Takeover of European Institutions
After the takeover of Moldovan institutions and seizure of the absolute control over the country’s judiciary and law-enforcing agencies, the only Plahotniuc’s menace might come only from the independent European institutions. Although these institutions have superciliously fancied themselves immune to the external influence and manipulation, the takeover of their key positions proved unimpeded, unopposed and devoid of effective compliance filters. As shown below, it sufficed a banquet and a couple of gifts. Nobody has even bothered to google the candidates, recklessly accepted in the high positions only on the basis of their deliberately deceitful “solemn declarations”.
The intruders, sent by Plahotniuc on mission into the European and international institutions, are tasked with a twofold assignment:
In November 2016, at the Interpol’s 85th General Assembly in Bali (Indonesia), a new Statute and Operating Rules of the Commission for the Control of Interpol’s Files (CCF) were adopted, which entered into force on 11 March 2017. The modifications were meant to address the Interpol’s vulnerabilities in being use for politically motivated reprisals, in stark contradiction with its Constitution, Article 3 (prohibition of intervention of political character) and Article 2 (commitment to human rights).
During the last years, with the advent and consolidation of authoritarian governments and regimes in some member states of Interpol, the organisation has undergone persistent attempts of being embroiled in politically driven reprisals. The said governments, among which Moldova is the infamous leader, have obstinately sought to use Interpol as an instrumental extension of their domestic repressive machine.
Quote from the PACE (Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights) Resolution of 7 March 2017 “Abusive use of the Interpol system: the need for more stringent legal safeguards”:
Vitalie Pirlog acted as the Minister of Justice during the communist regime in Moldova (2006-2009). While at service to the regime, Mr Pirlog has also taken part in quelling and prosecuting the anti-regime revolt of 7 April 2009, known as “Moldovan twitter revolution”, which resulted in severe and harsh reprisals and arbitrariness against peaceful demonstrators. This information is freely available on Internet and could have been checked before any nomination or subsequent approval. Back then, in 2009, many arbitrary decisions have been drafted or edited by Pirlog personally. Now we must expect that both the request from Interpol’s Bureau in Moldova (NCB) to CCF and replies of CCF to NCB Moldova will be handled by the same group or, the more so, a single individual.
Mr Pirlog is known as a trustful crony of Vladimir Plahotniuc, the oligarch who unipersonally controls the Moldovan repressive organs (Prosecutor General's Office, Ministry of Internal Affairs/Police, National Anticorruption Centre, judiciary and the National Central Bureau of Interpol in Moldova) and who is the only real authority to approve Mr Pirlog’s nomination for Interpol. In 2013 Plahotniuc proposed Pirlog for the position of Prosecutor General’s Office - the position which is politically apportioned to the Democratic Party, whose Chairman and unchallengeable master is Plahotniuc. Recently, on 20 December 2017, the Parliamentary majority under Plahotniuc’s control appointed Vitalie Pirlog in the position of Director of the The Security and Intelligence Service of Moldova, one of the important gears of the Plahotniuc’s repressive machine. Assuming that nobody from the Interpol is going to check any of his “declarations”, Mr Pirlog has defiantly presented himself as “expert in data protection”.
Previously, Vladimir Plahotniuc has been monitored by Italian Bureau of Interpol for "association to organised criminal groups, money laundering and human traffic". The then head of Moldovan Bureau of Interpol, Valentina Litvinov, was publicly denying the Interpol notes until the Minister of Internal Affair, Dorin Recean, has confirmed the facts. He also confirmed that 13 important pages from the Plahotniuc’s Interpol dossier are missing and that they disappeared during the period when the Bureau was run by Ms Litvinov. Although the complicity of the Moldovan Bureau’s head with Plahotniuc is a cogent fact, as is the fact of subversion of the Moldovan Bureau, Interpol has had no reaction on that scandal to these very days.
In Moldova, Vitalie Pirlog is regarded as the Plahotniuc’s emissary, sent on mission to Interpol and tasked to work out issues there, like those aforementioned. With Mr Pirlog in CCF, the Moldovan human rights defenders feel like complaining abuses of the repressive machine to a the same machine itself. Instead of receiving a fair international condemnation, Pirlog has unimpededly received the promotion into the highest position in CCF within an important and reputed international institution.
The next episode is even more eloquent and we will just quote from an investigation of Der Spiegel no. 8/2018 of 17 Feb 2018, entitled “Party for the world’s police force. Security: Autocrats and criminals are trying to infiltrate Interpol. Are shady characters from Moldova playing a key role in it all?” by Tobias Hausdorf and Gerald Traufetter.
[Quote:]
The Turkish Airlines’ flight 0272, which took off from the Moldovan capital of Chisinau, had special cargo on-board: some thousand gift boxes apparently containing traditional dolls and illustrated books in addition to “equipment for dancers”. This is what was, nonetheless, on the cargo documentation. The 2,286 tonnes was declared as diplomatic luggage, which was not allowed to be opened. The cargo allegedly contained, above all, spirits – the sender in any case was a famous winery in Moldova. Several hundred litres of wine, vodka and cognac were flown to Beijing, more precisely: to the General Assembly of the world’s police force organisation: Interpol. There they were to seize hundreds of invited guests at a party for the small eastern European country of Moldova.
The highly-concerted operation was obviously a success. Shortly after the Assembly, the global law enforcement officials voted a high-ranking Moldovan police official to be the representative of Europe on the Executive Committee of Interpol. His name: Fredolin Lecari. In 2016, his compatriot Vitalie Pirlog was voted in on an international body of the global police force organisation.
The target was allegedly Interpol’s most powerful tool: the wanted list of internationally wanted criminals. This list is, on the one hand, a blessing because it helps in the search for criminals around the globe. On the other hand, the wanted lists are prone to misuse. Dictators could accuse their opponents of offences, which they have not committed. In the same way, criminal oligarchs could try to exclude competition. The references to befriended rogue states collaborating in order to misuse Interpol for political purposes, are multiplying.
The new Head of Interpol, Lecari, is considered to be the advisor to the oligarch Vladimir Plahotniuc, who pulls the strings in economics and politics in Moldova and who is said to have connections to the underworld. Plahotniuc is also the Leader of the Democratic Party in the Republic of Moldova.
In previous years, Lecari led Interpol’s liaison office in Moldova. Opposition politicians accuse him of actualising a scandal in order to transfer confidential information from the Interpol computer system to business people.
The second Moldovan at the top of Interpol likewise has a dubious reputation. Vitalie Pirlog arose as a data protection expert. Actually, at the time when the democratic movement in Moldova was being bloodily suppressed by the regime, he was the Minister of Justice.
“Pirlog and Lecari are part of a conglomerate of politicians and oligarchs, who consider the Republic of Moldova to be their personal domain”, said Ana Ursachi. Ursachi warns: “We must protect Interpol from becoming the henchman for organised crime and the autocrats of this world.”
[Unquote]
Conclusions on Interpol
For over eight years, Plahotniuc is harnessing the Moldovan repressive machine for personal retaliation and reprisals against his political enemies and opposers. On Plahotniuc's command, the Moldovan authorities have repeatedly requested Interpol to issue Red Notices when the Plahotniuc's opposers managed to flee beyond the reach of the Moldovan authorities.
Precluding Mr Pirlog from influencing the CCF’s members and decisional workflow, and Mr Lecari from influencing the Interpol Executive Committee, insofar as it concerns the realm of interests of Plahotniuc (which is Moldova, Ukraine, Romania and neighbourhood) not only is just a matter of conspicuous conflict of interests, professional deontology and common ethics, but it is also a matter of demolishing the Interpol’s reputation and credibility. The presence of Plahotniuc’s acolytes in Interpol entrenches the perception that the reputable organisation “for international cooperation in combating criminality” is turned into an organisation serving that criminality. Put it simply in colloquial language, it is as if the bandits had hijacked the police office and now use it for their criminal purposes.
In the above we mentioned the report “Abusive use of the Interpol system” of the PACE Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights and its subsequent Resolution of 7 March 2017, which diagnoses the problem and urges Interpol to tackle it. However, Interpol is just an example of instrumentally using the European institutions at the behest of the abusing authoritarian regimes. The main arm of the Council of European in combating the violations of human rights and rule of law (the European Court of Human Rights) is in even deeper jeopardy. Unlike Interpol, which ought to act in order to serve the abusers, for the ECHR to achieve the same effect it suffices to idle in particular cases. In contrast to the Interpol and PACE, which prove awareness of the problem, the ECHR is not even at the stage of its recognition.
The authoritarian countries members of the European Convention on Human Rights spotted two major vulnerabilities in the ECHR activity, which they harness in order to turn the Court into their de facto ally.
Offenders as the frontline examiners
The country’s lawyers and judges are delegated to the ECHR from and by the country’s judicial system. Put simply, in the case of Moldova, Plahotniuc decides unipersonally who is to be sent to the ECHR. Given the ascertained fact of the judiciary’s full subversion and the accomplished state captivity, it turns out that the Moldovan victims of the arbitrariness and illegalities of the Moldovan judges complain before the ECHR to the representatives of the same judicial system.
Any court of law of any instance would flag up a conspicuous conflict of interest in the lame relationships, in which the ECHR sees none. The Court ought to scrutinise, suspend and prevent the national lawyers and judges from handling and participating in examination of systemic cases, originating from authoritarian countries. No one can be judge in his own case, nor can the offenders’ delegates. No law institution in the world would fail to ascertain the impartiality problem in such cases.
Aiming to mitigate their exposure to the arbitrariness of the offenders’ representatives, many Moldovan applicants request the ECHR that their cases be not handled by Moldovan lawyers, nor examined by the Moldovan judge at the ECHR [on the left].
The Court responds to such requests with platitude, arguing that the lawyers at the ECHR are the Court’s employees and, therefore, are theoretically “presumed” to be independent and immune to the influence of those who delegated them. Neither the solemn vows, nor decent wages of the Court’s employees are deterrent to the pressure of material and immaterial incentives in systemic cases (explained below), like those concerning the misappropriation of hundreds of millions euros within the raider attacks, the heist of one billion of US dollars from the National Reserves, or the reprisals against political opponents. This money and its current owner will fiercely struggle to avoid the justice within the ECHR, and this is why Plahotniuc needs the effective toolset inside the ECHR.
Examination time and arbitrary change of order
This section regards cases deliberately put on the Court rolls’ siding and kept unhandled for five and more years, even though representing cases of utmost effrontery to the Convention, paramount social resonance and highly degenerative impact on the country’s judicial system and rule of law.
It is the ECHR practice to handle the applications differently (not in the order they are lodged), prioritising or downplaying some of them and, hence, favouring or discriminating the applicants. The ECHR overlooks that segregating the human rights is a violation of such in itself. Whatever the Court’s formal reasons for changing the order, it raises a fundamental conflict with the basic justice and fairness: no tribunal can arrogate authority for applying differentiated treatment. It is particularly striking that the grosser the violation, the later it is going to be handled by the Court. That is why in systemic cases (below) the Court is dubbed “afterlife justice”.
Systemic cases
“Systemic” stands for “perpetrated concertedly by the country’s entire judicial and law-enforcing systems” rather than isolated violations, sporadically committed in Police sections or courts of law, and which the country’s system would admit to repair. The systemic cases are perpetrated under the political control and cover-up and are being carried out on command of the country’s authoritarian leader through the heads of the judiciary and other law-enforcing institutions. In such cases, all the state institutions form a common front, the victims confront the entire state, and the entire country’s population is affected.
In Moldova, the systemic cases are cases that regard Plahotniuc, affect his personal interests or may cause harm to him, and therefore are painstakingly monitored by Plahotniuc and his entourages. The raider attacks, due to which Plahotniuc became the wealthiest man, are persuasive examples of systemic cases.
Side note: Valeriu Ghiletchi, Chairman of the Commission, Committee on the Election of Judges to the European Court of Human Rights, is a crony of Plahotniuc, along with Titus Corlatean, a member of the said Commission. There is plenty of information on them both and their relations with Plahotniuc.
Conclusions on the ECHR
We expect the ECHR to report the improvement of the rule of law and human rights in the problematic countries. Contrary to expectations, year after year, in its annual reports, the ECHR acknowledges the relentless increase of the inflow of new applications and the alarming growth of the backlog of cases. In the meantime, some of the problematic countries have already become captive states with a downrightly subverted judiciary, but not even this fact was compelling enough to acknowledge that something is fundamentally wrong in the Court’s activity. Neither did the striking dichotomy between the Court's declarative objectives and the practical outcomes ring a bell.
It is perfectly indicative that the shelved systemic cases are the root cause of the said pernicious trends. The ECHR confronts consequences and eludes the engine that spawns and multiplies the violations. Even worse, the Court happened to set for itself artificial “priorities” amongst the human rights, like “conditions of detention”, as an excuse for shelving systemic cases, which diverted even farther away from the core problem.
The current state of affairs inevitably affects the Court’s credibility and reputation. There is no such thing like taking no side while the application is pending — by shelving it, the Court by default sides with the offender against the victim. An overstretched vacation is all a perpetrator needs from the ECHR, especially as long as the Court eschews the injunctions (cease and desist orders for the pending period).
As it turns out, the individual, who ought to be sought by Interpol, is steering the Interpol’s key Commission; the persons, who are in overt conflict of interest, are handling the applications at the ECHR. A European institution cannot pretend to forestall the abuses by letting the abusers head its bodies. The blind presumption that the said institutions are protected by the articles of their Charters, declared foundation principles or Regulations proved puerile barriers for the abusers, while the institutions’ haughtiness proved their reliable ally.
The intruders, sent by Plahotniuc on mission into the European and international institutions, are tasked with a twofold assignment:
- on one hand, to protect Plahotniuc from the due reactions of the institutions or, at least, to hinder such reactions;
- and, on the other hand, to use European institutions in attacking the Plahotniuc’s enemies (be they political opponents or the robbed victims and witnesses of the raider attacks) or, at least, causing as much troubles as possible to the targeted persons.
INTERPOL
During the last years, with the advent and consolidation of authoritarian governments and regimes in some member states of Interpol, the organisation has undergone persistent attempts of being embroiled in politically driven reprisals. The said governments, among which Moldova is the infamous leader, have obstinately sought to use Interpol as an instrumental extension of their domestic repressive machine.
Quote from the PACE (Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights) Resolution of 7 March 2017 “Abusive use of the Interpol system: the need for more stringent legal safeguards”:
“[...] in a number of cases in recent years, Interpol and its Red Notice system has been abused by some member States in the pursuit of political objectives”.At the same Assembly in Indonesia, Vitalie Pirlog (Moldova) was elected as Chairman of the CCF, of both its Requests Chamber and its Supervisory and Advisory Chamber, with a five-year mandate. The CCF is the Interpol’s key deliberative body, vested with the authority to accept or decline search and arrest requests (including Red Notices). Who is Mr Pirlog you’ll find right away below.
Mr Pirlog is known as a trustful crony of Vladimir Plahotniuc, the oligarch who unipersonally controls the Moldovan repressive organs (Prosecutor General's Office, Ministry of Internal Affairs/Police, National Anticorruption Centre, judiciary and the National Central Bureau of Interpol in Moldova) and who is the only real authority to approve Mr Pirlog’s nomination for Interpol. In 2013 Plahotniuc proposed Pirlog for the position of Prosecutor General’s Office - the position which is politically apportioned to the Democratic Party, whose Chairman and unchallengeable master is Plahotniuc. Recently, on 20 December 2017, the Parliamentary majority under Plahotniuc’s control appointed Vitalie Pirlog in the position of Director of the The Security and Intelligence Service of Moldova, one of the important gears of the Plahotniuc’s repressive machine. Assuming that nobody from the Interpol is going to check any of his “declarations”, Mr Pirlog has defiantly presented himself as “expert in data protection”.
Previously, Vladimir Plahotniuc has been monitored by Italian Bureau of Interpol for "association to organised criminal groups, money laundering and human traffic". The then head of Moldovan Bureau of Interpol, Valentina Litvinov, was publicly denying the Interpol notes until the Minister of Internal Affair, Dorin Recean, has confirmed the facts. He also confirmed that 13 important pages from the Plahotniuc’s Interpol dossier are missing and that they disappeared during the period when the Bureau was run by Ms Litvinov. Although the complicity of the Moldovan Bureau’s head with Plahotniuc is a cogent fact, as is the fact of subversion of the Moldovan Bureau, Interpol has had no reaction on that scandal to these very days.
In Moldova, Vitalie Pirlog is regarded as the Plahotniuc’s emissary, sent on mission to Interpol and tasked to work out issues there, like those aforementioned. With Mr Pirlog in CCF, the Moldovan human rights defenders feel like complaining abuses of the repressive machine to a the same machine itself. Instead of receiving a fair international condemnation, Pirlog has unimpededly received the promotion into the highest position in CCF within an important and reputed international institution.
[Quote:]
The Turkish Airlines’ flight 0272, which took off from the Moldovan capital of Chisinau, had special cargo on-board: some thousand gift boxes apparently containing traditional dolls and illustrated books in addition to “equipment for dancers”. This is what was, nonetheless, on the cargo documentation. The 2,286 tonnes was declared as diplomatic luggage, which was not allowed to be opened. The cargo allegedly contained, above all, spirits – the sender in any case was a famous winery in Moldova. Several hundred litres of wine, vodka and cognac were flown to Beijing, more precisely: to the General Assembly of the world’s police force organisation: Interpol. There they were to seize hundreds of invited guests at a party for the small eastern European country of Moldova.
The highly-concerted operation was obviously a success. Shortly after the Assembly, the global law enforcement officials voted a high-ranking Moldovan police official to be the representative of Europe on the Executive Committee of Interpol. His name: Fredolin Lecari. In 2016, his compatriot Vitalie Pirlog was voted in on an international body of the global police force organisation.
The target was allegedly Interpol’s most powerful tool: the wanted list of internationally wanted criminals. This list is, on the one hand, a blessing because it helps in the search for criminals around the globe. On the other hand, the wanted lists are prone to misuse. Dictators could accuse their opponents of offences, which they have not committed. In the same way, criminal oligarchs could try to exclude competition. The references to befriended rogue states collaborating in order to misuse Interpol for political purposes, are multiplying.
The new Head of Interpol, Lecari, is considered to be the advisor to the oligarch Vladimir Plahotniuc, who pulls the strings in economics and politics in Moldova and who is said to have connections to the underworld. Plahotniuc is also the Leader of the Democratic Party in the Republic of Moldova.
In previous years, Lecari led Interpol’s liaison office in Moldova. Opposition politicians accuse him of actualising a scandal in order to transfer confidential information from the Interpol computer system to business people.
The second Moldovan at the top of Interpol likewise has a dubious reputation. Vitalie Pirlog arose as a data protection expert. Actually, at the time when the democratic movement in Moldova was being bloodily suppressed by the regime, he was the Minister of Justice.
“Pirlog and Lecari are part of a conglomerate of politicians and oligarchs, who consider the Republic of Moldova to be their personal domain”, said Ana Ursachi. Ursachi warns: “We must protect Interpol from becoming the henchman for organised crime and the autocrats of this world.”
[Unquote]
Conclusions on Interpol
For over eight years, Plahotniuc is harnessing the Moldovan repressive machine for personal retaliation and reprisals against his political enemies and opposers. On Plahotniuc's command, the Moldovan authorities have repeatedly requested Interpol to issue Red Notices when the Plahotniuc's opposers managed to flee beyond the reach of the Moldovan authorities.
Precluding Mr Pirlog from influencing the CCF’s members and decisional workflow, and Mr Lecari from influencing the Interpol Executive Committee, insofar as it concerns the realm of interests of Plahotniuc (which is Moldova, Ukraine, Romania and neighbourhood) not only is just a matter of conspicuous conflict of interests, professional deontology and common ethics, but it is also a matter of demolishing the Interpol’s reputation and credibility. The presence of Plahotniuc’s acolytes in Interpol entrenches the perception that the reputable organisation “for international cooperation in combating criminality” is turned into an organisation serving that criminality. Put it simply in colloquial language, it is as if the bandits had hijacked the police office and now use it for their criminal purposes.
ECHR
The authoritarian countries members of the European Convention on Human Rights spotted two major vulnerabilities in the ECHR activity, which they harness in order to turn the Court into their de facto ally.
Offenders as the frontline examiners
The country’s lawyers and judges are delegated to the ECHR from and by the country’s judicial system. Put simply, in the case of Moldova, Plahotniuc decides unipersonally who is to be sent to the ECHR. Given the ascertained fact of the judiciary’s full subversion and the accomplished state captivity, it turns out that the Moldovan victims of the arbitrariness and illegalities of the Moldovan judges complain before the ECHR to the representatives of the same judicial system.
The Moldovan judges both produce the violations and send the delegates to handle the complaints. The closest entourage of Plahotniuc in Moldova communicate at the ECHR with their brothers, sons or partners from the same companies, as revealed in the publications below -- particularly, within cases at ECHR concerning hundred of millions of euros embezzled by Plahotniuc (see raider attacks).
- Independent.md on Moldovan lawyers at ECHR;
- Omega.md - ECHR became another tool of the Plahotniuc’s clan;
- Moldova Suverana, Justice reform by creating one more instance (ECHR);
- Omega.md, the Democratic Party distributed the roles in the Constitutional Court;
- What has Plahotniuc discussed in Strasbourg?
 |
| 27 May 2011. Vladimir Plahotniuc, the perpetrator of raider attacks complained at the ECHR, and Josep Casadevall, Chairman of the Third Section of the ECHR, in charge of examining the applications against Moldova. |
Any court of law of any instance would flag up a conspicuous conflict of interest in the lame relationships, in which the ECHR sees none. The Court ought to scrutinise, suspend and prevent the national lawyers and judges from handling and participating in examination of systemic cases, originating from authoritarian countries. No one can be judge in his own case, nor can the offenders’ delegates. No law institution in the world would fail to ascertain the impartiality problem in such cases.
The Court responds to such requests with platitude, arguing that the lawyers at the ECHR are the Court’s employees and, therefore, are theoretically “presumed” to be independent and immune to the influence of those who delegated them. Neither the solemn vows, nor decent wages of the Court’s employees are deterrent to the pressure of material and immaterial incentives in systemic cases (explained below), like those concerning the misappropriation of hundreds of millions euros within the raider attacks, the heist of one billion of US dollars from the National Reserves, or the reprisals against political opponents. This money and its current owner will fiercely struggle to avoid the justice within the ECHR, and this is why Plahotniuc needs the effective toolset inside the ECHR.
Examination time and arbitrary change of order
This section regards cases deliberately put on the Court rolls’ siding and kept unhandled for five and more years, even though representing cases of utmost effrontery to the Convention, paramount social resonance and highly degenerative impact on the country’s judicial system and rule of law.
It is the ECHR practice to handle the applications differently (not in the order they are lodged), prioritising or downplaying some of them and, hence, favouring or discriminating the applicants. The ECHR overlooks that segregating the human rights is a violation of such in itself. Whatever the Court’s formal reasons for changing the order, it raises a fundamental conflict with the basic justice and fairness: no tribunal can arrogate authority for applying differentiated treatment. It is particularly striking that the grosser the violation, the later it is going to be handled by the Court. That is why in systemic cases (below) the Court is dubbed “afterlife justice”.
Systemic cases
“Systemic” stands for “perpetrated concertedly by the country’s entire judicial and law-enforcing systems” rather than isolated violations, sporadically committed in Police sections or courts of law, and which the country’s system would admit to repair. The systemic cases are perpetrated under the political control and cover-up and are being carried out on command of the country’s authoritarian leader through the heads of the judiciary and other law-enforcing institutions. In such cases, all the state institutions form a common front, the victims confront the entire state, and the entire country’s population is affected.
In Moldova, the systemic cases are cases that regard Plahotniuc, affect his personal interests or may cause harm to him, and therefore are painstakingly monitored by Plahotniuc and his entourages. The raider attacks, due to which Plahotniuc became the wealthiest man, are persuasive examples of systemic cases.
Side note: Valeriu Ghiletchi, Chairman of the Commission, Committee on the Election of Judges to the European Court of Human Rights, is a crony of Plahotniuc, along with Titus Corlatean, a member of the said Commission. There is plenty of information on them both and their relations with Plahotniuc.
Conclusions on the ECHR
We expect the ECHR to report the improvement of the rule of law and human rights in the problematic countries. Contrary to expectations, year after year, in its annual reports, the ECHR acknowledges the relentless increase of the inflow of new applications and the alarming growth of the backlog of cases. In the meantime, some of the problematic countries have already become captive states with a downrightly subverted judiciary, but not even this fact was compelling enough to acknowledge that something is fundamentally wrong in the Court’s activity. Neither did the striking dichotomy between the Court's declarative objectives and the practical outcomes ring a bell.
It is perfectly indicative that the shelved systemic cases are the root cause of the said pernicious trends. The ECHR confronts consequences and eludes the engine that spawns and multiplies the violations. Even worse, the Court happened to set for itself artificial “priorities” amongst the human rights, like “conditions of detention”, as an excuse for shelving systemic cases, which diverted even farther away from the core problem.
The current state of affairs inevitably affects the Court’s credibility and reputation. There is no such thing like taking no side while the application is pending — by shelving it, the Court by default sides with the offender against the victim. An overstretched vacation is all a perpetrator needs from the ECHR, especially as long as the Court eschews the injunctions (cease and desist orders for the pending period).
The stated aim of the Council of Europe (CE) and its arm, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), is to uphold human rights, democracy and the rule of law in Europe. Either the CE has no knowledge about the facts described in the above, although the press and Internet abound with such, or the CE is well aware of it and does nothing, overlooking the very aim of its foundation.
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