The Pilot-Judgements of the European Court of Human Rights: Legal Nature, Ruling Procedure and Implementation

The pilot-judgement procedure was established in 2004 and became a solution for numerous problems. First of all, the procedure allowed the European Court of Human Rights to solve the problems of the overload with a large number of repetitive cases. Secondly, the procedure let the court reveal the structural disfunctions existing in member states and prescribe the way to eliminate these disfunctions. Nevertheless, as the pilot-judgement procedure is a relevantly new phenomenon and the regulation is still in the process of development, there are a number of questions which arise specifically about the legal nature of the procedure, about the key features and the implementation stage because nor the European Convention on Human Rights neither the Rules of Court does not contain a clear ruling. A systematic study of issues related to pilot-judgements will significantly expand the current understanding of this phenomenon and assess the development trends of the European Court of Human Rights.