European Court of Human Rights receives more complaints against Estonia

TALLINN - In 2011, 346 complaints against the Estonian state were submitted to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which is by 81 more than in 2010 and 144 more than in 2009, LETA/Postimees writes.

Estonia's representative in ECHR Julia Laffranque said that Estonians excel in this respect. While four years ago, 1.26 complaints per 10,000 inhabitants were submitted from Estonia, last year 2.58. This was over three times higher than the average number of complaints for the court.

Laffranque and Estonian Supreme Court chairman Mart Rask said that the figures do not mean that the situation with human rights has deteriorated in Estonia but are due to the fact that people mistakenly think that it is the fourth level of the legal system while actually the court only handles cases where the state has allegedly violated the human rights convention. Thus 98% of the complaints from Estonia are deemed unacceptable.

In most of the cases where the court makes a final ruling, the state has violated the convention. Last year Estonia was found guilty fully or partially in 3 court cases.