CYIL 2012

ĽUBOMÍR MAJERČÍK ȃ ANNA MATUŠINOVÁ ȃ HUBERT SMEKAL CYIL 3 ȍ2012Ȏ ECtHR from October 2007 to June 2011. However, the article was written in his private capacity and the opinions expressed are solely his. Anna Matušinová – a student at the Charles University Law School and a Ph.D. candidate at the Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University. Anna Matušinová holds a Mgr. in European Studies and International Relations (FSS MU) and a Diploma in English and EU Law (University of Cambridge). Her areas of interest include various aspects of the law of the European Union and international law. Hubert Smekal – an assistant professor at the Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University, Brno; member of the Czech Centre for Human Rights and Democratisation. Hubert Smekal holds a Ph.D. in European Studies from FSS MU, a M.A. in Governance and Politics of European Integration (Universita di Bologna) and a Mgr. in Law (Law Faculty, MU). He authored a book “Lidská práva v Evropské unii (Human Rights in the European Union)” (MUNI Press, 2009) and serves as an assistant to E.MA Director (E.MA in Human Rights and Democratization, EIUC, Venice) for the Czech Republic. Hubert Smekal was awarded a Fulbright-Masaryk Research Scholarship (2010 – 2011), which he spent with the Center for the Study of Law and Society, UC Berkeley, under sponsorship of Prof. Martin Shapiro. 1. Introduction The article seeks to provide readers with an overview of the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights (hereinafter referred to as the ECtHR or the Court) concerning the Czech Republic in the year 2011. Before brief summaries of individual cases which are grouped according to the subject matter of cases, we will present some quantitative data covering the last decade. Using the quantitative data we wanted to put the development in the last year into a broader historical perspective and determine if 2011 has been unique for the Czech Republic in Strasbourg. 2. The Czech Republic before the ECtHR – quantitative glance at the last decade A mere presentation of quantitative data from the ECtHR’s Annual Report for the year 2011 would not make much sense. First of all, it is easily available to anyone interested on the website of the Court, 1 and second, just noting recent numbers does not provide the reader with much useful information. Therefore, we chose to present quantitative data on developments in numbers of complaints coming to the Strasbourg Court against the Czech Republic, judgments and the violation-rate for the last 10 years. Such an approach should enable us to see a trend in those categories in the last decade and make some tentative comments. We will stick rather to a narrow interpretation, because any wilder inferences are not substantiated by the data we present. Moreover, we will disentangle the total amount of “Czech” cases to show the development in number of applications and judgments with respect to an allegedly violated right and further the violation-rate conditioned on the right. We will also 1 See: http://www.echr.coe.int/NR/rdonlyres/219E9A92-716A-4337-99DE-053358F536B3/0/2011_ Rapport_Annuel_EN.pdf> accessed 27 May 2012.

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