ECtHR report: Turkey ordered to pay a total of 1.5 million Euro in compensation in 2020

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The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ordered Turkey to pay a total of 1.5 million Euro in compensation in 168 cases in the last year, according to the annual report of the Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers.

There are also 624 pending cases against Turkey, the report shows.

The committee said in the report that Turkey has not yet implemented ECtHR decisions in cases concerning the Cyprus issues and the imprisonment of Selahattin Demirtaş, the former co-chair of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), and Osman Kavala, a businessperson and a rights advocate.

Turkey was found to have violated Article 18 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which concerns abusive limitations of rights and freedoms and systemic/structural problems.

"Violations of Article 18 remain rare and are regarded as particularly serious," it said.

The report shows that a total of 983 cases were closed by the Committee of Ministers in 2020. Of those 983 cases, 187 were "leading" cases, which are defined as "notably highlighting new structural or systemic problems," – and 796 were repetitive.

At the end of 2020, 5,233 cases had yet to be fully implemented by the member states involved, of which 1,258 were leading cases and 3,975 were repetitive. 634 leading cases had been pending for over five years, but the number of such cases has been falling since 2016.

In general, states across Europe continued to make progress on implementing ECtHR judgments, according to the report. (HA/VK)