Interim Resolution ResDH(2000)135
Excessive length of judicial proceedings in Italy
General measures
(Adopted by the Committee of Ministers
on 25 October 2000
at the 727th meeting of the Ministers' Deputies)
The Committee of Ministers, under the terms of Article 46 § 2 (former Article 54) and of former Article 32 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (hereinafter referred to as “the Convention”),
Recalling that all the High Contracting Parties to the Convention have undertaken to abide by the Court's judgments and the Committee of Ministers' decisions and are thus required to take the necessary steps to conform herewith, notably by adopting general measures preventing new violations of the Convention similar to those already found;
Recalling that excessive delays in the administration of justice constitute an important danger, in particular for the respect of the rule of law;
Having regard to the great number of decisions by the Committee of Ministers and to the incessant flow of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (“the Court”) finding Italy in violation of Article 6 of the Convention on account of the excessive length of judicial proceedings before the civil, criminal and administrative courts;
Recalling that the question of Italy's adoption of general measures to prevent new violations of the Convention of this kind has been before the Committee of Ministers since the Court judgments, in the 1990s, highlighted the existence of serious structural problems in the functioning of the Italian judicial system;
Recalling the information provided by the Government of Italy on the general measures already adopted to accelerate judicial proceedings (see Resolutions DH (92) 26, DH (95) 82, DH (97) 336 and Interim Resolutions DH (99) 436 and DH (99) 437);
Recalling that in the two last Interim Resolutions the Committee decided to resume, in one year at the latest, the examination of the question as to whether the measures announced by the Italian Government would effectively prevent new violations of the Convention;
Having resumed this examination, and noting with satisfaction that recently the highest Italian authorities have manifested, both at the national level and before the organs of the Council of Europe, their solemn commitment to finding eventually an effective solution to the present situation and the progress made in the implementation of the major reform of the Italian judicial system, undertaken in order notably to find long-term remedies, to ensure special expediency in the treatment of the oldest and most deserving cases and to alleviate the burden of the Court;
Noting that the reforms include the following three different lines of action, namely:
- the deep structural modernisation of the judicial system for better long-term efficiency (notably through the introduction of Article 6 of the Convention into the Italian Constitution, the streamlining of the jurisdictions of the civil and administrative courts, the increased reliance on the single judge, the creation of the office of justices of the peace and also the subsequent extension of their competence to minor criminal offences, new simplified dispute settlements mechanisms, the modernisation of a number of procedural rules);
- special actions dealing with the oldest cases pending before the national civil courts or aiming at improvements which, while being of a structural nature, may already produce positive effects in the near future (in particular the creation of the sezioni stralcio, provisional court chambers composed of honorary judges, entrusted with the solution of civil cases pending since May 1995, an important increase of the number of judges and administrative personnel and two important resolutions by the Consiglio superiore della Magistratura, (the Supreme Council of the Magistrature) laying down a number of monitoring mechanisms and issuing special guidelines for judges in order to prevent further unreasonably long proceedings and to speed up those which have already been incriminated by the European Court of Human Rights);
- the reduction of the flow of applications to the Court and the speeding up of compensation procedures by means of the creation of a domestic remedy in cases of excessive length of procedures (the Private Member's Bill was approved on 28 September 2000 by the Senate, and is expected to be adopted in the near future);
Acknowledging that the measures of the first group, aiming at a structural reform of the whole Italian judicial system, cannot be expected to produce major effects before a reasonable time has elapsed, although it is already possible to see the first signs of a positive trend in the statistics recently provided to the Committee of Ministers by the Italian authorities;
Noting that some other measures, and in particular the creation of the sezioni stralcio, which were intended to ensure a special and accelerated procedure for the oldest civil cases, have not been thoroughly implemented, although recently the number of honorary judges recruited has reached 75% of the total originally planned;
Noting with interest the innovative character of the measures of the third group which, furthermore, constitute an acknowledgement at the national level, both symbolic and concrete, of the national authorities' full and direct responsibility for the violations of the Convention on account of the excessive delays in the administration of justice, but emphasising, nevertheless, that the creation of the new domestic remedy does not in any way obviate the obligation to pursue with diligence the adoption of the general measures required to prevent new violations;
Concluding accordingly that Italy, while making undeniable efforts to solve the problem and having adopted measures of various kinds which allow the concrete hope of an improvement within a reasonable time, has not, so far, thoroughly complied with its obligations to abide by the Court's judgments and the Committee of Ministers' decisions finding violations of Article 6 of the Convention on account of the excessive length of judicial proceedings,
- calls upon the Italian authorities, in view of the gravity and persistence of the problem:
- to maintain the high priority now given to the reform of the Italian judicial system and to continue to make rapid and visible progress in the implementation of the reforms,
- to continue their examination of further measures that could help effectively to prevent new violations of the Convention on account of the excessive length of judicial proceedings,
- to inform the Committee of Ministers with the greatest diligence of all steps undertaken to this effect;
- decides to continue the attentive examination of this problem until the reforms of the Italian judicial system become thoroughly effective and a reversal of the trend at domestic level is fully confirmed;
- decides, meanwhile, to resume its consideration of the progress made, at least at yearly intervals, on the basis of a comprehensive report to be presented each year by the Italian authorities.
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