Ukraine has been a party to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms since 11 September 1997. Since then, the Committee of Ministers has received 1,549 Court decisions against Ukraine.
Ganna Yudkivska has been a judge of the European Court of Human Rights in respect of Ukraine since 15 June 2010. From 1996 to 2008 Ukraine was represented in the Court by Volodymyr Butkevych.
In 2019 3991 applications were filed with the Court against Ukraine.
During 2019 the Court considered 2,414 applications, declared inadmissible - 2,227, delivered 109 decisions on 187 applications, in which found at least one violation of the Convention.
Despite the large number of applications against Ukraine to the Court, most are similar in nature and address a number of structural issues that lead to Ukraine's violation of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, including:
- non-enforcement or prolonged enforcement of national court decisions;
- excessive length of pre-trial investigation in criminal cases and consideration by the courts of civil, criminal, commercial and administrative cases;
- failure to ensure the right to adequate judicial protection, ineffective investigation of criminal cases by law-enforcement agencies on complaints of misconduct by representatives of public bodies;
- violation of property rights;
- inadequate conditions of detention and treatment of detainees.
The Government Agent to the European Court of Human Rights, which operates within the Ministry of Justice, represents Ukraine in the Court during the consideration of cases. This official also ensures implementation of the decisions of the Court against our state.
As of the end of 2019, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe has decided to terminate the supervision over the execution of 970 cases against our state and continued to monitor the implementation by Ukraine of 579 decisions of the Court.
Detailed information on the current state of implementation of ECtHR decisions by Ukraine is available on the website of the Department for the Execution of Judgements of the ECtHR of the Secretariat of the Council of Europe.
Interstate applications of Ukraine against Russia
The Court is currently considering five interstate aplications of Ukraine against Russia:
- “Ukraine v. Russia” (Crimea) (application 20958/14) and “Ukraine v. Russia” (Eastern Ukraine) (№ 8019/16);
- Ukraine v. Russia (II) (application no. 43800/14), filed on 13 June 2014, concerning the abduction of three groups of children in Eastern Ukraine and their temporary transfer to Russia from June to August 2014. The case is pending before the Chamber;
- Application against Russia, submitted by the Government of Ukraine to the Court on 11 September 2018 (“Ukraine v. Russia (VII)”, application № 38334/18) concerning Ukrainian citizens imprisoned in Crimea and Russia for political reasons;
- the last applications lodges by the Government of Ukraine on 29 November 2018 (“Ukraine v. Russia (VIII)”, application № 55855/18), which refers to the events in the Sea of Azov and the capture of three Ukrainian naval vessels and their crews.
In addition to the interstate applications, the Court receives a significant number of individual applications concerning the events in Crimea and Donbas. On 17 December 2018 the Court published the information about the decision on the plan for consideration of such individual applications. As the key issue in these applications is to determine the jurisdiction of Ukraine or Russia in relation to the matters complained of, the Court expects to rule on this issue in the related inter-State case of Ukraine v. Russia (re Eastern Ukraine) (application no. 8019/16).
The Court has decided that any related individual applications which are not declared inadmissible or struck out at the outset will be communicated to the appropriate respondent Government or Governments for observations in parallel with the inter-State case. After receiving the Governments’ and applicants’ observations in reply, the Court intends to record an adjournment for each case, pending a judgment in the inter-State case, with a view to having the files complete and ready for decision or judgment as soon as possible thereafter.
Up-to-date information on the status of these cases is available on the Court's website, as well as on the Ministry of Justice's special website.