Relations of legal orders and hierarchy of international and national norms: new issues and solutions in the Russian Constitutional Court’s case-law

Available in Russian


Author: Maria Filatova

Keywords: counter-limits doctrine; enforcement of the European Court of Human Rights decisions; law of the Eurasian Economic Union; relationship of constitutional and supranational norms

Abstract

Modern development of legal systems and their interaction raises new issues of both theoretical and practical nature. The participation of Russia in different integration units makes the Russian law enforcement bodies face new challenges, the attempts to offer solutions of which have been taken, in particular, by the Russian Constitutional Court. Again we face the issue on the hi­erarchy of constitutional and supranational norms, overcoming conflicts between them and interaction of national (first of all, constitutional) and supranational courts. In particular, in its decisions of 2015–2016 the Russian Constitutional Court took a step forward to a new legal methodology aimed at solving the conflicts between supranational acts (including those of the Eurasian Economic Union and the European Court of Human Rights) and constitutional approaches and provisions. This methodology is based on the counter-limits doctrine worked out earlier through the cooperation with the European Union and its Member States (including Germany and Italy). The article focuses on the analysis of the perspectives of this doctrine application and the degree of its sufficiency to solve potential conflicts between national and supranational norms. It is highlighted, among other conclusions, that the counter-limits doctrine, being rather a means of restraint and not of frequent use, serves rather as a tool to promote the dialogue of legal orders than to aggravate conflicts among them.

About the author: Maria Filatova – Candidate of Legal Sciences, Associate Professor, Judicial Power Department, National Research University – Higher School of Economics.

Citation: Filatova M. (2016) Sootnoshenie pravoporyadkov i ierarkhiya mezhduna­rodnykh i natsional'nykh norm: novye voprosy i podkhody k ikh resheniyu v praktike Konstitutsionnogo Suda RF [Relations of legal orders and hierarchy of international and national norms: new issues and solutions in the Russian Constitutional Court’s case-law]. Mezhdunarodnoe pravosudie, no.3, pp.88–100. (In Russian).

References

Barile P. (1969) Ancora su diritto comunitario e diritto interno. In: Studi per il ventesimo anniversario dell’Assemblea costituente. Vol.6: Autonomie et garanzie costituzionali, Firenze : Vallecchi, pp.35–54.

Blankenagel A., Levin I. (2015) V printsipe nel'zya, no mozhno!.. Konstitu­tsionnyy Sud Rossii i delo ob obyazatel'nosti resheniy Evropeyskogo Suda po pravam cheloveka [In principle, impossible, but possible!.. Constitutional Court of Russia and the case on binding character of the European Court of Human Rights judgments]. Sravnitel'noe konstitutsionnoe obozrenie, no.5, pp.152–162. (In Russian).

Bonnet B. (2013) Repenser les rapports entre les ordres juridiques, Paris: Lextenso éditions.

De Aranjo Ch. (2009) Justice constitutionnelle et justices européennes des droits de l’homme: Etude comparée: France-Allemagne, Bruxelles: Bruylant.

Filatova M.A. (2013) Konflikty konstitutsionnykh i nadnatsional'nykh norm: sposoby preodoleniya (na primere Evropeyskogo Soyuza i pravovykh sistem gosudarstv – chlenov ES) [The conflicts of constitutional and supranational norms: ways of overcoming (on the example of the European Union and legal systems of the EU Member States]. Mezhdunarodnoe pravosudie, no.4, pp.99–105. (In Russian)

Frigo D. (2013) Konstitutsiya Ital'yanskoy Respubliki i primenenie Evropey­skoy Konventsii o zashchite prav cheloveka i osnovnykh svobod v natsional'noy pravovoy sisteme [The Constitution of the Republic of Italy and the application of the European Convention for the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the national legal system]. In: Realizatsiya Evropeyskoy Konventsii o zashchite prav cheloveka i osnovnykh svobod na­tsional'nymi sudebnymi sistemami: opyt Italii i Rossii [Realization of the European Convention for the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms by national judicial systems: the Italian and Russian experience], Strasbourg: European Centre for Legal Cooperation, pp.38–52. (In Russian).

Ispolinov A.S. (2015) Konstitutsionnyy Sud RF o svoey roli v evraziyskoy integratsii i o dialoge s Sudom Soyuza [Constitutional Court of Russia on its role in the Eurasian integration and on the dialogue with the Court of the Union]. Available at: https://zakon.ru/blog/2015/03/30/konstitucionnyj_sud_rf_o_svoej_roli_v_evrazijskoj_integracii_i_o_dialoge_s_sudom_soyuza(дата обращения: 25.08.2016).

Ispolinov A.S. (2016) Natsional'nye sudy i mezhdunarodnoe pravo: prinuzh­denie k dualizmu [National courts and international law: coercion to dualism]. In: Bekyashev K.A. (ed.) Budushchee mezhdunarodnogo prava: sbornik statey [The future of international law: collection of articles], Moscow: Prospekt. (In Russian).

Kelsen H. (1961) General Theory of Law and State, New York: Russel and Russel.

Martinico G. (2012) Is the European Convention going to be “supreme”?: A Comparative-Constitutional Overview of ECHR and EU Law before National Courts. European Journal of International Law, vol.23, no.2, pp.401–424. Available at: http://ejil.oxfordjournals.org/content/23/2/ 401.full.pdf+html (дата обращения: 10.09.2016).

Moiseev E.G. (ed.) (2015) Mezhdunarodno-pravovye osnovy sozdaniya i funktsionirovaniya Evraziyskogo ekonomicheskogo soyuza [International legal basis of setting up and functioning of the European economic Union], Moscow: Prospekt. (In Russian).

Neshataeva T.N. (2015) Edinoobraznoe primenenie – tsel' Suda Evraziyskogo ekonomicheskogo soyuza [Uniform application – the goal of the Eurasian Economic Union]. Mezhdunarodnoe pravosudie, no.2, pp.115–125. (In Russian).

Ost F., Van de Kerchove M. (2002) De la pyramide au réseau? Pour une théorie dialectique du droit. Bruxelles: Publications des Facultés universitaires Saint-Louis.

Vecchio F. (2011) Fundamental Rights between the European Court of Justice and the New Powers of the French “Conseil Constitutionnel”. Mediterranean Journal of Human Rights, vol.15, no.1–2, pp.189–213.