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Unterscheiden sich die Methoden der Gesetzesauslegung in England und auf dem Kontinent tatsächlich fundamental voneinander? Stefan Vogenauer untersucht die Rechtsprechung deutscher, französischer und englischer Gerichte sowie des Gerichtshofs der Europäischen Gemeinschaften. Er stellt nicht nur die einzelnen Auslegungskriterien, sondern auch ihre Gewichtung im Konfliktfall dar. Dabei orientiert sich der Verfasser nicht an den Kategorien einer nationalen Methodenlehre, sondern an den konkreten Auslegungsproblemen, die sich in allen untersuchten Rechtsordnungen stellen. Wie reagieren die Gerichte etwa, wenn ein scheinbar eindeutiger Gesetzeswortlaut ein Ergebnis gebietet, das offenkundig im Gegensatz zum Normzweck steht? Wie gehen sie vor, wenn Billigkeitserwägungen ein Ergebnis fordern, das sich nicht mit den Vorstellungen der Gesetzesverfasser in Einklang bringen läßt? Wenden sie in bestimmten Rechtsgebieten besondere Regeln an? Das Ergebnis ist verblüffend: Tatsächlich besteht auf beiden Seiten des Kanals eine weitgehende Übereinstimmung in der Auslegungspraxis der Gerichte. Stefan Vogenauer zeichnet außerdem die historische Entwicklung der Interpretationsmethoden in England und auf dem Kontinent nach. Er fragt nach den verfassungsrechtlichen, rechtsphilosophischen und rechtstatsächlichen Faktoren, auf deren Grundlage sich die Auslegungsmethoden einer bestimmten Rechtsordnung in einer bestimmten Epoche herausbilden. Auf diese Weise zeigt er die engen Verbindungen zwischen der Vorgehensweise bei der Gesetzesauslegung und der allgemeinen Rechtskultur auf, die in herkömmlichen Darstellungen zur Methodenlehre gewöhnlich keine Beachtung finden.

This book provides a comparative analysis of how judgments from the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) affect political participation and electoral justice at the national level. Looking at specific countries, the work analyses the legal impact the implementation of the ECtHR and the IACtHR judgments has, with a specific focus on cases in which the regional court concerned uses the “democratic argument,” that is, an argument related to democracy and political rights. The reasoning is that, although democracy is a much wider concept, judgments concerning violations of political rights and electoral justice provide reliable indicators to assess the status and sustainability of democracy in a State. Moreover, the analysis of the violations of political rights and electoral justice allows an in-depth comparison between the two regional human rights systems. Mindful of the broader scope of the fall-out generated by the non-implementation of judgments, including in socio-economic terms, the book includes a section exploring how judgments issued by the ECtHR and the IACtHR affect voters'participation in the countries under their jurisdiction. To this end, an original dataset including the 47 Member States of the Council of Europe and the 20 countries which recognised the adjudicatory jurisdiction of the IACtHR is built. Multidisciplinary in aim and scope of analysis, the book will be an invaluable resource for researchers, academics, and policy-makers working in the areas of constitutional law, international human rights law, and political economy.

The book analyses the position of the ECtHR which has been more and more confronted with criticism coming from the national sphere, including the judiciary. This culminated in constitutional court judgments declaring a particular ECtHR judgment non-executable, for reasons of constitutional law. Existing scholarship does not differentiate enough between cases of mere political unwillingness to execute an ECtHR judgment and cases where execution is blocked for legal reasons (mainly of constitutional law nature). At the same time, the discussion under EU law on national/constitutional identity limiting the reach of the former has been only loosely linked with the ECHR context. This book presents a new dogmatic concept -'principled resistance'- to analyse such cases. Taking up examples from the national level, it strives to find out whether the legal reasoning behind'principled resistance'shows enough commonalities in order to qualify such incidents as expression of a'new paradigm'.

Delays in implementing the Court's judgments, lack of political will in certain states parties, attempts to discredit the Court… In ratifying the European Convention on Human Rights, the signatory states accept the Court's jurisdiction and authority and “undertake to abide by the final judgment of the Court in any case to which they are parties” (Article 46 of the Convention). While certain member states have made real progress in implementing the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights, some others face serious structural and political problems forming real “pockets of resistance” that delay or prevent the execution of judgments. The Committee of Ministers is still supervising the execution of some 10 000 judgments, although they are not all at the same stage of implementation. This publication highlights the difficulties in implementing certain judgments encountered in the 10 countries which have the highest number of non-implemented judgments against them (Italy, the Russian Federation, Turkey, Ukraine, Romania, Hungary, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Moldova and Poland). It also analyses judgments whose execution raises complex political issues.

The European system of human rights protection faces institutional and political pressures which threaten its very survival. These institional pressures stem from the backlog of applications before the European Court of Human Rights, the large number of its judgments that remain unimplemented, and the political pressures that arise from sustained attacks on the Court's legitimacy and authority, notably from politicians and jurists in the United Kingdom. This book addresses the theme which lies at the heart of these pressures: the role of national parliaments in the implementation of judgments of the Court. It combines theoretical and empirical insights into the role of parliaments in securing domestic compliance with the Court's decisions, and provides detailed investigation of five European states with differing records of human rights compliance and parliamentary mobilisation: Ukraine, Romania, the United Kingdom, Germany, and the Netherlands. How far are parliaments engaged in implementation, and how far should they be? Do parliaments advance or hinder human rights compliance? Is it ever justifiable for parliaments to defy judgments of the Court? And how significant is the role played by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe? Drawing on the fields of international law, international relations, political science, and political philosophy, the book argues that adverse human rights judgments not only confer obligations on parliamentarians but also create opportunities for them to develop influential interpretations of human rights and enhance their own democratic legitimacy. It makes an authoritative contribution to debate about the future of the European and other supranational human rights mechanisms and the broader relationship between democracy, human rights, and legitimate authority.

Der Europäische Gerichtshofs für Menschenrechte (EGMR) wendet das Piloturteilsverfahren an, um bei einem strukturellen Problem in der Rechtsordnung eines Mitgliedstaates das Auftreten massenhafter Parallelverfahren durch die Anordnung von Abhilfemaßnahmen mit Wirkung über den Einzelfall zu verhindern. Obwohl das Verfahren inzwischen fester Bestandteil der Straßburger Spruchpraxis ist, stellt die Loslösung von der Einzelfallbetrachtung ein Novum im Konventionssystem dar, das eine Reihe ungelöster Rechtsfragen aufwirft. Die ersten beiden Teile der Arbeit beschreiben daher den rechtspolitischen Hintergrund, die Entwicklung und Charakteristika des Verfahrens. Der dritte Teil setzt sich mit der Kompetenz des EGMR zur Anordnung von Abhilfemaßnahmen mit Wirkung über den Einzelfall auseinander. Unter Berücksichtigung ausgewählter Staatenpraxis wird ferner die Verbindlichkeit der Anordnungen in den Piloturteilen untersucht. Der vierte und letzte Teil zeigt, welche Rückschlüsse sich aus der Analyse des Piloturteilsverfahrens auf die generelle Verbindlichkeit der Auslegungsentscheidungen des EGMR und ihre Bedeutung im europäischen Grundrechtssystem ziehen lassen.

How effective is the European Court of Human Rights in dispensing justice? With over 17,000 judgments handed down, it is undoubtedly the most prolific international court but is it the most efficient when compensating the victims of a violation? This crucial but often overlooked question is the focus of this important new monograph which gives a clear, comprehensive and convincing demonstration of the negative impact, in terms of unpredictability and legal uncertainty, of the discretion used by the Court when it comes to the regime of reparation. It reveals the adverse influence of such a high discretion on the quality of its rulings - ultimately on the coherence of the system and on the Court's authority, and makes suggestions for improvement.

Headline Domestic implementation of European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) judgments, and their impact upon national laws, policies and institutions. Blurb Since the turn of the millenium, the European Court of Human Rights has been the transnational setting for a European-wide ‘rights revolution'. An unprecedented expansion of its case load, along with arguably high levels of compliance with its judgments, testify to its growing authority and perceived effectiveness, akin to Europe's constitutional court in human rights matters. Despite its significance as such, the effects of judgments on national laws, policies and institutions have been little explored. By adopting an inter-disciplinary perspective, this volume seeks to fill a gap, going beyond the existing, mainly legal and descriptive scholarship. Some of the pertinent questions it asks are: Do national authorities implement Court judgments and what is their impact on national laws, policies and practices? How and why do different and less privileged social actors mobilise the human rights norms contained in the Convention and in the Court's case law? Does this case law influence rights-expansive policy reform? More broadly, the book aims to contribute to a flourishing scholarship on human rights, courts and legal processes, and their consequences for national politics. Key Features: INTERDISCIPLINARY †“ Adopts an interdisciplinary approach from law, politics and sociology that goes beyond the mainly legal genre of scholarship on the subject; sheds light to the multifaceted ways in which the ECHR system and its Strasbourg-based judicial arm penetrate and interact with national legal and political orders NATIONAL PERSPECTIVE †“ Covers eight country-based case studies on state implementation and domestic impact of the ECtHR judgements in a wide array of case law ranging from property legislation, fair trial and other aspects of the judicial system, to the protection of civil liberties such as family or private life and religious freedom, among others FOCUS ON DISADVANTAGED SOCIAL ACTORS †“ Explores how and why various disadvantaged or vulnerable social actors take recourse to the ECtHR to pursue different rights claims vis-à -vis states, and the extent and conditions under which the respective judgments influence rights-expansive legal and policy reform domestically INSTITUTIONAL IMPLEMENTATION AND SOCIAL MOBILISATION †“ Combines a top-down perspective of the official institutions and actors involved in the national implementation of the ECtHR's judgements, with an interest in the bottom-up processes of mobilisation of Convention rights in the ECtHR by a variety of individual and social actors in pursuit of policy and political-social change ANALYTIC AND NOT MERELY DESCRIPTIVE †“ Does not merely describe the configuration of national-level structures and actors responsible for the implementation of the ECtHR's case law and measures adopted by authorities in response to adverse judgments; it furthermore probes into the variable responses of national authorities to different kinds of judgments and rights issues and seeks to identify and analyse the factors and conditions that influence variable patterns of domestic implementation and legal or policy reform. Keywords Human rights; legal mobilisation; courts and politics; European integration; European Convention of Human Rights; minorities