The practice of the European Court of Human Rights when striking out applications

Abstract

This paper analyses how the European Court of Human Rights has applied Article 37 of the European Convention on Human Rights that gives it the power to strike out pending cases in the current context of an overwhelmed Court by individual applications. This article shows that the Court's interpretation of Article 37, while being casuistic and pragmatic, has evolved along the principles of subsidiarity and procedural justice and that the Court has used its discretion, notably to end cases regarding the expulsion of migrants. Yet this tool has not been a way of disposing repetitive applications which account for half of the pending cases.