The impact of European Court of Human Rights decisions on the acts of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine

Abstract

The article analyzes the changes that have taken place in the acts of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine under the influence of the implementation of the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights into the national legal system. It is shown that the application of the ECHR practice contributes to increasing legal certainty and the consistency of the CCU's decisions with European legal traditions. The purpose of the study is to identify the peculiarities of the implementation of the practice of the European Court of Human Rights in the acts of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine and to determine the impact of the ECtHR's decisions on the development of the acts of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine.

Methods. The methodological basis of the article consists of formal-legal, comparative-legal, and systemic methods. The formal legal method was used to analyze the acts of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine and the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights. The comparative legal method was used to identify models of interaction between the Constitutional Court of Ukraine and the European Court of Human Rights. The systemic method made it possible to analyze the impact of European Court of Human Rights decisions on the acts of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine.

Results. The article is the first to systematise models of using European Court of Human Rights practice in decisions of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, distinguishing between imperative and dispositive approaches. A typology of the transformation of acts of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine under the influence of the practice of the European Court of Human Rights is proposed, which includes three levels of integration: citation; doctrinal approaches using EU experience; methodological approaches based on EU experience.

The decisions of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine (No. 17-rp/2011, No. 1-r/2021, No. 2-r/2023, No. 8-r/2023) have been comprehensively studied. Attention has been drawn to the interpretation of the practice of the European Court of Human Rights in the legal system of Ukraine.

It has been established that the influence of the European Court of Human Rights's decisions on the legal system of Ukraine occurs through compliance with international standards, doctrinal provisions and national approaches.

The comprehensive (multilevel) nature of the influence of the European Court of Human Rights's practice on the acts of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine is substantiated, which is manifested not only in the argumentative plane, but also in the transformation of the categorical apparatus (for example, the implementation of ‘margin of appreciation’, ‘quality of law’, ‘due process’).

For the first time, a systematic analysis has been conducted of the compliance of the decisions of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine with international standards in terms of the application of the provisions of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and the case law of the European Court of Human Rights after the 2016 constitutional reform, when the Constitutional Court ceased to be part of the judiciary but retained the obligation to take into account the standards of the ECHR.

The content and consequences of the implementation of the European Court of Human Rights's practice at the level of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine have been clarified, in particular, it has been proven that the Court's practice has become a structural element of the motivational part of the CCU's acts, and not just an auxiliary source of interpretation.

A new approach to understanding the role of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine in European integration has been formulated, according to which the Constitutional Court of Ukraine acts as an institutional mediator between the national legal order and the European legal tradition, ensuring the harmonisation of constitutional doctrine with the practice of the European Court of Human Rights.

Conclusions. The implementation of European Court of Human Rights practice in the activities of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine is a systemic phenomenon that forms a qualitatively new approach to constitutional control. The integration of European Court of Human Rights decisions into the acts of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine contributes to improving the level of argumentation of decisions, strengthening the primacy of the rule of law, and harmonizing the national legal system with the European legal tradition. The comprehensive nature of the impact of the European Court of Human Rights 's decisions is leading to a transformation of the acts of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine. The Constitutional Court of Ukraine is moving from simply citing the European Court of Human Rights to creating a new methodological basis for constitutional justice. Proper integration of international standards ensures the strengthening of human rights guarantees and the formation of an effective mechanism for preventing their violation at the national level.