The Workload of the European Court of Human Rights: A Back-Door to Becoming a Constitutional Court of Europe

Abstract

The workload of the European Court of Human Rights has been one of its main concerns, and having in mind that justice delayed is justice denied – it has been justifiably so. In order to deal with the backlog of pending cases before the Court the Convention mechanism has been subject to change on several occasions, with the first significant change occurring in 2010. It is undisputed that these changes affected the way in which the Court deals with cases, but have they also affected the very nature of the Court? The aim of this article is to provide an overview of these changes, and an analysis of the effects that these changes had on the nature of the Court and on the protection of human rights in Europe.