Academic literature on the topic 'ECtHR caselaw'

This paper addresses whether the European Union’s accession to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is still possible and desirable considering Opinion 2/13, as well as the caselaw of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) on the application of the Dublin Regulation. It argues that accession is still possible, though negotiations of an accession agreement compliant with the conditions imposed by Opinion 2/13 may prove particularly difficult in practice. Additionally, it argues that accession is desirable if the principle of mutual trust is not upheld over human rights, since accession in these conditions would enhance human rights protection in the context of the application of the Dublin Regulation.

This article analyses the protection of suspects’ rights within the relatively new sphere of EU criminal justice. It evaluates both EU and ECHR protections through the lens of comparative criminal justice, emphasizing the importance of understanding the ways that safeguards for suspects operate in practice across different jurisdictions. By linking together analysis of ECHR fair trial guarantees, EU measures to strengthen police and judicial cooperation, and comparative insights into the function of the defense lawyer, it brings a new perspective to the discussion of how best to protect suspects subject to EU cooperation measures. It challenges the effectiveness of mutual trust and recognition, which is the principle underpinning EU criminal justice cooperation, and which assumes ECHR compliance across Member States. In addition to uneven compliance and enforcement, ECHR protections lack the detail and prescriptive qualities required to protect adequately suspects subject to new EU measures for extradition and evidence sharing. Differences in criminal procedural tradition have made difficult any agreement on universal safeguards for suspects at the EU level, but the EU's new incremental approach to defense rights through the Roadmap and recent ECtHR caselaw have altered the legal landscape, giving cause for optimism.

The hypothesis of the article is that advisory opinions of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) under Protocol No. 16 to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), although non-legally binding on the requesting court or tribunal, legally affect States, including those which have not ratified the Protocol. This will be demonstrated here conceptualizing the notion of ‘vertical’ non-binding effect of advisory opinions (i.e., that effect, regarding the requesting court or tribunal, under Article 5 of Protocol No. 16 which states that ‘Advisory opinions shall not be binding’) and the notion of their ‘horizontal’ legal effect (i.e., that ‘undeniable legal effect’ which comes from the fact that advisory opinions are ‘valid case-law’ which the ECtHR ‘would follow when ruling on potential subsequent individual application’). From a wider perspective of constitutional law, it will be then argued here that the producing of the aforementioned ‘horizontal’ effect constitutes a good reason for States to ratify Protocol No. 16 in light of judicial dialogue: non-ratifying States would be affected by them but at the same time there would be no opportunity for their highest courts or tribunals to contribute in creating that case-law via judicial dialogue (i.e., by requesting advisory opinions). Protocol No. 16, European Convention on Human Rights, ratification, advisory opinions, European Court of Human Rights, legally non-binding effect, requiring courts, caselaw, constitutional law, Constitutional Courts, judicial dialogue

AbstractThe European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) plays a unique and central role in upholding human rights in Europe, but in recent years has experienced a huge increase in its workload. The exponential growth in the number of individual applications has and continue to pose a serious threat for the effectiveness of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) system and it can be argued that it is the biggest challenge the ECtHR has been faced with in its history. Despite the substantial increase in its productivity and its output in general, the caseload continues to rise considerably, putting the effectiveness and credibility of the ECHR system in serious danger. Even with the reform of Protocol No. 11 that the ECtHR went through in 1998, its caseload had continued to rise sharply. The need for a second major reform was stressed only a few years after the drastic reform of 1998. There have been various efforts to make the ECtHR more effective and accessible, which have led to the 2004 "reform package" of measures that address the issue of ECtHR's excessive case-load, including Protocol No. 14 to the ECHR. This article provides analysis and critical evaluation of the ongoing efforts to reform the ECtHR in order to guarantee its long-term effectiveness.

Resumen:A pesar de las reticencias de los Estados Partes del CEDH de ceder verdaderas porciones de soberanía, o por mejor decir, de ius puniendi estatales, al Consejo de Europa, de la problemática de la ejecución de las sentencias del TEDH al estar en manos del Comité de Ministros, un órgano político, intergubernamental y no jurisdiccional , disociándose así las funciones de juzgar y hacer ejecutar lo juzgado, al carecer el TEDH de facultades anulatorias o revocatorias de las resoluciones y actuaciones internas vulneradoras de derechos recogidos en el Convenio, y de la inexistencia de un catálogo de derechos fundamentales penitenciarios, recogidos por un lado en instrumentos internacionales de ius cogens, es decir, imperativos, y por otro, en Resoluciones y Recomendaciones meramente programáticas, carentes de fuerza obligatoria (vgr. Reglas Penitenciarias Europeas), hemos de reconocer que el TEDH ha venido cumpliendo dignamente el mandato de protección de los derechos y libertades contenidos en el Convenio, y muy especialmente respecto de los derechos de las personas privadas de libertad, y por ende, de los reclusos. Del análisis de la profusa jurisprudencia del TEDH se infiere que las garantías normativas de los presos consagradas en el CEDH, para no ser teóricas e ilusorias, sino reales y efectivas, han tenido que ser ampliadas, perfiladas y completadas por una serie de garantías jurisdiccionales, a través de un sistema o mecanismo jurisdiccional pretoriano, que debemos calificar de verdadera obra pretoriana del TEDH, y que fue cristalizándose o codificándose en los diversos Protocolos modificativos. Se convendrá, pues, fácilmente, que el grado de protección de los derechos humanos logrado en el ámbito del Consejo de Europa no tiene parangón en relación con otros sistemas universales o regionales nacidos con el mismo cometido, al albur de los procesos de humanización de los sistemas penitenciarios y de internacionalización de los derechos humanos, que tienen lugar a partir de la Segunda Guerra Mundial.Summary:1. Introduction. 2. Judicial protection of human rights and its internationalisationprocess: ECHR. 2.1. The execution of the ECHR issue. 3. Analysis of the inmates’ rights in the ECHR caselaw. 3.1. The ECHR caselaw regarding inmates in spain. 3.2. Excursus on the parot doctrine. 3.3. ECHR caselaw regarding inmates out of spain. 4. Final remarks.Abstract:Despite the reluctance of the State Parties of the ECHR to cede actual portions of their sovereignty or, more specifically, of their state ius punendi in favour of the Council of Europe; the issue of the ECHR sentences execution (given to the fact that this is carried out by the Committee of Ministers, a political, intergovernmental and non-judicial organ, dissociating then the tasks of judging and executing what has been judge); the lack of revocation powers by the ECHR regarding the resolutions and internal decisions relating to the violations of the Convention; the lack of an inventory of the fundamental rights included in ius cogens (i.e. imperative) international tools, and the only pragmatic non-compulsory Resolutions and Recommendations (e.g. European Prison Rules), wemust admit that the ECHR has been worthily fulfilling its mandate of protecting the rights and freedoms contained in the Convention and, specially, regarding the rights of those deprived of liberty and consequently, of the inmates.The analysis of the extensive ECHR caselaw infers that the safeguards of the rights of inmates enshrined in the European Council, in order to be real and effective, instead of theoretical or illusory, must have been extended, shaped and completed by a set of judiciary safeguards. This has been possible thanks to a Praetorian judiciary system which must be considered as a real Praetorian work by the ECHR and which has been the object of many amending Protocols. Thus, it can be easily concluded that the level of protection of the human rights achieved by the Council of Europe is unparalleled if compared with other universal or local systems similarly conceived as a result of the human right penitentiary and internationalisation systems developed after the Second World War.

With its judgment inLeyla Şahin v Turkey,1the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights has once again addressed the place of religion within the European Convention system. The Court considers two types of cases. The first focuses on individuals but has repercussions on the relationship between State and religious communities. The Court is much more individualistic in these cases, in that it focuses more on the individual and the protection of the rights and freedoms of others. The Court emphasizes values such as the prevention of indoctrination, neutrality, secularism and laïcité, especially in relation to Islam. The Court tries to promote and enforce a normative order of secularism but this has unfortunate consequences for religious freedom. The second deals with the compatibility of entire domestic regimes regulating religious affairs with the Convention, including questions of legal personality and registration, leadership and property ownership, positive obligations of the State towards the protection of religious communities against third parties, and freedom of religious choice. The aim is to promote tolerance, religious diversity, pluralism and a market place within religious beliefs. It will be shown that these two strands in the caselaw do not always sit happily together.

The increasing number of judgments delivered by the Strasbourg Court in cases of human rights violations stemming from a systemic problem in the domestic legal system of a contracting State (so called "structural violations") and the development of the caselaw on the obligation of States to adopt general measures under Article 46 ECHR to remove the causes of such violations (including by amending the relevant legislation) are reinforcing the idea of Court as a sort of pan-European constitutional jurisdiction entrusted with the mandate to safeguard the European public order. At the same time, the "collective" dimension of the protection mandate must always be balanced against the need to afford individual justice to the "victims, calling for a better coordination of the two concurring interests. The article focuses on how to ensure that structural violations of ECHR rights caused by defects of domestic legislation are dealt with in accordance to the principle of subsidiarity, which is at the core of the entire protection mechanism established by the Convention. After highlighting the role of subsidiarity in respect of this particular kind of violations, the author explores two possible alternative developments of the Strasbourg case-law which would contribute to strengthening the cooperation between domestic constitutional jurisdictions and the ECHR system in those States (like Italy) where individuals do not enjoy direct access to constitutional justice. Notably, the author suggests a reinterpretation of the rule of previous exhaustion of domestic remedies in order to allow national judges to assess in the first place whether a law is compatible with the ECHR; in the alternative, the Court should conclude for a violation of the right to an effective remedy under Article 13, imposing on the contracting State the obligation to provide forms of individual constitutional justice at the domestic level that would ensure the "subsidiary management" of structural violations and of the mass litigation arising thereout

AbstractIn the European context, an understanding that States are responsible for an effective child protection system is well established. Further, all 47 members of the CoE have adopted the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, and all European countries have ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Thus, States have come to understand their responsibility in terms of the child’s right to protection. The aim of this article is to explicate core elements of an effective child protection system within a child’s rights framework. This aim is accomplished by highlighting and providing analysis of the principles set forth in the CRC and further elaborated in General Comment No. 13 (2011) and by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the main components of policies and other relevant documents of the European Union (EU) and the Council of Europe (CoE), and caselaw from the European Court of Human Rights (ECrtHR) and then presenting recommendations for an effective State-run child protection system.

A pesar de las reticencias de los Estados Partes del CEDH de ceder verdaderas porciones de soberanía, o por mejor decir, de ius puniendi estatales, al Consejo de Europa, de la problemática de la ejecución de las sentencias del TEDH al estar en manos del Comité de Ministros, un órgano político, intergubernamental y no jurisdiccional, disociándose así las funciones de juzgar y hacer ejecutar lo juzgado, al carecer el TEDH de facultades anulatorias o revocatorias de las resoluciones y actuaciones internas vulneradoras de derechos recogidos en el Convenio, y de la inexistencia de un catálogo de derechos fundamentales penitenciarios, recogidos por un lado en instrumentos internacionales de ius cogens, es decir, imperativos, y por otro, en Resoluciones y Recomendaciones meramente programáticas, carentes de fuerza obligatoria (vgr. Reglas Penitenciarias Europeas), hemos de reconocer que el TEDH ha venido cumpliendo dignamente el mandato de protección de los derechos y libertades contenidos en el Convenio, y muy especialmente respecto de los derechos de las personas privadas de libertad, y por ende, de los reclusos. Del análisis de la profusa jurisprudencia del TEDH se infiere que las garantías normativas de los presos consagradas en el CEDH, para no ser teóricas e ilusorias, sino reales y efectivas, han tenido que ser ampliadas, perfiladas y completadas por una serie de garantías jurisdiccionales, a través de un sistema o mecanismo jurisdiccional pretoriano, que debemos calificar de verdadera obra pretoriana del TEDH, y que fue cristalizándose o codificándose en los diversos Protocolos modificativos. Se convendrá, pues, fácilmente, que el grado de protección de los derechos humanos logrado en el ámbito del Consejo de Europa no tiene parangón en relación con otros sistemas universales o regionales nacidos con el mismo cometido, al albur de los procesos de humanización de los sistemas penitenciarios y de internacionalización de los derechos humanos, que tienen lugar a partir de la Segunda Guerra Mundial.Despite the reluctance of the State Parties of the ECHR to cede actual portions of their sovereignty or, more specifically, of their state ius punendi in favour of the Council of Europe; the issue of the ECHR sentences execution (given to the fact that this is carried out by the Committee of Ministers, a political, intergovernmental and non-judicial organ, dissociating then the tasks of judging and executing what has been judge); the lack of revocation powers by the ECHR regarding the resolutions and internal decisions relating to the violations of the Convention; the lack of an inventory of the fundamental rights included in ius cogens (i.e. imperative) international tools, and the only pragmatic non-compulsory Resolutions and Recommendations (e.g. European Prison Rules), we must admit that the ECHR has been worthily fulfilling its mandate of protecting the rights and freedoms contained in the Convention and, specially, regarding the rights of those deprived of liberty and consequently, of the inmates. The analysis of the extensive ECHR caselaw infers that the safeguards of the rights of inmates enshrined in the European Council, in order to be real and effective, instead of theoretical or illusory, must have been extended, shaped and completed by a set of judiciary safeguards. This has been possible thanks to a Praetorian judiciary system which must be considered as a real Praetorian work by the ECHR and which has been the object of many amending Protocols. Thus, it can be easily concluded that the level of protection of the human rights achieved by the Council of Europe is unparalleled if compared with other universal or local systems similarly conceived as a result of the human right penitentiary and internationalisation systems developed after the Second World War.

This article studies the legal status and the performance of the Constitutional Court (hereinafter referred to as the CC). The experience of States with direct access to a body of constitutional jurisdiction enables to distinguish the CC's position in the system of State jurisdictions (with particular economic justification of its activity) and to substantiate its role in the mechanism of domestic remedies. The aim of the article is to reveal the CC's place in the mechanism of domestic remedies of States with centralized constitutional review and direct access to constitutional justice on the part of effective protection of the applicants’ rights and the state budget in the formation of judicial remedies. Methodology. The leading methods of the article are correlation, comparativelegal, dialectical and technical logic methods of research, etc. They enable to compare and contrast international standards in the field of legislation of different European States, to reveal the nature of constitutional and legal conflicts and specifics of the constitutional procedure for the CC’s cases. These problems are also investigated using the method of synthesis of financial justification of the activities of the bodies of constitutional jurisdiction and the effectiveness of the results of their activities in the protection of rights and freedoms of an individual and a citizen. This enables to formulate further development and suggestions for improving the legal regulation of the CC’s activities in the States that have recently begun to implement this instrument of protecting constitutional human rights and freedoms. The key results of the study. It is proven that the CC is a specific body that is the last at the national level to exercise exceptional special powers aimed at protecting human rights and fundamental freedoms. The role of the CC in the system of domestic remedies is revealed. The CC is an autonomous body of constitutional jurisdiction with a constitutional status, independent of the executive and legislative branches. It is substantiated that the CC is factually affiliated to the judicial authorities engaged in jurisdiction. It is proven that the CC's activities are characterized by judicial independence, combined with the powers of the CC judges to decide legal matters within its constitutional jurisdiction. Cases are judicial in nature, and the CC considers them on the rule of law. The decisions adopted shall be mandatory (binding) and shall not be altered by other branches of government. The main functions of the body of constitutional jurisdiction are distinguished into quasi-judicial, cognitive and evaluative, harmonizing. The consistent universal approach of the European Court of Human Rights (hereinafter referred to as ECHR) states that the notion of "court" does not necessarily mean classical jurisdiction, integrated into the judicial system of the state. Finally, the article proves the requirement of recognizing the CC as a “court established by law” essentially and functionally. Consistent approaches and criteria for defining the notion of "court established by law" formulated by the UN Committee on Human Rights and the ECHR's case-law prove that the CC can be identified as the last mandatory domestic remedy before applying to international judicial institutions, subject to the criterion of an effective remedy, formulated by the ECHR's caselaw during proceedings in the CC.

La tesi analizza la nozione di interpretazione evolutiva dapprima da un punto di vista teorico, e in un secondo momento calandola all'interno di due contesti giurisdizionali tra loro differenti (quello della Corte europea dei diritti dell'uomo e quello dell'Organizzazione mondiale del commercio) The dissertation analyses the concept of evolutive interpretation, at first from a theoretical point of view, and then situating it in two different jurisdictional contexts (those of the European Court of human rights and the World Trade Organization)

This chapter studies the transformation of the authority of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) since its genesis. It shows how the ECtHR, until the mid-to-late 1970s, struggled to maintain narrow legal authority. Both the Court’s caseload and civil society engagement changed fundamentally however throughout the late 1980s and the 1990s when the ECtHR gained intermediate and extensive authority in large parts of Europe. During this period, the Court became the de facto Supreme Court of human rights in Europe. Starting around 2000, the Court became increasingly overburdened. It was in the context that a number of member states launched a systematic critique of both the Court’s power over national law and politics and the quality of the Court’s judges and their judgments. This discontent climaxed with the 2012 Brighton Declaration, adopted by all forty-seven member states, which began an institutionalized process that aimed to limit the ECtHR’s power.

This chapter sums up the key findings of this study on the Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). It suggests that the principal achievement of the Convention has been the establishment of a formal system of legal protection available to individuals covering a range of civil and political rights which has become the European standard. The chapter highlights the measures taken by the Court to decrease its caseload and increase its efficiency in dealing with applications. It also highlights the contemporary challenges facing the Court, including the relationship between States and the Court, the challenge of the rise of authoritarian governments, and the threats to rights protection from the climate crisis.

The European Court of Human Rights is currently facing a challenge in dealing with numerous applications linked to the COVID-19 pandemic and the related restrictions aiming to protect human life and health, which, at the same time, limit some of the most important human rights and fundamental freedoms. Legal scholars have voiced different views as to the complexity of this task, invoking the previous case law on infectious diseases and on military emergencies to infer standards that would be transferrable to COVID-19-related cases, or the margin of appreciation of domestic authorities pertaining to health care policy as the approaches ECtHR could take in this respect. The present paper argues that the ECtHR would be well advised to resort to a more systemic integrated approach, which implies the need to consider obligations emanating from other health-related international instruments in setting the standards against which it will assess the limitations of human rights during the COVID-19 outbreak. Hence, the authors reflect on the potential contribution of the integrated approach to the proper response of the ECtHR in times of the pandemic. The review shows that both the ECtHR’s caselaw on the integrated approach, as well as its theoretical foundation leave enough room for a wide application by the ECtHR of the right to health, and likewise – soft law standards emanating from the various public health-related instruments, when adjudicating cases dealing with the alleged violations of human rights committed during the COVID-19 outbreak. Subsequently, the paper critically assesses to what extent the ECtHR has taken into account the right to health-related instruments in its previous case law on infectious diseases. This is followed by a review of the existing, albeit sparse, jurisprudence of the ECtHR in its ongoing litigations pertaining to restrictions provoked by COVID-19 pandemic, viewing them also in the context of the integrated approach. The analysis shows that ECtHR did not systemically utilize the integrated approach when addressing the right to health, even though it did seem to acknowledge its potential. The authors then go on to scrutinize the relevant health emergency standards stemming from international documents and to offer them as a specific guidance to the ECtHR regarding the scope of the right to health which will help in framing the analysis and debate about how the right to health is guaranteed in the context of COVID-19. Consequently, building on the proposed integrity approach, examined theoretical approaches, and standards on the right to health acknowledged in relevant supranational and international instruments, the authors formulate guidance on the path to be taken by the ECtHR.