Bulgaria has not implemented nearly half of the rulings by the European Court for Human Rights

Bulgaria is among the countries with the least number of implemented rulings by the European Court for Human Rights. The news was announced by the Bulgarian Helsinki committee and is based on data by the European Implementation Network.

The statistic shows that Bulgaria has failed to implement 48% of the rulings by the European Huma Rights Court regarding the country over the past ten years.

“These are 79 cases, which identify gross systemic and structural flaws in Bulgarian law and legislative practice but for which no measures have still been taken.”

The Bulgarian Helsinki Committee expresses concern that these cases are under special supervision by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe because of the severity of rights’ violations. The state must implement the rulings in order to sever the kinds of violations they regard. Because Bulgaria has in effect put them on hold, such abuses are continuing to take place, the experts say.

The most frequent types of cases for which the country fails to implement the rulings are related to police violence, slow investigative proceedings and excessive use of force.

Within the EU Italy demonstrates a lower success rate compared to Bulgaria with 55% of rulings not applied over the past decade. The overall champion in the ranking is Azerbaijan with the jaw-dropping 95% of rulings practically ignored. Russia is the runner-up with 89%.