Ukraine Leaves the Top Three Countries that Are Most Often Sued in the European Court of Human Rights

Ukraine has left the top three countries most often sued in the European Court of Human Rights. Poland now takes third place in this ranking. This analytics was prepared by legal engineers at Bot&Partners.

Over four consecutive years, Ukraine took third place among countries in the ECHR. This year, the number of cases against the country has decreased to 1,140. Instead, the number of cases against Poland has risen: 1,517 citizens have sued the country in 2021.

Last year, Ukraine was among the top countries. In 2020, 4,278 cases were heard, while 3,050 were heard in 2019. For many years, Turkey and Russia have been ranking above.

A large part of cases against Ukraine was connected to the Russian Federation. The journalists of “Skhemy” came to such conclusion. According to them, among the lawyers who massively filed complaints to the ECHR were Russian citizens from a private law firm affiliated with the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation and lawyers from the occupied territories of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions controlled by Moscow.

Though, complaints from Russia are not the only reason for hearings against Ukraine.

«The main reasons of Ukrainians’ complaints to the ECHR were an unfair trial, inhumane treatment of prisoners, and violation of freedom and the right to own property», 

— says lawyer Andriy Kristenko.

Also, a large portion of cases against Ukraine might have had to do with Ukraine barely using any opportunities for peaceful settlement of conflicts despite such opportunities being provided to every defendant upon submission to the ECHR.

«The state could use the procedure of peaceful settlement with the complainants more actively—to offer adequate compensation and other concessions to the complainants whose cases are evident of Convention violations. The government could group the cases by specific categories and settle the disputes peacefully, eliminating large groups of complaints from the Court register and meeting the complainant demands», 

— Andriy Kristenko comments.