The Katyń Massacre before the European Court of Human Rights: A Personal Account

The author of this article, the lead lawyer for the applicants in the case relating to the 1940 Katyń massacre (Janowiec and Others v. Russia), provides a personal account of the case that was heard twice by the European Court of Human Rights, first as a chamber of seven judges and then in its Grand Chamber formation. The case concerned the key question of whether the Strasbourg Court is competent to adjudicate on the effectiveness of a domestic investigation when the triggering act (killing) precedes the ratification date of the European Convention on Human Rights. For the first time in its entire history, the Strasbourg Court examined whether its competence could be based on the “need to ensure the respect for the Convention’s founding values”, one prong of the test elaborated in the Silih judgment in 2009. The critical assessment of the Grand Chamber’s Katyń judgment offered in this article is based on two considerations: what the Court omitted (the applicants’ arguments referring to the relevant international law practice) and what the Court finally elaborated as its understanding of the two tests establishing the Court’s competence ratione temporis (the “genuine connection” test and “Convention values” test).