The Human Rights European Court (HREC) is now submitted to questions, reserves and/or even critics with regards to lack of independence and impartiality of its judges and decisions they take.
The most severe critic comes from a Member State, the Russian Federation, which holds that HREC may take « political decisions ». To wit, Mr. Konstantin Kosachev, head of the Russian delegation to the Council of Europe, made the statement that many people in Russia, including members of the Parliament, have the feeling that sometime HREC is used for political purposes and that certain decisions are not based on law but aimed at politics. Mr. Kosachev has been shouldered by a decision from the Russian parliament which declines to ratify Protocol N° 14.
The Protocol was devised to make amendments to the European Convention tentatively to improve the functioning of HREC which is now deluged with individual applications. HREC has a backlog of about 90,000 applications and is expected to receive 60,000 yearly. Some people imply that the Russian Federation’s reluctance to ratify Protocol N° 14 might be due merely to kind of dissatisfaction for past condemnations against it by HREC. That is very unfair when the true question is whether HREC has been functioning right or not in making « political decisions » and what should be done to insure a satisfactory functioning. The second part of the question is too much complex to be dealt with here. Suffice it to say that Protocol N° 14 has now been superseded by the « Report from the Wise », a committee formed by decision of the Warsaw meeting of the Member States. Their report was given in November 2006 and there are people to find that report is too timid to solve the problems at hand and that a complete re-frame of European Human Rights protection is required.
Several factors have come into play to lower the credibility the public attached to HREC and I will deal with them later. But the end result is shown in the following letter:
Letter of May 13, 2006 to the Members of the Council of Europe
Re: The Swiss Confederation and the European Court of Human Rights
Ladies and Gentlemen,
On 21 January 2001 our Citizens’ action group has informed the Chairman of the European Commission that the Swiss Federal Supreme Court is systematically lying, and that Switzerland is therefore violating the European Human Rights Convention. On 19 February 2001 we furnished the Swiss Federal Council with a file containing audiovisual proof of three shocking examples of this violation (see www.swissjustice.net/direct French version, „affaires en cours“ „Le crime judiciaire en Suisse“, volet 2. Meanwhile a vigilant citizen uncovered statistical proof that politicians and judges conspired together some 50 years ago. Unnoticed by Swiss citizens, control of the courts by the parliaments (federal and cantonal), as demanded by the Federal Constitution, has been gradually eroded, in order to make it possible to cheat honest citizens and to sentence innocent persons, using the weak pretext of separation of powers. (see www.brunner-architekt.ch under Übrige/Politik/Schriftenwechsel: Korrespondenz mit der Bundesversammlung – accessible also searching by date „13.12.05“. An English translation of résumé attached – html-1).On 17 April 2006 we informed the three candidates to succeed Luzius Wildhaber, the judge retiring from the European Court of Human Rights, about this historical analysis, and invited them to comment. (See www.swissjustice.net/direct on the Home Page, 20 April 2006). By April 2006 only Lili Nabholz had replied. (html-2). According to her, there is no problem. However, reading her reply, it seems she did not check the content of the analysis. What kind of would-be future judge would take a decision without first studying the evidence?The retiring President of the Swiss Federal Supreme Court, Giusep Nay, the first choice for this post, has 13 negative references against his name in our files. (See www.swissjusice.net/references „Confédération“, „Magistrats“, page 4. On our Home Page ( www.appel-au-peuple.org, French version, „Affaires en cours“, reference FR105) we document how Nay has covered up for example a case of cheating in connection with the Old Age and Survivors insurance scheme.We do not really know the third candidate, the law Professor Giorgio Malinverni of
Geneva. Since he has not replied to our letter, we presume that he intends to support the ongoing illegal practices in Switzerland if elected judge of the European Court of Human Rights. We would like to ask you, Ladies and Gentlemen, not to elect these three candidates presented by Switzerland, also to suspend Switzerland’s membership of the Council of Europe until the Rule of Law has been re-established in this country. Concretely, this means, that cantonal and federal parliaments must once again carry out their constitutional duty to control the courts. However, desperate conditions also prevail as well at the European Court of Human Rights, due to the absence of control by your Parliament. Paule Guignier has repeatedly written to President Luzius Wildhaber informing him that his court has violated its own rules: Swiss Judge L. Caflisch contravened these rules as member of the commitee dealing with her own case (html-3). Only after the third letter was a reply received, from a secretary. This reply failed to deal with the real problem, merely said there was no possibility of questioning the Court’s decisions; also that “we are hopelessly overloaded with work here” (html-4).In this way, the European Court of Human Rights continues to deprive the victims of judicial mismanagement of their last hope to obtain justice. A case in point is that of Damaris Keller in Bern, who was been sentenced to 18 years in jail without formal proof and without confession by her. (See the book „Damaris Keller – ein Berner Hexenprozess“, by Catherine Herriger, Tobler Editors 2003, ISBN 3-85612-140-4 also www.swissjustice.net/direct German version „Laufende Fälle“, reference BE102.The Court of Appeal of the Swiss Supreme Court, whose President is M.R. Schneider (www.googleswiss.com/schneider) has confirmed this sentence in a decision containing lies. On 6 February 2006, Damaris Keller received a terse reply from Strasbourg, that „conditions outlined in Articles 34 and 35 of the Convention have not been fulfilled“, and therefore her appeal could not be admitted (html-5). Note that the communication she received is almost a German translation of the French decision communicated to Paule Guignier (A scissors-and-paste job!). Both letters are on a single page (html-3). The judge in the case M. Tsatsa-Nikolovska, already has six justice crimes to her name – www.swissjustice.net/references „CEDH“).This superficial judicial behaviour resulted that 96.65 % of appeals submitted to Strasbourg in 2005 were rejected. This type of bungling is offensive to Damaris Keller’s lawyer who wrote a brilliant 41-page appeal on her behalf. (See the complete version on our website, German version (html-6). With this, the reader can form his/her own opinion of the case.) The judges mentioned above did not show they had read this appeal, even less studied it attentively. This would have meant real work, and considering it point by point!Without checking selected cases before the Council of Europe, your judges in
Strasbourg seem to continue consuming the taxpayer’s money without adequately performing their appointed tasks. You, as members of the Council, are now informed about this judicial disaster. We consider that you need to inaugurate effective action to stop this type of arbitrary justice.
Sincerely yours,
Gerhard Ulrich,
Chairman of the citizens’ Action group APPEL TO THE PUBLIC www.c9c.net/appel-au-peuple – www.swissjustice.net/direct – www.appel-au-peuple.org In case of censorship: www.s-security.net/helpdesk/free cc: To whom it may concern – www.swissjustice.net/direct
