Still Waiting to Get Paid?

In the cases we handle, waiting is rarely accidental. Public bodies delay payment because the incentives to do so are strong: budgets are political, enforcement is slow, and creditors eventually settle for less rather than fight for years. From the outside, it looks like administrative friction. Inside a company, it is cash-flow damage — sometimes fatal.

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled repeatedly that indefinite waiting is not neutral. In cases against multiple Council of Europe States, the Court has found that a delay of more than one year after a final ruling in a creditor's favour begins to raise Article 6 § 1 concerns. Past three years, it becomes systematic. The Court has been explicit: a State cannot excuse non-payment by pointing to its own budgetary difficulties.

For creditors, this line of case law reframes the problem. What looks like patience is, legally, a violation being tolerated. Once the domestic system has exhausted its remedies, the Convention route is available — and the State is on notice from the moment the application is filed. In many of the cases we've handled, payment has arrived before the Court itself has ruled. That is not luck. That is the incentive structure of Strasbourg.

If your organisation is inside a multi-year wait, do not assume time is on your side. It is on the State's side. The path to move the file is through the Court that treats non-enforcement as the breach it is.