Ukraine is a leader among appellants to the European Court
The title of Doctor Honoris Causa “has been instituted to honor the merits of statesmen and scholars who strive to enrich human spirituality, uphold social ideals and promote the integration of the Odesa National Law Academy into the world educational theater of operations.” The Odesa Academy awarded its first Doctor Honoris Causa diploma (the title has been awarded nine times in all) to President Leonid Kuchma. Among the honorary doctors is Alistair Alcock, deputy rector of the University of Buckingham; M. Baglai, justice of the Russian Constitutional Court; V. Maliarenko, chairman of the Supreme Court of Ukraine; D. Prytyka, chairman of the High Economic Court of Ukraine, and other prominent statesmen of Ukraine and foreign countries.
In his capacity as judge of the Third Section of the Chambers as well as of the Grand Chamber of the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights, Lucius Caflisch has considered and made a fair verdict in many human rights cases. Among them are such high-profile (at any rate, known to every knowledgeable jurist) cases as The Former King of Greece vs. the State of Greece, Sigurdsson vs. Iceland, and others of the kind.
Before becoming a European Court of Human Rights judge in 1998 (incidentally, he represents in this court not only his native Switzerland but also Liechtenstein), Lucius Caflisch had already made a distinguished career. From 1968 he taught international law and, from 1972, held a professorship at the Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva. Prof. Caflisch was director of this institute from 1984 to 1990. The Swiss jurist is an outstanding authority on international maritime law, which, incidentally, closely links him with the Odesa Academy, Ukraine’s only educational institution that has a department dealing with issues of maritime law. (Incidentally, Odesa Law Academy students have many of Dr. Caflisch’s works not only on this subject as required reading.) Some time ago he defended a higher doctoral dissertation in jurisprudence at Geneva University. And, finally, Justice Caflisch represents Switzerland as conciliator (judge) at the OSCE Court of Conciliation and Arbitration.
Yet, Justice Caflisch still views the European Court of Human Rights as his main job. It was primarily to this subject that the distinguished Swiss guest devoted his speeches at the Doctor Honoris Causa award ceremony and, a few days later, at the opening of the Judges of the Twenty-first Century all-Ukrainian workshop.
The guest thanked his Ukrainian hosts and Serhiy Kivalov personally for a very warm and cordial welcome. Then he apologized for addressing the audience in English, rather than in their native language, and promised to “correct this shortcoming” in the future. “I am greatly impressed by the passionate desire of your country’s citizens to be truly independent,” he emphasized.
According to Justice Caflisch, the ECHR is now composed of 41 judges, each representing a certain European country. The court accepts suits from practically any individual even if he/she is not citizen of the country against which the claim is being raised. The first step in the procedure of applying to the European Court is submission of an application letter, in response to which the court mails the claimant a standard application form. The latter is to be filled out and sent back to Strasbourg. To have your case registered, you must satisfy a number of mandatory requirements. The first is that your claims should be based on a concrete violation of a certain provision of the European Convention on Human Rights. Second, you must prove that you have done your utmost to solve the problem in your own country. Third, the complaint should be drawn up in very concrete and clear terms. Unfortunately, the speaker stressed, up to 80% of the suits filed to the European Court are unsubstantiated.
Justice Caflisch said that, since the countries of Eastern Europe obtained independence, the number of complaints to the European Court has drastically grown and continues to do so. For example, last year the number of suits filed rose 30% from the year before last. Currently, there are currently 34,000 cases still pending before the European Court (the court receives up to 900 letters and 250 phone calls about certain human rights abuses every day). Significantly, three-fourths of all suits come from only eight countries, the top four being Turkey, Russia, Poland, and Ukraine. The greatest number of our compatriots’ claims arise from unlawful detention by law enforcement bodies, unduly long (in some cases up to five years) judicial procedures, as well as property disputes.
This tendency illustrates the quality of the Ukrainian judicial system rather than the human rights situation. Improved performance of the judiciary in Ukraine topped the agenda of the Judges in the Twenty-first Century workshop, which was timed to coincide the first anniversary of the Ukrainian presidential decree on establishing the Professional Judge-Training Institute at the Odesa National Law Academy. The establishment of this institute is a very important measure aimed at substantially improving the standards for training Ukrainian judges, High Council of Justice President Serhiy Kivalov stressed in his speech. At present, about 2000 judicial vacancies still remain unfilled in Ukraine. This does mean, though, that these vacancies can be filled by just anybody, he said. The prospective judges must meet very stringent requirements, including some from the High Council of Justice’s board of qualifications. A good illustration of this is the fact that the latter rejects about a third of judicial candidates because they lack the competence to hold this office.
