On Thursday 25 January 2024, the President of the ECtHR Síofra O’Leary held a press conference during which the results of the Court's activities and statistics for the year 2023 were presented.
President O'Leary began the conference by stating that in the year 2023, the ECtHR progressed considerably in processing pending Inter-State cases relating to the conflict in Ukraine. A hearing on the merits took place in the Inter-State case between Ukraine and Russia concerning Crimea, and preparations for another hearing on admissibility and merits in three Inter-State cases against Russia (concerning events in Eastern Ukraine from 2014 until 2022 and the downing of flight MH17) is scheduled to take place this year.
During the press conference President O'Leary spoke about some important events that happened in the past year. These include, among others, the adoption of the Reykjavik Declaration following the 4th Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Council of Europe in May 2023, the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 70th anniversary of the entry into force of the Convention.
The President then presented some statistics on the activities of the Court in 2023. Again, 2023 was a year in which the Court was extremely active: it issued a total of 1014 judgments. The number of pending applications has decreased significantly by the end of 2023 (68,450 compared to 74,650 by the end of 2022). All statistical information about the activities of the Court is included in the Court's latest annual report.
