Enhanced Supervision by Committee of Ministers of Priority Cases

This week, the Committee of Ministers held its first meeting of 2011 to supervise the execution of judgments of the European Court. As part of the Interlaken reform process the Committee has introduced a new working method. In order to give the most intense attention to those instance where it is most needed, the Committee has initiated, according to recent information on its website, a two-track system:

"a “standard supervision” and an “enhanced supervision”. “Enhanced supervision” applies to cases meriting priority attention by the Committee of Ministers as a result of their nature or the types of questions raised :

· judgments requiring urgent individual measures;

· pilot judgments;

· judgments raising major structural and/or complex problems as identified by the Court or by the Committee of Ministers;

· interstate cases;

· other judgments which for special reasons require such supervision."

Just like the Court introduced a priority system last year, securing better attention for key cases, the changes in the Committee's working system now also result in specific priorities.

A full overview of all accompanying changes in the Committee's working methods, can be found in this information document of last December.

For more information, see the webpage of the Committee on the execution of judgments.