The obligation to execute judgments of the Court derives from the State undertaking in Article 1 of the Convention to “secure to everyone within its jurisdiction the rights” defined in the Convention. Pursuant to Article 46, paragraph 1 of the Convention the State undertakes “to abide by the final judgment” of the Court to which it is a party. Based on the ECHR case-law the violation of the Convention entails three obligations of the respondent State: (i) to terminate the violation with regards to the applicant, (ii) to make reparation (that is restoring the situation prior to the violation), and (iii) to prevent similar violations in the future with regard to other individuals that might be affected by the same violation (for instance by changing law). According to case-law of the Court, the respondent State is free to choose the means by which to comply with the Court's judgment and to offer restitutio in integrim.
The first obligation is applied rather seldom by the Court, since it presupposes that the violation is still ongoing.[1] The second obligation requires a respondent state to take individual measures, which vary from case to case depending on the circumstances and may include reopening of the proceedings or quashing of the conviction. If the domestic legal system does not allow for full restitution in integrum, the Court must replace it by “just satisfaction” payable under Article 41 of the Convention.
The third obligation may require a respondent state to take general measures, if the Court “has expressly or impliedly called a general legislative provision into question, or when violations of a similar kind cannot be avoided in the future without a legislative amendment.”[2] These general measures may result in amendment of case-law, normative amendments (amendments of regulations, legislation or the Constitution), measures of practical nature (the construction of prisons, the recruitment of judges and the training of police officers), translation and dissemination of the Court's judgments to the national authorities (since violations of the Convention in most cases result from ignorance of its requirements).[3] Judging from the character of these general measures and comparing them to the first and second obligations, the former may be the most effective in establishing the rule of law in a respondent state.
