Collisions and Illusions amid the Convention and the Constitution: What Does Underlie the Russian Constitutional Court’s Objection to the European Court of Human Rights?

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In its Judgment of April 19, 2016 No.12-P the Russian Constitutional Court puts forward and justifies the  “objection” towards the European Court of Human Rights relying on certain conditions of the admissibility of the ECtHR’s judgments and interpretation of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. The present article reflects the results of the  research on the issue what constitutes the basis of this “objection”. It is argued in the article that the Constitutional Court’s line of arguments creates only an illusion of evaluating the possibility of interpretation of the Article 32(3) of the Constitution of the Russian Federation in consistency with the ECtHR’s approach. As well it illustrates that the Constitutional Court’s use of  the factor of circumstances and conditions of Russia’s accession to the European Convention has certain deficiencies in reasoning from the standpoint of law and facts. Additionally, the article identifies the problems on the Constitutional Court approach to the European consensus concept. On the basis of the analysis of the content of the “objection” towards the ECtHR, the author makes a conclusion that it lacks uncertainty on  the criteria of the ECtHR’s case-law implementation in the context of the Russian legal system.

About the author: Dmitry Krasikov – Candidate of Legal Science; Associate Professor, Head of European and Comparative Law Department, Saratov State Law Academy.

Citation: Krasikov D. (2016) Konventsionno-konstitutsionnуe kollizii i illyuzii: chto lezhit v osnove vozrazheniya Konstitutsionnogo Suda Rossii v adres Evropeyskogo Suda po pravam cheloveka? [Collisions and illusions amid the Convention and the Constitution: what does underlie the Russian Constitutional Court’s objection to the European Court of Human Rights?]. Mezhdunarodnoe pravosudie, no.3, pp.101–117. (In Russian).

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