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The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights has given its ruling on the first request made by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe under the infringement procedure introduced in 2010 into the European Convention on Human Rights by Article 46 § 4.
The request had concerned the Court’s judgment in Ilgar Mammadov v. Azerbaijan ((application no. 15172/13), in which it had found violations of Article 5 § 1 (right to liberty and security), Article 5 § 4 (right to judicial review of detention), Article 6 § 2 (presumption of innocence) and of Article 18 (limitation on use of restrictions on rights) in conjunction with Article 5 of the Convention, following the arrest and remand in custody in 2013 of Mr Mammadov, a prospective presidential candidate.
The Committee of Ministers, which is responsible for supervising the execution of the Court’s judgments, had made the request after Azerbaijan had failed to adopt to adopt individual measures to put an end to the violations that had been established and to erase their consequences, in particular, the immediate and unconditional release of Mr Mammadov.
The Court found that the Government had taken only limited steps to implement its judgment, which had not amounted to Azerbaijan acting in “good faith” or in a manner which was in accordance with the “conclusions and spirit” of its ruling in Mr Mammadov’s case. It thus concluded that Azerbaijan had failed to fulfil its obligation under Article 46 § 1 of the Convention to abide by the Court’s judgment. In accordance with Article 46 § 5 of the Convention, cases in which the Court finds a violation of Article 46 § 1 are to be referred back to the Committee of Ministers for consideration of the measures to be taken.
Jeremy McBride, with Fuad Aghayev, represented Mr Mammadov in the proceedings before the Court.