Project for the establishment of a National Coordination Mechanism for the effective implementation of the judgements of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), concrete measures for the implementation of the judgements of the Court requiring effective protection of the rights of vulnerable groups, support to law faculties in the teaching of "Human Rights".
These are some of the results achieved by the team of the Directorate of Legal Representation of the Republic of Bulgaria before the European Court of Human Rights at the Ministry of Justice. The activities have been implemented with the financial support of the Norwegian Financial Mechanism under the project "Strengthening National Capacity for Effective Implementation of ECtHR Judgements".
During the final conference of the project, the Minister of Justice Maria Pavlova said that the Ministry of Justice continues to work hard and purposefully to promote the rule of law, the protection of human rights and equal access to justice, despite the dynamic political environment in recent years, associated with changes in the leadership of the institution.
She noted that the project is specific in that it has drafted a solution to address the negative ranking that puts our country at the top of pending cases before the ECtHR in an enhanced enforcement procedure.
"Bulgaria is at the top of the negative statistics in the number of outstanding judgements and this trend is deepening. This is evidenced by the latest report for 2023 of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, which was published a few days ago. Our country is in fourth position, after Turkey, Romania and Ukraine, in the number of cases in the enhanced procedure," the justice minister stressed.
The statistics are very worrying because the ECtHR's condemnatory judgements set a minimum standard for the protection of fundamental rights, and the failure to ensure it in national legislation puts in serious doubt the effective protection of the rights of Bulgarian citizens. At the same time, the institutions' inaction is causing serious reputational damage to our country.
The project leader Milena Kotseva and her team presented in detail the results, which include training of experts, provision of textbooks and other materials on human rights, translation of judgements against Bulgaria and key judgements against other countries.