Speech at the international conference “The Role of the Judiciary in Execution of Judgements of the European Court of Human Rights”
Aldis Laviņš
President of the Constitutional Court
Speech at the international conference “The Role of the Judiciary in Execution of Judgements of the European Court of Human Rights”
21 September 2023
Honourable Madam President of the European Court of Human Rights,
Esteemed President of the Supreme Court,
Honourable colleagues, judges, and participants of the Conference,
Welcome to Riga, the capital of Latvia, at the conference, organised by the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court of the Republic of Latvia, “ The Role of the Judiciary in Execution of Judgements of the European Court of Human Rights”. By selecting such themes for the Conference, we facilitate the protection of such values, on which the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and the application thereof has rested for more than 70 years already.
The Council of Europe is a project for the preservation of peace and humanity, in which people are united by such values as freedom, welfare, and security, so that Europe would not re-experience the past horrors of wars and totalitarian regimes. These values are founded on three interdependent and complementary basic principles – democracy, the rule of law, and human rights. The resilience of any of these pillars facilitates the stability of the others.
For its period of Presidency of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, Latvia has set the strengthening the rule of law as a safeguard for the protection of shared European values as one of the aims.
The entire institutional system of the States Parties to the Council of Europe is based on the principle of separation of powers, therefore the European identity is characterised and shaped by the principle of a state governed by the rule of law and independent judiciary. This is exactly the reason why effective execution of ruling as an inalienable element in the right to a fair trial belongs to the content of the European identity. We share the responsibility for ensuring the execution of court rulings because, in the absence of it, also the right to a fair trial becomes merely apparent and loses its meaning. It should be taken into account that failure to execute court rulings may jeopardize the democratic order and lead to authoritarian, totalitarian and, successively, also aggressive regimes. There is no need to look far for examples when due to endangering the rule of law democracy is being deconstructed. In Russia, it began with marginalisation of the independence of national courts and non-execution of the judgements of the European Court of Human Rights. Therefore, it is appropriate to recall the thesis that non-democratic but supposedly legal states are a utopia and so-called “good dictatorships” do not exist.
In guaranteeing the right to a fair trial, it is not always possible to execute rulings in accordance with a standardised and accurate instruction. It is a major challenge – to achieve concerted actions in executing rulings, involving increasingly more significant cases, whereas the possible solutions are politically and legally complicated and require an extensive systemic approach. Therefore, also in the execution of court rulings, on the basis of mutual respect and loyalty, a dialogue between the involved parties is necessary, i.e., between the European Court of Human Rights, the Committee of Ministers, as well as the institution representing the national judicial system.
It is important that the national court, while searching for the most appropriate solution in the case under review, sees the wider context, i.e., whether the legislator has developed legal regulation dynamically, in compliance with, inter alia, those findings that the European Court of Human Rights has expressed in cases against other states, and considers how these findings should be applied in the legal systems of all states. Thus, the national judge stands in the middle between activism, following the most recent trends in specifying the provisions of the Convention, and the risk to interfere in the area of the competence of the legislator or the executive power.
Dear colleagues,
To strengthen the rule of law in Europe, at the Conference, organised by the supreme judicial institutions of Latvia, we shall discuss measures for supervising the execution of judgements and the role of national courts in executing rulings of the European Court of Human Rights, so that everyone among more than 600 million Europeans who enjoy the protection by the Convention would benefit. I wish the participants of the Conference success, in identifying the possibilities for reinforcing the rule of law in the European cultural area.