The Procedural Rationality Review as a Form of Deference? Process and Content in the Recent Case Law of the European Court of Human Rights
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5944/rdp.114.2022.34149Keywords:
Procedural rationality, legitimacy, cooperative subsidiarity, culture of justificationAbstract
The paper examines the procedural turn of the Strasbourg case law in response to the claim that the European Court of Human Rights should have a more subsidiary role in the exercise of its function. After outlining the varied dynamics of the procedural rationality control, I distinguish two conceptions of the subsidiarity principle, the statist and the cooperative conception, and I argue that we should focus on the demands of cooperative subsidiarity to assess whether the procedural turn is good news for human rights in Europe. The article’s main claim is that such procedural control may contribute to the legitimacy and efficacy of the system of the European Convention on Human Rights insofar as it proves to be useful to ensure compliance with three member states cooperative responsibilities: impartiality, culture of justification and conventional perspective. At the same time, I argue that some systemic considerations allow us to conclude that the procedural review should only have a complementary place in the application of the Convention.
Summary:
I. INTRODUCTION II. THE PROCEDURAL TURN IN THE STRASBOURG CASE LAW. III. LEGITIMACY AND SUBSIDIARITY: III.1. Statist subsidiarity and cooperative subsidiarity. IV. THE PROCEDURAL RATIONALITY CONTROL AND COOPERATIVE SUBSIDIARITY: IV.1. Procedural review, cooperative responsibilities, and division of labour: a) The responsibility of impartiality. b) The responsibility of consolidating a culture of justification. c) The responsibility of adopting a conventional perspective. V. THE PROCEDURAL TURN AND SYSTEMIC CONSIDERATIONS.
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