Jurisprudential Failures: How Systemic Judicial Errors in Both the United States Supreme Court and the European Court of Human Rights Perpetuate Law Enforcement’s Racially Motivated Violence

Abstract

Issues of discrimination are global in scope, that is, no country may escape the permeating effects of discrimination on citizens within its jurisdiction. Consequently, both domestic and regional systems of justice have developed working judiciaries that – in theory – offer a means of relief for individuals subjected to racially motivated discrimination and violence. Despite these purported judicial protections, however, both historical and contemporary evidence suggest that the judiciary has failed to fulfill this expectation for individual claimants. Accordingly, this article critically assesses the methods of redress in both the United States Supreme Court and the European Court of Human Rights for instances of discrimination towards Black Americans and Roma Europeans, respectively. In particular, this article analyses claims of discrimination brought by individual litigants stemming from excessive use of force by law enforcement. Generally, this article proposes that long-held systemic practices within the judiciary, namely qualified immunity in the United States Supreme Court and the merely ancillary recognition of discriminatory protections in the European Court of Human Rights, perpetuate racially motivated violence by law enforcement. Moreover, this article suggests that both Courts should more explicitly address racially motivated excessive use of force in order to reduce instances of violence at the hands of government actors.