Rights court reforms to deal with huge backlog

Ministers from the 47 countries adhering to the European Court of Human Rights have agreed to reform the institution, so as to speed up the processing of its backlog of 120,000 cases.

Switzerland, which currently holds the chairmanship of the council's committee of ministers, organised a two-day conference in Interlaken at the end of last week in order to tackle the problems facing the Strasbourg-based court.

As it openly admits on its own website, the court dealing with human rig...