Chapter X - The Dialogicness of Procedures in the Execution Phase

Summary

As was already explained in chapter VI, this study is not limited to formal Committee procedures, but extends to other procedural opportunities for involvement in the execution phase. One of these opportunities, namely Article 46-indications, was not assessed in chapter VI, because the power of the Court to make such indications is not laid down ‘on paper’. Instead, it is a product of the Court's practice, and is therefore exclusively discussed in this chapter, which concerns the dialogicness of Convention-related procedures in practice. Prior to addressing individually the functioning of the procedures in practice (section X.2) and their dialogicness in the light of the indicators for dialogue (section X.3), a more general introduction is given to the practice of execution (section X.1).

INTRODUCTION TO THE PRACTICE OF THE EXECUTION

Before starting to describe the way in which the procedures function in practice, it is useful to briefly describe two assisting bodies which are of great importance to the Committee: its Secretariat and the Execution Department. It is impossible to just refer to the work of the Committee without introducing these bodies when discussing the practice of execution. This holds in particular for the Execution Department, because, as is explained below, the Committee relies heavily on that institution. Additionally, the introduction outlines certain aspects of the supervisory execution process.

The Secretariat

The Secretariat of the Committee of Ministers (Secretariat) is an administrative entity comprising 25 persons, 3 of whom belong to the human rights team. Its task is to ensure that the DH meetings run smoothly, which entails inter alia distributing relevant documents (e.g. the order of business) to the deputies. Further, the Secretariat performs a language check on these documents, which are submitted to it by the Execution Department. Occasionally, it makes a suggestion concerning the content of the documents and it has some influence on the cases selected for the order of business as proposed by the Execution Department. However, when compared to the Execution Department, it does little work with respect to the substance of the execution process. The Secretariat rather functions as an intermediary between the deputies and the Execution Department. Probably for that reason, the deputies refer to the ‘Secretariat’ also when they actually mean to refer to the work of the Execution Department.