Finland Times

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) issued seven rulings last year that affect Finland.

Five of those rulings found that human rights had been violated in the country.

The negative rulings in three of those cases involved articles of the European Convention on Human Rights, according to which a suspect cannot be punished twice for the same crime.

In practice, this means that, for example, both imprisonment and compensation to the tax authorities for a tax offence cannot be sentenced.

Sweden received six rulings from the ECHR last year. Four cases involved human rights and two were settled.

The ECHR ruled 116 times against Russia last year. Of those rulings, 109 involved at least one violation of human rights.

A person may appeal to the ECHR if he or she feels that a public authority has violated his or her human rights.

A prerequisite for this appeal, though, is that all domestic avenues have been exhausted.