ABTTF President: “The ECtHR’s latest judgment has once again confirmed the systematic violation of the rule of law in our country Greece. We call upon our country, which constantly claims to be the cradle of democracy and attempts to lecture neighbouring countries on democracy and the rule of law, to first clean up its own backyard and show full respect for the rule of law, one of the fundamental principles of democracy.”
The European Court of Human Rights (EtCHR) has once again condemned Greece, strongly criticising its habit of failing to implement national court rulings in a timely manner.
The ECtHR deemed the Greek authorities’ implementation of a 2014 administrative court ruling more than two years late to be a violation of the right to a fair trial. Rejecting Greece’s arguments of economic hardship and the complexity of the administrative process, the ECtHR emphasised that the state’s financial difficulties could not justify its failure to implement court rulings and noted that such delays undermined the rule of law.
“The ECtHR’s latest judgment has once again confirmed the systematic violation of the rule of law in our country Greece. In recent years, supranational and international organisations, particularly the European Union, have openly criticised our country in their reports due to this negative situation. On the other hand, our country’s ECtHR record is already quite poor, ranking among the top ten members of the Council of Europe that fail to execute the ECtHR judgments. Our country, which has failed to execute the ECtHR’s judgments regarding our community’s associations in the Bekir-Ousta and Others group of cases for over 17 years, continues to disregard the rule of law. We call upon our country, which constantly claims to be the cradle of democracy and attempts to lecture neighbouring countries on democracy and the rule of law, to first clean up its own backyard and fully respect the rule of law, one of the fundamental principles of democracy’’, said Halit Habip Oğlu, President of the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF).
