Ukraine is among the countries with the most lawsuits lodged against it at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), judge Nikolay Gnatovsky, who represents Kiev at the court, has revealed.
The ECHR, also known as the Strasbourg Court, is the international court of the Council of Europe, which interprets the European Convention on Human Rights. The court hears lawsuits alleging that a state has breached one or more of the human rights listed in the convention or its optional protocols to which it is party. Ukraine joined the convention in 1997.
In an interview with the news agency Ukrinform on Thursday, Gnatovsky said there are currently 8,000 lawsuits pending at the ECHR against Ukraine.
“The complaints of Ukrainian citizens are quite typical; they relate to the same systemic problems that have not been solved for decades,” the judge stated.
Gnatovsky highlighted that there has been an increasing number of complaints about the conditions of detention and in penitentiary institutions, and also about the length of court proceedings, revocation of property rights, and obstacles to appeal.
Ukraine also has a problem with enforcing decisions by national courts, including those ordered by the ECHR, he said.
This raises a question about “the ability of the state to ensure the rule of law; without the implementation of final court decisions, it cannot exist,” Gnatovsky argued, as it “obviously threatens” fulfillment of the requirements for joining the EU.
“After all, it is quite clear that a candidate country for joining the EU must have a national legal system capable of functioning normally. And it cannot be recognized as such without solving the permanent problems of the execution of court decisions,” Gnatovsky concluded.
Vladimir Zelensky applied for immediate EU membership shortly after Russia launched its military operation in February 2022. Later that year, Ukraine was granted EU candidate status.
At the time, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo signaled that providing Ukraine with EU-candidate status was a “symbolic message” of support for Kiev in the conflict with Russia. Actual EU membership, however, is still “many years” away and Ukraine must first meet the bloc’s standards, he explained.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Moscow has never opposed Ukraine’s potential accession to the EU, as Russia does not see any military threat in economic cooperation between Kiev and international partners. However, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has suggested that Ukraine’s accession to the EU would undermine the bloc and could ultimately lead to its collapse.