On 9 January this year the European Court of Human Rights gave its judgement in the case Uoti v. Finland. The Court ruled that there has been a violation of Article 6 of the Convention in the case. The Government of Finland had violated the right to have a criminal case determined in a reasonable time as the Convention demands.
There is nothing very peculiar in this. In Finland as well as in some other Contracting States there are structural problems with their judicial systems that generate the violations in respect of the reasonable time requirement.
The real problem lies in the attitudes of the officials and the judiciary in Finland. As phrased in a discusion session of the local lawyers monthly meeting in Helsinki Finland a lecturer from the University of Turku told the audience that when giving lectures to the judges of the requirements of the Convention the response has been alarmingly – we do not care of the requirements of Article 6. Our own system of treating cases is the way we do it.
This could be called the Soviet style of adjucating.
This is a widespread symptom in the Finnish judiciary. After the Court had found the Government of Finland to have breaced the 6 Article in a pending case one could have thought that the Government would have initiated some procedures to end the violation.
No way. The Government of Finland and the judicial system including the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Finland decided to do nothing. The violation was allowed to continue an indeterminate time.
The Government of Finland disregards the judgements of the most important Court of Europe, The European Court of Human Rights. This is a dangerous example of disrespect towards the only international organ that in practise can protect people against the Human Rights violations of te Contracting States.
It also shows that there exists no Human Rights in practise if a Contracting State of the Convention decides not to respect them – no matter what the international tribunals do.
Now there is a need for political actions to reinstall the respect towards the Court.