003-4234795-5035179

issued by the Registrar of the Court   ECHR 027 (2013)   24.01.2013   President Spielmann highlights the Court’s very good results   in 2012   Speaking at the annual press conference of the European Court of Human Rights on   January 2013, President Spielmann looked back over 2012, which he described as an   exceptional year for the Court.   At the beginning of 2012 more than 150,000 applications had been pending before the   Court. By the end of the year, for the first time since the single full-time Court came into   operation in 1998, the stock of pending cases had been reduced, by some 16%. It now   stood at 128,000. This was a remarkable achievement, largely due to the adoption of   new working methods accompanying the optimum exploitation of the Single Judge   procedure introduced by Protocol No. 14. The overall number of applications disposed of   increased by 68%. This opened up the perspective of bringing the inflow and backlog of   inadmissible cases under control within two to three years.   Another very positive signal from 2012 was the report of the Council of Europe's External   Auditors, the French Cour des comptes, which endorsed the strategic choices made by   the Court.   Finally the High-level Conference held at Brighton provided an opportunity for the   member States of the Council of Europe to reaffirm their commitment to the human   rights protection system set up by the Convention and their recognition of the   importance of the Court's place in this system. Two new Protocols were now under   discussion in the Committee of Ministers and the reform process launched at the   Interlaken conference was being actively pursued. Once again Brighton stressed the   need for an effective implementation of Convention standards at national level and also   for full implementation of the Court's judgments.   The Court also issued its annual activity report and statistics for 2012 at the press   conference. The table of violations by country showed that the State with the highest   number of judgments finding at least one violation of the Convention delivered against it   had been Russia (122 judgments), followed by Turkey (117), Romania (70), Ukraine   (69), Bulgaria (58), Poland (56) and Greece (52). In addition, at 31 December 2012 the   majority of pending cases were against Russia (22.3%), Turkey (13.2%), Italy (11.1%)   and Ukraine (8.2%).   Webcast of the press conference.   This press release is a document produced by the Registry. It does not bind the Court.   Decisions, judgments and further information about the Court can be found on   www.echr.coe.int. To receive the Court’s press releases, please subscribe here:   www.echr.coe.int/RSS/en.   Press contacts   [email protected]e.int | tel: +33 3 90 21 42 08   Tracey Turner-Tretz (tel: + 33 3 88 41 35 30)   Céline Menu-Lange (tel: + 33 3 90 21 58 77)   Nina Salomon (tel: + 33 3 90 21 49 79)   Denis Lambert (tel: + 33 3 90 21 41 09)   The European Court of Human Rights was set up in Strasbourg by the Council of   Europe Member States in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European   Convention on Human Rights.   2