“Complying with court rulings is essential to the rule of law. Over the years, our member states have made consistent progress in putting the European Court’s judgments into practice, but the Court is now dealing with more and more cases of increasing complexity”. This was said by Marija Pejčinović Burić, Secretary General of the Council of Europe, to coincide with the publication of the latest annual report from the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers on the execution of ECHR judgments. “Across Europe, the human rights convention has progressively changed people’s lives for the better. In order for this positive impact to continue, our member states must demonstrate the political will to implement judgments fully and consistently”, she added. In 2022, 1,459 new cases were transferred by the European Court to the Committee of Ministers, which supervises their implementation by member states. A total of 880 cases were closed during the year, including 200 ‘leading’ cases “requiring specific and often wide-ranging measures by member states to prevent similar violations happening again”. Some 6,112 cases had yet to be fully implemented by the end of 2022, including 1,299 leading cases. By the end of 2022, 2,352 (38%) of the cases pending at the end of last year concerned the Russian Federation, which was excluded from the Council of Europe on 16 March 2022. Six months later, “Russia ceased being party to the European Convention on Human Rights but remains obliged, under international law, to implement rulings from the European Court”.