The Functioning of the Pilot-Judgment Procedure of the European Court of Human Rights in Practice

Abstract

Since the Court adopted its first pilot judgment in 2004, another 24 such judgments and an even greater number of follow-up rulings to these judgments have ensued. This article analyses and comments on the functioning of the procedure which these judgments set in motion: the pilot judgment procedure (PJP). Insights are thereby provided into a procedure that is of great importance to (potential) applicants to the Court and to the European Convention on Human Rights system from both a practical and a principled perspective. Rule 61 on the PJP, which the Court inserted to its Rules in 2011, provides the framework for the analysis, which is divided into the three stages of the procedure: run-up, judgment and execution. Based on the observations in the article, recommendations are made as to how the Court could improve the PJP's functioning. One such recommendation is that the Court could perhaps make better use of the possibility to join application brought by different persons in the case selected from treatment under the PJP. This approach can help shed light on different aspects of the structural problem identified in the judgment and uncover its full scope.