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2020 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

13. The Strasbourg Court: Judges Without Borders

Author : Marc Bossuyt

Published in: European Yearbook of Constitutional Law 2019

Publisher: T.M.C. Asser Press

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Abstract

In 2010, I wrote that ‘in the name of a dynamic and teleological interpretation, the European Court of Human Rights progresses on the road to an ever greater “juridisation” of European society, without caring very much what the States had in mind when they accepted to become parties to the Convention.’

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previous chapter A Stress Test for Europe’s Judiciaries

next chapter The Strasbourg Court: Acting Within Its Limits

Bossuyt 2010a, p 103. On that so-called ‘dynamic’ interpretation, see Bossuyt 2015a, pp 31–56.

Ibid., p 104.

In his Preface to Bossuyt 2016a, pp ix–x. He recognises moreover that ‘by spreading wider and yet wider the net of human rights protection [the case-law of the Court results in] over-intervention into the normal workings of democratic processes at national level and over-expansion of the Convention rights and freedoms into domain not covered by the text of the treaty’.

In the third case before the Court: European Court of Human Rights (hereafter: ECtHR), case ‘relating to certain aspects of the laws on the use of languages in Belgium’ v. Belgium, 23 July 1968, ECLI:CE:ECHR:1968:0723JUD000147462. This despite the negative formulation of Article 2 of Protocol I to the Convention (‘No person shall be denied the right to education’).

In the judgments ECtHR, Gaygusuz v. Austria, 16 September 1996, ECLI:CE:ECHR:1996:0916JUD001737190 and ECtHR, Koua Poirrez v. France, 30 September 2003, ECLI:CE:ECHR:2003:0930JUD004089298 and in the decision ECtHR, Stec and Others v. the United Kingdom, 12 April 2006, ECLI:CE:ECHR:2006:0412JUD006573101. This despite the negative formulation of the Article: ‘No one shall be deprived of his possessions (…)’. See Bossuyt 2007 and Bossuyt 2009‐2010.

ECtHR, Tyrer v. the United Kingdom, 25 April 1978, ECLI:CE:ECHR:1978:0425JUD000585672.

ECtHR, Airey v. Ireland, 9 October 1979, ECLI:CE:ECHR:1979:1009JUD000628973.

Hoffmann 2009, para 27.

Bossuyt 2016a, p 142.

Ibid., pp 142–145.

Cf. the judgment of the Irish Court in X.X. v. Minister for Justice and Equality of 24 June 2016, quoted by Judge Siofra O’Leary (Ireland) in her concurring opinion in ECtHR, J.K. and Others v. Sweden, 23 August 2016, ECLI:CE:ECHR:2016:0823JUD005916612.

Bossuyt 2016a, p 145; see also Bossuyt 2015b, p 587: ‘Even when an EU directive imposes higher requirements than the European Convention, it cannot expand the obligations under that Convention since such requirements cannot be imposed on the 19 States parties to the Convention which are not EU-Members and the obligations under the Convention cannot be more demanding for EU Members than for non-EU-Members’.

At the opening of the judicial year of the Strasbourg Court on 28 January 2011 and at the Barnard’s Inn Reading on 16 June 2011 (Hale 2011, p 543). See also Bossuyt 2014.

Bossuyt 2007, p 328.

Ibid., p 330.

Overturning its judgment in ECtHR, Cruz Varas and Others v. Sweden, 20 March 1991, ECLI:CE:ECHR:1991:0320JUD001557689 and its decision in ECtHR, Čonka and Others v. Belgium, 13 March 2001, ECLI:CE:ECHR:2002:0205JUD005156499; in their dissenting opinion (para 16) on that issue, Judges Lucius Caflisch (on behalf Liechtenstein), Riza Türmen (Turkey) and Anatoly Kovler (Russia) state that the Court ‘ceases to interpret and assumes legislative functions’. See also Caflisch 2006 and Bossuyt 2010b, pp 14–21.

In its judgments ECtHR, Chahal v. the United Kingdom, 15 November 1996, ECLI:CE:ECHR:1996:1115JUD002241493, ECtHR, Ahmed v. Austria, 17 December 1996, ECLI:CE:ECHR:1996:1217JUD002596494, ECtHR, D. v. the United Kingdom, 2 May 1997, ECLI:CE:ECHR:1997:0502JUD003024096, and ECtHR, Jabari v. Turkey, 11 July 2000, ECLI:CE:ECHR:2000:0711JUD004003598.

Overturning its decisions ECtHR, T.I. v. the United Kingdom, 7 March 2000, ECLI:CE:ECHR:2000:0307DEC004384498 and ECtHR, K.R.S. v. the United Kingdom, 2 December 2008, ECLI:CE:ECHR:2008:1202DEC003273308. The applicant, an Afghan interpreter, had paid his smuggler $12,000; on that judgment, see Bossuyt 2011, pp 582–597.

The Dublin [II] Regulation N°. 343/2003 of 18 February 2003 determines the EU Member State responsible for examining an asylum application. That Regulation, which replaced the Dublin [I] Convention of 15 June 1990, has been replaced by the Dublin [III] Regulation N°. 604/2013 of 26 June 2013.

Three months in ECtHR, Tabesh v. Greece, 26 November 2009, ECLI:CE:ECHR:2009:1126JUD000825607; three years and five months in ECtHR, Al-Agha v. Romania, 12 January 2010, ECLI:CE:ECHR:2010:0112JUD004093302; 20 months in ECtHR, Charahili v. Turkey, 13 April 2010, ECLI:CE:ECHR:2010:0413JUD004660507; three months in ECtHR, A.A. v. Greece, 22 July 2010, ECLI:CE:ECHR:2010:0722JUD001218608; and two months in ECtHR, R.U. v. Greece, 7 June 2011, ECLI:CE:ECHR:2011:0607JUD000223708 (Bossuyt 2012, pp 227–228).

See Bossuyt 2016b.

ECtHR, Oršuš and Others v. Croatia, 16 March 2010, ECLI:CE:ECHR:2010:0316JUD001576603.

ECtHR, Alajos Kiss v. Hungary, 20 May 2010, ECLI:CE:ECHR:2010:0520JUD003883206.

When M.S.S. was transferred to Greece in 2009, Belgium (with 20.15%) ranked 5th and Greece (with 14.15%) 8th in percentage of registered asylum seekers per million of inhabitants (Migration magazine, Summer 2010, pp 12–13). In relation to the number of its inhabitants, Belgium registered more asylum seekers than Greece. Even in 2015, only 11,370 (0.9%) asylum applications - out of 1,255,640 submitted in the 28 EU Member States - were submitted in Greece (Eurostat Newsrelease 44/2016 of 4 March 2016).

ECtHR, Hirsi Jamaa and Others v. Italy, 23 February 2012, ECLI:CE:ECHR:2012:0223JUD002776509.

Bossuyt 2016a, pp 155–157.

Overturning its Chamber judgment of 16 January 2014; see also the recent Grand Chamber judgment ECtHR, J.K. and Others v. Sweden, 23 August 2016, ECLI:CE:ECHR:2016:0823JUD005916612 (overturning the Chamber judgment of 4 June 2015); see Bossuyt 2016c, pp 327–333.

The Grand Chamber overturned the Chamber judgment of 17 April 2014. The applicant, a Georgian national who had been staying in Belgium since 25 November 1998 without having been regularised nor expelled, had died on 7 June 2016: ‘Pendant tout son séjour en Belgique, à l’exception des périodes durant lesquelles il se trouvait en prison, en centre fermé pour illégaux ou à l’hôpital, il s’est rendu coupable d’un nombre impressionnant de délits de droit commun. Pour ces délits, il a été condamné, en deux fois, à un total de 21 mois d’emprisonnement avec sursis, sauf pour les périodes de sa détention préventive, et puis à trois ans de prison ferme. Son épouse a été condamnée à quatre mois d’emprisonnement ferme. Il a été soigné pour différentes maladies, notamment une leucémie lymphoïde chronique qui a connu des développements multiples, ainsi que d’autres affectations, à savoir une tuberculose pulmonaire active, une hépatite C, une broncho-pneumopathie chronique obstructive et un accident cardio-vasculaire. Son séjour en Belgique occasionna des frais énormes. Outre le coût des procédures juridictionnelles (Conseil du contentieux des étrangers, Conseil d’Etat, tribunaux correctionnels et Cour d’appel), en ce compris l’assistance juridique à la charge de l’Etat pour toutes ces procédures, ainsi que le coût de différents séjours en prison totalisant plus de trois ans, il y a lieu de se référer surtout au coût des multiples consultations médicales et de son hospitalisation fréquente accompagnée de thérapies et de médicaments extrêmement onéreux.’ (Bossuyt 2017, pp 659–660).

On that judgment, see Bossuyt 2010a, pp 140–143.

ECtHR, F.G. v. Sweden, 23 March 2016, ECLI:CE:ECHR:2016:0323JUD004361111, paras 126–127.

See ibid., para 117.

At the Izmir Conference in April 2011, the Member States of the Council of Europe had recalled that ‘the Court is not an immigration Appeals Tribunal or a Court of fourth instance’.

See supra, note 31.

Bossuyt 2016a, p xii.

Bossuyt M (2007) Should the Strasbourg Court exercise more self-restraint? On the extension of the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights to social security regulations. Human Rights Law Journal 28:321–332

Bossuyt M (2009–2010) L’extension de la compétence de la Cour de Strasbourg aux prestations sociales: sur l’interprétation de l’article 14 de la Convention combiné avec l’article 1^er du Protocole n° 1 dans les affaires Gaygusuz, Koua Poirrez, Stec et autres, Burden et Andrejeva. Revue de droit monégasque 10:91–130

Bossuyt M (2010) Judges on Thin Ice: the European Court on Human Rights and the Treatment of Asylum Seekers. Inter-American and European Human Rights Journal 3(1):3–48

Bossuyt M (2010) Strasbourg et les demandeurs d’asile: des juges sur un terrain glissant. Bruylant, Brussels

Bossuyt M (2011) Belgium condemned for inhuman or degrading treatment due to violations by Greece of EU Asylum Law, M.S.S. v. Belgium and Greece, Grand Chamber, European Court of Human Rights, 21 January 2011. European Human Rights Law Review 5:582–597

Bossuyt M (2012) The Court of Strasbourg acting as an Asylum Court. European Constitutional Law Review 8(2):203–245CrossRef

Bossuyt M (2014) Des limites à la juridiction de la Cour de Strasbourg? In L’homme et le droit (en hommage au Professeur Jean-François Flauss). Pedone, Paris, pp 117–127

Bossuyt M (2015) Judicial Activism in Strasbourg. In: Wellens K (ed) International Law in Silver Perspective: Challenges Ahead. Brill-Nijhoff, Leiden, pp 31–56

Bossuyt M (2015) The European Union Confronted with an Asylum Crisis in the Mediterranean: Reflections on Refugees and Human Rights Issues. European Journal of Human Rights 32(5):581–605

Bossuyt M (2016) Categorical Rights and Vulnerable Groups: Moving Away from the Universal Human Being. The George Washington International Law Review 48:717–742

Bossuyt M (2016) Unduly Harsh Treatment of Sweden in Asylum Cases in Strasbourg? Human Rights Law Journal 36:323–334

Bossuyt M (2016) International Human Rights Protection: Balanced, Critical, Realistic. Intersentia, Antwerp/CambridgeCrossRef

Bossuyt M (2017) La Cour de Strasbourg souhaite que les Etats parties instaurent une procédure d’‘asile médical’. Revue trimestrielle des droits de l’homme 111:651–668

Caflisch L (2006) Provisional Measures in the International Protection of Human Rights: The Mamatkulov Case. In: Dupuy P M et al (eds) Common Values in International Law: Essays in Honour of Christian Tomuschat. Engel, Kehl-am-Rhein, pp 493–515

Hale B (2011) Common Law and Convention Law: The Limits to Interpretation. European Human Rights Law Review 5:534–543

Hoffmann L (2009) The Universality of Human Rights (Judicial Studies Board Annual Lecture, 19 March 2009). Law Quarterly Review 125:416–432

Title: The Strasbourg Court: Judges Without Borders
Author: Marc Bossuyt
Publisher: T.M.C. Asser Press
Book: European Yearbook of Constitutional Law 2019
Print ISBN: 978-94-6265-358-0

Electronic ISBN: 978-94-6265-359-7

Copyright Year: 2020
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6265-359-7_13