scholarly journals Case-law of the European court of human rights and its value to administrative justice

2019 ◽  
pp. 17-20
Author(s):  
Kristina NIKONOROVA

More than twenty years have passed since Ukraine ratified the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms in 1997 and recognized the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). On September 16, 2014 the European Parliament ratified the Association Agreement with the EU synchronously with the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. European integration processes have once again begun to play a leading role in the implementation of legal reform in Ukraine aimed at introducing the fundamental provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). First and foremost, the implementation of the rule of law principle based on the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights. In connection with this starting point, the ECtHR's case-law is considered to be a source of law, in particular in administrative proceedings. The main findings are based on the fact that the ECtHR's practice is inextricably linked to the Convention, which the ECtHR interprets in its decisions when dealing with specific cases. Some attention has been paid to the analysis of the provisions of the Law of Ukraine “On the enforcement of decisions and the application of the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights”. Article 17 of this Law provides for the courts using the ECHR and practicing the case-law of the ECtHR's as a source of law. Article 18 of the aforementioned Law defines the order of reference in national courts’ decisions to the ECHR and ECtHR's practice. It is emphasized that according to Article 1 of the above Law, it is necessary to talk about the ECtHR’s practice in a broad aspect, and not only about decisions regarding Ukraine. It is revealed that the main discussion is on the precedental nature of ECtHR’s decisions. As scientists understand the precedental nature of EctHR’s decisions, this question has taken the appropriate place in the study. As a result, it is concluded that the practice of the ECtHR has a precedent form the content of which is based on the legal position of the official interpretation of the provisions of the ECHR. It is in this form that it is appropriate to apply the case-law of the ECtHR's in the area of administrative justice.

Author(s):  
VLADIMÍRA PEJCHALOVÁ GRÜNWALDOVÁ

AbstractThis article deals with the implementation, at the national level, of European human rights protection standards as enshrined in theEuropean Convention on Human Rights(ECHR) and interpreted by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). It discusses the principles of interpretation of theECHRby the ECtHR, the interaction and mutual dialogue between the ECtHR and national courts, and the approach of the latter to interpretation and application of the case law of the ECtHR. Using the concrete examples of France and the Czech Republic as case studies, it is shown to what extent and how European constitutional courts take into account and apply the letter of the Convention and its interpretation by the ECtHR.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 331-342
Author(s):  
Therese Karlsson Niska

Abstract The purpose of the article is to analyse if bringing a case before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) could be impactful in forcing greater climate change action. Part of this analysis is built upon the review of two climate change cases brought before national courts, since they have different outcomes even though both use the fundamental human rights of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) as their legal bases. The cases are the Urgenda Foundation v. Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Union of Swiss Senior Women for Climate Protection v. Swiss Federal Council and Others. The Urgenda case establishes a link between the rights in article 2 and 8 ECHR, and climate change, which creates a positive obligation for a state to protect these rights by acting to combat climate change. The Swiss Climate Protection case, however, is dismissed. Both cases highlight some of the challenges regarding climate change in relation to the fundamental human rights of the ECHR. Judgments by the ECtHR are final, and the formally and informally binding nature of case law from the court is argued to indicate the possibility of a powerful tool in relation to climate change action since 47 states will be affected by the court’s decisions. However, if a case brought before the ECtHR has an unfavourable outcome in relation to forcing greater governmental action in combating climate change, this may also have greater consequences than such an outcome of a domestic challenge, since it will set a minimum standard of care, or completely exclude climate change in relation to human rights. The article argues that it should be considered worth the identified risks to bring a claim before the ECtHR even though it is uncertain if the evolving nature of the charter is ready to establish obligations in relation to climate change, due to the unprecedented and severe threat that climate change constitutes.


2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 393-414
Author(s):  
José M. Cortés-Martín

Abstract It is likely that the European Court of Justice’s (ECJ) objection in Opinion 2/13 regarding the absence of judicial remedies in certain Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) areas can hardly be accommodated in a future revised Accession Project to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). This is basically due to obstacles to proceeding with reform of the EU Treaties or establishing an ECHR reservation clause. However, as a matter of fact, the exact dimension of this problem seems to be quite relative. First of all, this is because recent ECJ case-law is gradually eroding the Court’s lack of competence, in particular, after Rosneft. Next, this is because, in those cases where there is still an absence of effective judicial protection, national courts – as EU ordinary courts – could fill this gap. Finally, this gap could also be filled by creating accountability mechanisms in the area of human rights within the framework of Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) missions.


2013 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
pp. 289-300 ◽  
Author(s):  
EIRIK BJORGE

AbstractThe way in which the courts in the United Kingdom have interpreted and applied the Ullah principle has created problems in the national application of the European Convention on Human Rights. As is evident particularly in Ambrose, this is partly because Lord Bingham's approach in Ullah has been misunderstood. The article analyses these issues in relation to the notion of binding precedent, finding that judicial authority belongs to principles. The national courts ought not, though that is what the Ullah–Ambrose approach enjoins, to expend their energies seeking to align the case before them with the least dissimilar of the reported cases. Rather they should stand back from the case law of the European Court, and apply the broad principles upon which the jurisprudence is founded.


2021 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 144-163
Author(s):  
Jean-Baptiste Bukuru

The article considers the recent case-law of the European Court of Human Rights in cases related to the use of the achievements of biomedicine in the light of the implementation of human rights and freedoms provided for by the European Convention on Human Rights and its additional protocols. In fact, the author pays special attention to the case of Boljević v. Serbia , in which the applicant, a Serbian citizen, alleged that his right to respect for private and family life had been violated as a result of the refusal of the Serbian national courts to reopen paternity proceedings, in which the applicant intended to prove, through DNA testing, that Mr. A was his biological father. It has to be mentioned that in this case in the 1970s the Serbian national courts issued final decision according to which Mr. A was not recognized as the applicant's biological father, and the applicant indicated that at that time it was impossible to carry out DNA test and he did not know about the existence of such decision (during the proceedings, the applicant was represented by a lawyer appointed by local authorities, since he was a minor), and that now there is such a possibility. In this connection, the applicant argued that the denial to satisfy his claims on procedural basis by the domestic courts violated his right to family and private life. The ECtHR ruled that Art. 8 of the Convention has been violated. In that case, the issues of compliance with a balance of private and public interests were dealt with (the interests of the applicant to establish his biological father identity and the interests of the state in maintaining legal certainty).


2002 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Riley

In September 2000 the European Commission published its long-awaited proposed replacement for Regulation 17, the Proposal for a Council Regulation on the Implementation of the Rules on Competition laid down in Articles 81 and 82 of the Treaty (hereafter the draft regulation).1 The debate on the draft regulation has focused on the abolition of the notification system, the role of the national courts, and the role of the national competition authorities (hereafter the NCAs). However, there is one significant overlooked issue, namely the extent to which the investigation provisions of the draft regulation comply with the case law of the European Court of Human Rights (hereafter ECtHR).2 Given the paucity of the ECtHR's case law in 1961 it is understandable that the implications of the European Convention of Human Rights (hereafter ECHR) for the investigative provisions of what was to become Regulation 17 were not at that time given any great consideration by the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers. However, there is now an extensive human rights case law, developed by the Strasbourg authorities which, it is argued, casts a major shadow over the Commission's existing and proposed investigative powers. It is further argued that the case law of the European Court of Justice (hereafter ECJ) and the Court of First Instance (hereafter CFI) in respect of fundamental rights as general principles of law, does not provide an equivalent standard of protection to that offered by the ECtHR.


2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 223-231

The administration of justice on the basis of a fair trial is not an easy task, as both parties to the dispute are usually certain of their rightness, which they are trying to prove to the court. If one of these parties is a state or its bodies, the judiciary can become a dangerous tool to influence any process in society. Specific cases against Ukraine show that high-ranking officials of all periods of power did not neglect the possibility of influencing the outcome of the case, pursuing goals not related to the administration of justice. The influence of the European Convention and the case law of the European Court of Human Rights has become decisive for Ukraine in the formation of a separate procedure for the administration of justice: administrative proceedings. Some aspects of its functioning are investigated in this work, in particular, the preconditions for the differentiation of administrative proceedings in Ukraine, the problem of defining the concept of the authorities and the state as a party to the case, the implementation of the right to a fair trial in administrative proceedings, access to court and the principle of the equality of parties; oral and open administrative proceedings; adversarial proceedings and the right of the court to establish the circumstances of the administrative case. Keywords: administrative proceedings; the right to a fair trial; access to court; the principle of equality of parties; oral and open administrative proceedings; the right of the court to establish the circumstances of the administrative case.


Author(s):  
Анатолий Ковлер ◽  
Anatoliy Kovler

International standards of a fair trial were created by centuries of judicial practice and are stipulated by the international and regional pacts and conventions, as well as by the reports and opinions of the Venice Commission. The case-law of the European Court of Human Rights concerning complains against violations of a right to a fair trial are also of a great importance from the point of view of an implementation by the national courts of the European Convention on Human Rights. The European Convention on Human Rights in its Article 6 “Right to a fair trial” — a “core” article of the Convention, provides such standards of a fair trial as a public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial court established by law, judgment must be pronounced publicly. Besides these standards the Convention suggests some procedural guarantees of a fair trial everyone must be informed promptly of the nature of an accusation against him, he has a right to defend himself of though legal assistance ant to examine witnesses, etc. The case-law of the European Court on Human Rights shows that practically all European countries, including Russia, have problems with the implementation of the Convention’s standards into the practice of justice. That is why the Article 6 remains the most “suggested” complain of the applicants.


2014 ◽  
pp. 33-48
Author(s):  
Przemysław Florjanowicz-Błachut

The core function of the judiciary is the administration of justice through delivering judgments and other decisions. The crucial role for its acceptance and legitimization by not only lawyers, but also individulas (parties) and the hole society plays judicial reasoning. It should reflect on judge’s independence within the exercise of his office and show also judicial self-restraint or activism. The axiology and the standards of proper judicial reasoning are anchored both in constitutional and supranational law and case-law. Polish Constitutional Tribunal derives a duty to give reasoning from the right to a fair trial – right to be heard and bring own submissions before the court (Article 45 § 1 of the Constitution), the right to appeal against judgments and decisions made at first stage (Article 78), the rule of two stages of the court proceedings (Article 176) and rule of law clause (Article 2), that comprises inter alia right to due process of law and the rule of legitimate expactation / the protection of trust (Vertrauensschutz). European Court of Human Rights derives this duty to give reasons from the guarantees of the right to a fair trial enshrined in Article 6 § 1 of European Convention of Human Rights. In its case-law the ECtHR, taking into account the margin of appreciation concept, formulated a number of positive and negative requirements, that should be met in case of proper reasoning. The obligation for courts to give sufficient reasons for their decisions is also anchored in European Union law. European Court of Justice derives this duty from the right to fair trial enshrined in Articles 6 and 13 of the ECHR and Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. Standards of the courts reasoning developed by Polish constitutional court an the European courts (ECJ and ECtHR) are in fact convergent and coherent. National judges should take them into consideration in every case, to legitimize its outcome and enhance justice delivery.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Léon E Dijkman

Abstract Germany is one of few jurisdictions with a bifurcated patent system, under which infringement and validity of a patent are established in separate proceedings. Because validity proceedings normally take longer to conclude, it can occur that remedies for infringement are imposed before a decision on the patent’s validity is available. This phenomenon is colloquially known as the ‘injunction gap’ and has been the subject of increasing criticism over the past years. In this article, I examine the injunction gap from the perspective of the right to a fair trial enshrined in Art. 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights. I find that the case law of the European Court of Human Rights interpreting this provision supports criticism of the injunction gap, because imposing infringement remedies with potentially far-reaching consequences before the validity of a patent has been established by a court of law arguably violates defendants’ right to be heard. Such reliance on the patent office’s grant decision is no longer warranted in the light of contemporary invalidation rates. I conclude that the proliferation of the injunction gap should be curbed by an approach to a stay of proceedings which is in line with the test for stays as formulated by Germany’s Federal Supreme Court. Under this test, courts should stay infringement proceedings until the Federal Patent Court or the EPO’s Board of Appeal have ruled on the validity of a patent whenever it is more likely than not that it will be invalidated.


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