Length of proceedings in Italy

Doc. 8764

7 June 2000

Length of proceedings in Italy

Written Question No. 384

Reply from the Committee of Ministers

adopted at the 708^th meeting of the Ministers’ Deputies (3 May 2000)

I. Written Question No. 384 by Mr Clerfayt (Doc. 8682)

Taking into account the European Court of Human rights' case-law, according to which the accumulation of breaches found against Italy, as regards the excessive length of proceedings, constitutes a practice that is incompatible with the Convention;

Recalling that the Committee of Ministers, in its Resolution DH (97) 336 of 11 July 1997 considered that "excessive delays in the administration of justice constitute an important danger, in particular for the respect of the rule of law";

Observing that, more than two years after the adoption of the above-mentioned resolution, no concrete results appear to have been achieved by the Italian authorities, who are still in the process of envisaging further measures, as it appears from the Committee of Ministers' Resolutions adopted in July 1999 (DH (99) 436 and 437);

Noting the reply of the Chairman of the Committee of Ministers, Mr Andrews, to my oral question at the last part-session session of the Parliamentary Assembly, and in particular that the Committee finds that important problems remain to be solved;

Emphasising that, according to available information and contrary to the data presented in the 1999 Resolution, the ratio of cases settled by civil courts, compared to the number of new cases brought, is again negative, thus further increasing the backlog of pending cases and aggravating the problem of the excessive length of proceedings in Italy;

Mr Clerfayt,

To ask the Committee of Ministers,

What action it intends to take to ensure that the Italian authorities effectively respect Article 6 of the Convention by rapidly remedying the very serious structural inefficiency of their judiciary system.

II. Reply from the Committee of Ministers

The Committee of Ministers shares the concerns expressed by Mr. Clerfayt concerning the question of the length of proceedings in Italy. In fact, the Committee of Ministers, like the European Court of Human Rights, has already had occasion to note “that excessive delays in the administration of justice constitute an important danger, in particular for the respect of the rule of law” (see Resolution DH (97) 336).

It notes that the concerns expressed in Question No. 384 are also felt by the Italian authorities, including the highest national judicial bodies. Italy has thus already taken many measures since the beginning of the 1990s (for more detail see Resolutions DH (95) 82, DH (97) 336, DH (99) 436 and DH (99) 437) in order to fulfil their obligation to respect the judgments of the Court, in particular by preventing new violations of the Convention similar to those found.

The problem is nonetheless not solved yet: more than 1500 violations of Article 6 have been found since the first judgment which gave Strasbourg an indication of the existence of this problem. The trend in the number of new cases referred to Strasbourg has not changed. The Court considers that the accumulation of breaches of the requirement of “reasonable time” “constitutes a circumstance aggravating the violation of Article 6, paragraph 1” (see, for example, the judgment of 11 April 2000 in the Sanna case, paragraph 14).

This situation is overburdening the Court and affects the whole supervisory mechanism.

The Italian Government has undertaken taken several new and highly important structural reforms of a legislative character and is pursuing a process of co-operation and dialogue with the competent sectors of the Council of Europe Secretariat, in order to find rapidly a way out of this major problem of Italian justice. In this respect, it is appropriate to mention in particular that the Italian Judicial Service Commission (Consiglio superiore della magistratura) has issued a circular letter dated 15 September 1999 drawing the attention of all national judges to the problem. The Commission intends to visit the Council of Europe on 25 and 26 May 2000. In addition, bilateral meetings with the Ministry of Justice will take place in Rome on 12 and 13 July 2000 in the framework of the Council of Europe's ADACS programme (activities for the development and consolidation of democratic stability).

The Committee of Ministers, for its part, will keep all the Italian cases concerning the length of proceedings on the agenda of its Human Rights meetings pending the adoption and implementation of satisfactory measures. In so doing, the Committee of Ministers will take all appropriate measures. These could include periodic stocktakings leading to possible further interim Resolutions or other decisions indicating the progress in the effective implementation of measures to alleviate the burden of Italian courts and expedite proceedings.