THE FUNCTIONING OF THE PILOT-JUDGMENT PROCEDURE IN PRACTICE

After a short note on methodology, the pilot-judgment procedure's (PJP) functioning is delved into by examining, first, the frequency and areas of use of these judgments. Thereafter, the same themes are discussed in sections XI.2.3- XI.2.5 as in sections VII.1.1-VII.1.3: the run-up to the procedure, the content of the pilot judgments and the events taking place after a pilot judgment has been adopted by the Court.

Methodology

The description of the PJP in practice in this chapter is based on all pilot judgments which have been issued from 2004, when the first pilot judgment was handed down, to July 2014, when the 21st and 22nd pilot judgment were delivered. These 22 judgments are full-blown pilot judgments as defined in chapter VII; ‘quasi’-pilot judgments have not been analysed. The three criteria which need to be fulfilled for a judgment to qualify as a pilot judgment have been applied strictly. This means, for example, that pilot judgments in all but name are not taken into consideration. As just noted, pilot judgments issued up to and including July 2014 are taken into consideration. For the description of the involvement of the Court and the Committee in supervising the execution of these judgments, this chapter relied upon relevant follow-up judgments and decisions of the Court and documents of the Committee until October 2014.

As mentioned in the previous section, the Court has issued 22 pilot judgments up to and including July 2014. After pronouncing its first pilot judgment in 2004, the Court only applied the procedure again in 2006. In 2012, the Court used the procedure most frequently, namely six times. The number of pilot judgments is therefore negligible in quantitative terms when compared to the total number applications decided by judgment per year, for example 891 in 2014 (delivered in respect of 2,388 applications).