Letter from Rt Hon Michael Wills MP, Minister
of State, Ministry of Justice, to the Chair of the Committee,
dated 21 May 2009
COMMITTEE OF
MINISTERS' 2008 ANNUAL
REPORT ON
SUPERVISION OF
THE EXECUTION
OF JUDGMENTS
OF THE
EUROPEAN COURT
OF HUMAN
RIGHTS
I write to draw your attention to the recent
publication by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe
of their Annual Report on Supervision of the Execution of Judgments
of the European Court of Human Rights. The report is designed
to provide a summary of progress in this area by the States in
their implementation work and the Committee in its supervision
of the process. A hard copy of the report will follow shortly,
when received from Strasbourg, but the text may also be accessed
online via the Council of Europe website.
The Government takes its duty to comply with
judgments of the ECtHR very seriously and is committed to remedying
breaches of human rights as quickly as possible. The report shows
that the UK has performed well in many of the areas examined.
In particular, the following statistics demonstrate this commitment:
— Of the cases the Committee of Ministers
agreed to close, 13% were UK cases (the second-highest percentage).
The UK was also responsible for the highest percentage of leading
cases that the Committee of Ministers agreed to close (13%).
— The UK accounts for only 2% of leading
cases still pending before the Committee of Ministers after two
years.
The UK Government remains committed to the European
Convention on Human Rights and to continuing to give effect to
the rights contained in the Convention at the national level in
line with its obligations under the Convention. We look forward
to continuing to work with the JCHR on this important aspect of
the Government's human rights work in the future.
21 May 2009
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