M.S.S. v. BELGIUM AND GREECE JUDGMENT 83 VII. APPLICATION OF ARTICLES 46 AND 41 OF THE CONVENTION A. Article 46 of the Convention 398. Article 46 of the Convention provides: “1. The High Contracting Parties undertake to abide by the final judgment of the Court in any case to which they are parties. 2. The final judgment of the Court shall be transmitted to the Committee of Ministers, which shall supervise its execution.” 399. Under Article 46 of the Convention, the High Contracting Parties undertake to abide by the final judgment of the Court in the cases to which they are parties, the Committee of Ministers being responsible for supervising the execution of the judgments. This means that when the Court finds a violation the respondent State is legally bound not only to pay the interested parties the sums awarded in just satisfaction under Article 41, but also to adopt the necessary general and/or, where applicable, individual measures. As the Court’s judgments are essentially declaratory in nature, it is primarily for the State concerned to choose, subject to supervision by the Committee of Ministers, the means to be used in order to discharge its legal obligation under Article 46 of the Convention, provided that those means are compatible with the conclusions contained in the Court’s judgment. In certain particular situations, however, the Court may find it useful to indicate to the respondent State the type of measures that might be taken in order to put an end to the – often systemic – situation that gave rise to the finding of a violation (see, for example, Öcalan v. Turkey [GC], no. 46221/99, § 210, ECHR 2005-IV, and Popov v. Russia, no. 26853/04, § 263, 13 July 2006). Sometimes the nature of the violation found may be such as to leave no real choice as to the measures required to remedy it (see Assanidze v. Georgia [GC], no. 71503/01, § 198, ECHR 2004-II, and Verein gegen Tierfabriken Schweiz (VgT) v. Switzerland (no. 2) [GC], no. 32772/02, §§ 85 and 88, ECHR 2009). 400. In the instant case, the Court considers it necessary to indicate some individual measures required for the execution of the present judgment in respect of the applicant, without prejudice to the general measures required to prevent other similar violations in the future (see, mutatis mutandis, Broniowski v. Poland [GC], no. 31443/96, § 193, ECHR 2004-V). 401. The Court has found a violation by Greece of Article 3 of the Convention because of the applicant’s living conditions in Greece combined with the prolonged uncertainty in which he lived and the lack of any

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