Mammadov v. Azerbaijan, the much anticipated judgment handed down by the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights yesterday, is no ordinary judgment. It is the first time the Court has ruled in
an ‘infringement procedure’ – the most serious form of political pressure that members of the Council of Europe can exert on one of their own short of expulsion from the club.
Compliance with judicial decisions often poses challenges, all the more so when international courts such as the European Court of Human Rights are involved. How to react to a failure to abide by judgments of the ECHR has been a question for the Council of Europe for some time. But the suspicious background of a currently unfolding episode involving Azerbaijan may offer an unusually clear justification for a strong reaction even to a single case of non-compliance.
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