V. CASELOAD OF THE CHAMBER

During the year 1,803 applications were registered which brought the total number of applications registered at the Chamber to 8,481 by the end of 2001. On average, then, the Chamber received more than 150 applications alleging human rights violations every month during 2001. Through the end of 2001, the Chamber has issued a total of 1,031 decisions resolving about 1,280 applications. (One decision may resolve more than one individual application, as the Chamber has the discretion to join cases if appropriate). That left about 7,200 applications pending before the Chamber by the end of 2001. At the beginning of 2002, the number of applications received rose dramatically. In the first 4 months, 1,909 applications were registered for an average of 477 each month.

In 2001, the Chamber held a total of 11 plenary sessions and 11 sessions of each of its two panels in Sarajevo (no session is held during August). During its sessions, the Chamber considers the cases before it, both in private deliberations and public hearings. A total of 358 final and binding decisions were issued at these sessions in 2001 which included decisions on admissibility, merits, strike-outs, requests for review and decisions on review resolving around 400 individual applications. On average, then, the Chamber adopted and/or delivered about 35 decisions at each of its sessions.

Decisions on admissibility and merits and decisions on review are publicly delivered each month after they are adopted (parts of the decisions are read out at a public hearing) while all other types of decisions are adopted, but not publicly delivered. Among the 358 decisions issued in 2001, 31 were decisions on admissibility and merits and 3 decisions on review. The decisions on admissibility and merits concerned issues including property matters, employment discrimination, length of proceedings, non-enforcement of court decisions, fair trial, expropriation, missing persons, ill-treatment in detention and religious discrimination. In addition to adopting and delivering decisions each session, the judges also deliberated on hundreds of other cases in various stages of procedure throughout the year. Hundreds of requests for provisional measures were also considered.

The Chamber held 7 public hearings in 2001 during which testimony was heard and evidence received in 8 cases pending before the Chamber involving a total of almost 100 applicants. The issues concerned property rights, fair trial, ill-treatment in custody, private and family life, discrimination, and peaceful enjoyment of possessions encompassing agricultural land, apartments and shares of a company. As of April 2002, the Chamber had issued decisions in all of the cases in which there had been a public hearing.

The chart below illustrates the increase in applications received and decisions taken over a period of 6 years. Annex E attached to this Report provides a statistical summary of the types and numbers of decisions taken by the Chamber through 2001.