Patterns of democracy and human rights - An analysis of the relationship between changes in democracy and human rights at the European Court of Human Rights

Abstract

Since the very beginning, the European Court of Human Rights has suffered from a systemic issue: case overload. And despite the continuous reforms of the Convention system, a final solution seems still quite far from being achieved. Despite the focus of researchers and practitioners on this topic, few have investigated the relationship between the internal mechanisms of the states and their consequences on the backlog of the Court. This thesis offers insights over the relationship between the democratic status of a country and the proceedings before the European Court of Human Rights. It analyses the development of the Court from 1959 until 2021, finding that the reforms put in place by the Court along the years seem to have sorted only a minor effect in reducing the backlog of applications. Second, the panel study between 2000 and 2021 revealed that the democratic status of a country has a significant and negative relationship with the number of applications per capita filed to the Court. Lastly, the qualitative study shows the lack of a clear pattern among the democratic score of a country and the type of violations committed. However, through this last method a new pattern appears. There seems to be a negative relationship between the democratic score of a country and the share of violations...