by committees."