"At the moment the impact of migrant crisis on the court is not significant in quantitative terms, however we have to put in place an action plan in order to anticipate and properly deal with a possible influx of Rule 39 requests," Guido Raimondi told reporters.
The European Court of Human Rights has recently received 24 requests from migrants who did not want to be returned to Hungary, he noted, adding that rule 39 was applied in 10 of those cases, which referred to applicants of different nationalities, Afghans, Palestinians, Syrians and others.
"Moreover, on September 22, 2015, two cases were communicated to Austria, where the court invited Hungary, Serbia, the UNHCR [UN refugee agency], the Commission for Human Rights of the Council of Europe to intervene as third parties," Raimondi explained.
The Commission for Human Rights of the Council of Europe has agreed to mediate these two cases to be dealt with in the first half of 2016, the ECHR president concluded.
The European Union is currently struggling to manage a massive refugee crisis, with hundreds of thousands of people fleeing conflict-torn countries. Migrants from the Middle East and North Africa are transiting to prosperous EU countries, with some of them refusing to leave for various personal reasons.
