ILN, EHRAC, CPJ and CFJ submit a new Rule 9.2 communication to the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers in the Mammadli v. Azerbaijan group of cases

The Independent Lawyers Network e.V. (ILN), the European Human Rights Advocacy Centre (EHRAC), the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), and the Clooney Foundation for Justice (CFJ) have submitted a new Rule 9.2 communication to the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers concerning the execution of the European Court of Human Rights judgments in the Mammadli v. Azerbaijan group of cases (Application No. 47145/14).

The submission has been sent for consideration at the Committee of Ministers’ human rights meeting of 9–11 June 2026.

The submission draws the Committee of Ministers’ attention to the ongoing politically motivated criminal prosecutions in Azerbaijan in the context of the “Mammadli v. Azerbaijan” group of cases and highlights, in particular, the following issues:

• the devastating impact of the expansion of politically motivated criminal prosecutions since 2023, alongside government critics and human rights defenders, and the further expansion of these prosecutions, particularly since 2025;
• the tactics being employed by courts in Azerbaijan by reference to recent cases, to conceal the ‘misuse of criminal law’;
• the new use of transnational prosecutions as a retaliatory tactic.

In the Mammadli v. Azerbaijan group of cases, the European Court of Human Rights found violations of Articles 5 and 18 of the Convention. Committee of Ministers has since noted the “troubling pattern of arbitrary arrest and detention of government critics, civil society activists and human-rights defenders through retaliatory prosecutions and misuse of criminal law in defiance of the rule of law” in this group of cases. On this basis, the CM has indicated general measures seeking an end to “retaliatory prosecutions and misuse of criminal law against government critics” and stressing the need to “develop a solid and consistent judicial practice providing for a strong message of intolerance of similar abuses of the criminal justice system.”

The submission calls for:

• stronger diplomatic engagement by Council of Europe member States with the Azerbaijani authorities and closer monitoring of ongoing public trials;
• the Committee of Ministers to express serious concern over Azerbaijan’s continued lack of cooperation with the Committee of Ministers’ supervision process in the Mammadli v. Azerbaijan group of cases, as well as the continuing and expanding pattern of retaliatory prosecutions;
• consideration of further measures under the Convention system, including the possibility of proceedings under Articles 52 and 46 § 4 (infringement proceedings) of the Convention within the course of 2026.

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