THE PILOT-JUDGMENTS PROCEDURE UNDER SCRUTINY: ARE ITS EFFECTS ON THE EUROPEAN SYSTEM OF HUMAN RIGHTS PROTECTION TRANSFORMATIVE, BENEFICIAL OR PERVERSE?

The following paper focused on the pilot judgment procedure aims to evaluate the impact of this instrument on the European Convention on Human Rights system. First of all, this has required to identify the main characteristics of this procedure in its current form, taking into account that it has been created and developed by jurisprudence in the context of the ECHR reform process. This provided us an opportunity to observe that there is not a perfect correlation between the "systemic problem" in the pilot judgment procedure and the notion of "systemic deficiencies" used by the EU Court of Justice. Secondly, the effects of the pilot judgment procedure in the relations between the European Court of Human Rights with the applicants, with the respondent state and with the Committee of Ministers have been analysed. As a result, we are facing a certain transformative procedure, which is deploying some beneficial effects on the Convention system, but which also requires several adjustments in order to avoid its perverse effects.