The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) received 642 applications filed against Moldova in 2022. Compared to the country’s population, this number is very high, with Moldova ranking 4th out of 46 Council of Europe member states, with Moldovans applying to the ECtHR 5 times more often than the European average. The findings are contained in an analytical paper by the Moldovan Legal Resources Centre (CRJM), published on 27 January 2023.

“9 out of 10 applications filed are likely to succeed”. What are the most common violations

“In judgments delivered in 2022, the ECtHR found 48 violations of the European Convention on Human Rights admitted by our country. Most of them concern ill-treatment, faulty investigation of ill-treatment and violation of the right to a fair trial,” said Daniel Goinic, Director of the Human Rights Programme at the CRJM, one of the authors of the research.

From the ratification of the ECHR in 1997 until 31 December 2022, the ECtHR has delivered 575 judgments in Moldovan cases. In 492 (86%) of them, at least one human rights violation was found. In this respect, Moldova is far ahead of the UK, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands, which ratified the ECHR long ago and have a much larger population, notes the ECtHR.

By 31 December 2022, Moldova has been ordered by the ECtHR to pay €22 448 198, of which €544 448 in 2022.

“Most of the human rights violations were due to the misconduct of state representatives, in particular the poor quality of work of judges and prosecutors, and not to legislative shortcomings,” said Vladislav Gribincea, director of the Justice Programme at the ICJR.

As of 31 December 2022, 1,020 Moldovan applications were waiting to be examined and about 97% of them have a good chance of being successful, according to the authors of the research. This number is almost equal to the total number of applications on which Moldova has been convicted in the 25 years that people have been able to complain to the ECtHR against Moldova. In terms of the total number of pending applications, Moldova ranks 12th out of 46 Council of Europe member states.

In 2022, the ECtHR handed down a total of 1,163 judgments, with the most judgments against Russia – 384, Ukraine – 144 and Romania – 81. The ECtHR did not deliver any judgments against Sweden, the Netherlands or Ireland.