ECtHR Reforms: Protocols, Digitalisation, and Future

Summary: The European Court of Human Rights is a victim of its own success. With 46 member states and 800 million potential applicants, it faces a chronic Backlo...

The European Court of Human Rights is a victim of its own success. With 46 member states and 800 million potential applicants, it faces a chronic Backlog Crisis (tens of thousands of pending cases). To survive, the Court is undergoing massive reforms.

Protocol 15: The “Subsidiarity” Era (2021)

This protocol added a crucial reference to the doctrine of “Subsidiarity” and “Margin of Appreciation” into the Preamble of the Convention.

Meaning: The Strasbourg Court is secondary. The national courts are the primary protectors of rights. The ECtHR will defer more to national judges unless there is a clear error.
Practical Effect: It’s getting harder to overturn a reasoned national decision.

Protocol 16: Advisory Opinions (2018)

This allows supreme courts (like Constitutional Court or Yargıtay) to ask the ECtHR for advice on a pending case.

“Hey Strasbourg, we have this case X, how should we interpret Article 8 here?”
It aims to prevent violations before they happen. (Turkey ratified this).

Digitalisation: The eComms Platform

The era of shipping tons of paper to France is ending.

eComms: Once a case is communicated to the Government, all subsequent correspondence happens on a secure digital platform.
Future: The goal is a fully digital application process (likely coming soon).

The Interlaken Process

A series of high-level conferences (Interlaken, Izmir, Brighton, Copenhagen) dedicated to ensuring the long-term effectiveness of the convention system. The focus is on executing judgments faster and filtering out weak cases more aggressively.

Conclusion

The ECtHR is shifting from a “Court of First Instance for Human Rights” to a “Constitutional Court of Europe.” It focuses less on small individual errors and more on systemic issues. Applicants must adapt their strategy to this reality.

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