Immigration is “fully” a policy matter for European states and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) is not “an obstacle” to their implementation of public policies, the court’s president said.
However, Mattias Guyomar said that while he “fully respected” immigration is a priority for politicians and a “difficult” matter to address, “a political priority cannot become a judge’s priority”.
His “key objective” is to protect the judicial independence of the court, he said. It is “impossible to accept that any kind of political pressure could be made on its jurisdiction”.
“The separation of powers cannot be breached, that would be the end of democracy.”
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Last December, Ireland and 26 of the other 45 signatories to the European Convention on Human Rights issued a joint statement seeking to have the ECtHR water down protections for migrants under the convention.
The ECtHR is an international court of the Council of Europe, the parliamentary assembly of which elects its 46 judges, one from each member state. The court decides applications alleging breaches of convention rights.
While declining to comment directly on last December’s statement, Mr Guyomar said the ECtHR can “inform the discussion” by providing objective data.
Of more than 430,000 applications decided by the court since 2016, about 2 per cent concerned immigration, he said. Over that decade, fewer than 300 judgments of the court found a violation in a case related to migration issues.
Just 1.5 per cent of the 53,450 pending applications before the court at the end of last year related to immigration issues, he said. While each case is important, the data showed immigration is “absolutely not a priority for the court”. Immigration is “fully” a policy matter for states, Mr Guyomar said.
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“I do not see to what extent the ECtHR could be an obstacle for states in the implementation of their public policies.” It is not for the convention “to impose a universal legal order”, he said. The ECtHR decides cases in context and pays attention to decisions by a State’s parliament and courts, with the aim of striking “a fair balance between the competing interests at stake”.
Judge Úna Ní Raifeartaigh, Ireland’s representative on the ECtHR, said Ireland has been a strong supporter of court and the convention.
The one exception where there was “potential unease” was Ireland’s signing of the December statement, she said.
She was unaware of any case where Ireland was prevented from deporting or dealing with someone from an immigration viewpoint, but Ireland signed the joint statement with 26 countries, including the UK, “and it could be in that context”.
Both judges were speaking to The Irish Times in advance of the publication on Thursday of the court’s annual report for 2025. It notes that the court decided 38,573 applications last year, up 5 per cent on 2024, and received 31,000 new applications.
Its significant judgments last year included one in which the 17-judge Grand Chamber ruled, in a case taken by Ukraine and the Netherlands, that Russia was accountable for widespread and flagrant abuses of human rights arising from the conflict in Ukraine since 2014. The Russian Federation was excluded from the Council of Europe in 2022 and ceased to be a party to the convention, but the ECtHR continues to process outstanding applications against it.
Other important judgments addressed the issue of consent in sexual relations. In a case against France, the court noted international reports had found the French definition of rape created legal uncertainty by failing to cover all situations of non-consent, including cases involving “shock” or “freezing”, and that had contributed to an inadequate assessment of the applicant’s consent. The case contributed to the explicit incorporation of the notion of consent into France’s legal definition of rape.
Of the 53,450 pending applications alleging breach of convention rights, most (18,464) are against Turkey, followed by Russia (7,177) and Ukraine (4,004) with Poland, Italy and Greece also featuring in the top 10.
Just four applications were taken against Ireland; it was not subject of any judgments last year.
Judge Ní Raifeartaigh said, because of our particular history, Irish people have “a profound understanding” of the connection between the rule of law and human rights on the one hand, and peace and prosperity on the other.
Immediately after independence, Ireland drafted a constitution and has had “a history of written constitutional rights from the very beginning coming out of a particular historical situation”, she said.
“When it comes to the Northern Ireland situation and the Good Friday Agreement and the importance of establishing rights in a particular situation leading to the peace process, we see the connection between human rights and peace.”
Mr Guyomar said the situation in Europe – now facing external threats, internal crises, erosion of trust in the rule of law, polarisation and populism – is “very concerning” and mirrors, to an extent, that of Europe between the first and second World Wars.
The founders of the 1951 convention had experienced “the worst that people could do”, and the European system was created to secure human rights and ensure such violations of human dignity would “never again” happen.
In the current situation, the separation of powers and the judiciary are under attack and it is important to remain “vigilant and engaged”, he said.
The court is “strong”, and his priority as president is to increase its efficiency, visibility and accountability, he said. The court’s judges and staff are working hard, within the framework of shared responsibility with domestic courts, “not only to safeguard rights but also to deliver them”.
