Normative Interactions and the Development of Labour Law: A European Perspective

The article deals with the ways of regarding the case law of the European Court of Human Rights as a source of criminal procedural law of Ukraine, which is relevant both in terms of the criminal procedure as a science and for the practice of law enforcement. The purpose of the article is to formulate the concept of the case law of the European Court of Human Rights as a source of criminal procedural law of Ukraine. The paper justifies the opinion that the case law of the European Court of Human Rights is developed and based on the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights and the European Commission of Human Rights, regardless of the country in which they were adopted (i. e. has a polyterritorial jurisdiction over states being the participants of the Convention). The article proves that the case law of the European Court of Human Rights is draws upon the decisions made by the European Court of Human Rights and the European Commission of Human Rights regardless of the time of adoption, i. e. it includes the decisions adopted before Ukraine ratified the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. The author points out the appropriateness of classifying decisions that have acquired the status of final as «case law of the European Court of Human Rights». It is also mentioned that there is a need to include final decisions in the case (as the matter of fact), which have a decisive nature and contain a legal position in this case, into the scope of the category «case law of the European Court of Human Rights». Moreover, the article substantiates the necessity to include the decisions adopted by the European Court of Human Rights in full, i. e. not only the set forth legal positions, into the category of «case law of the European Court of Human Rights». Following the results of the study, the case law of the European Court of Human Rights as a source of criminal procedural law of Ukraine is defined as a set of decisions adopted by the European Court of Human Rights and the European Commission of Human Rights, which have entered into force and contain legal policies which either clarify or specify the provisions of the Convention as for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and relate to human and citizen’s rights and freedoms.

Regional human rights courts like the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR), and the African Court of Human and People's Rights (ACtHPR) have become popular sites of mobilization for victims and activists who seek justice when justice fails at home. Besides being platforms for individual remedy, human rights courts increasingly shape social norms and state policy within countries, making them attractive avenues for rights advocates to develop new norms or to push domestic authorities to reform legislation. The judges of these courts can decide, for example, whether same-sex couples have a right to be married, if prisoners have the right to vote or receive HIV/AIDS treatment, or when a state can deport illegal immigrants to a country where they will likely be tortured. As these courts pass their judgments, they often find themselves in conflict with states that are violating human rights of marginalized groups on a large scale and are unwilling to implement international rulings. Although international human rights courts have become increasingly popular venues among victims and activists who seek justice when justice fails at home, we are only beginning to understand how activists play roles in shaping the development of regional human rights courts' case law—the body of judgments that shapes how judges will make their decisions in the future. We now have plenty of international relations and international legal research on the interactions between states and international courts: how judges in these courts wrestle between deferring to the interests of member state governments whose actions are on trial and sticking closely to the conventions' fundamental yet evolving principles (Alter et al., 2019; Helfer & Voeten, 2014). As some states begin to resist international courts' authority, scholars have begun to examine the dynamics of this backlash (Hillebrecht, 2022; Madsen et al., 2018; Sandholtz et al., 2018). Recent studies have also demonstrated that human rights advocates—whether NGOs or individual lawyers—have a significant impact on shaping the jurisprudence of international courts and the impact judgments have in concrete locations (Kahraman, 2018; Sundstrom, 2014; van der Vet, 2012; Kurban, 2020; Conant, 2018; Harms, 2021; Cichowski, 2016; Hodson, 2011; Haddad, 2018). Meanwhile, these advocates themselves have been subject to repression and stigmatization by governments as part of the backlash phenomenon. Without an adequate understanding of the factors shaping activists' engagement with international courts, we risk undervaluing their strategic impact on the expansion of case law, the human rights protection of marginalized groups who cannot find remedies at home, and the domestic implementation of these judgments in an age of state backlash. In this section, we summarize the three papers contained in this symposium and their original contributions to these themes. Over the last decade, dozens of countries have erected legal barriers or started vilifying campaigns to stymie the work of NGOs (Buyse, 2018; Chaudhry, 2022). One tactic in this toolkit is the enactment of burdensome regulation on NGOs that receive funds from foreign donors as they allegedly promote foreign agendas (Christensen & Weinstein, 2013; Dupuy et al., 2021). States that frequently abuse human rights are especially prone to target NGOs that engage in strategic litigation (Hillebrecht, 2019). Most NGOs depend on foreign funding, and NGOs that litigate international cases fall disproportionately in this category, but do funders affect the selection of cases? In “Foreign Agents or Agents of Justice? Private Foundations, NGO Backlash, and International Human Rights Litigation,” Heidi Haddad and Lisa Sundstrom examine the extent to which Western donors, particularly private foundations, have encouraged NGOs in Europe to litigate at the ECtHR as a human rights advocacy strategy. They examine overall patterns of donor funding and NGO litigation records, and look in more detail at the case of Russian NGOs' foreign funding and litigation records. The analysis is extremely timely, as the Russian government's criminalization of independent civil society actors, especially in the human rights field, and their accusation that foreign funding turns NGOs into “foreign agents” have been crucial elements of the Russian regime's autocratization. This claim has also provided fuel for Russia's disenchantment with the ECtHR in recent years, contributing to the assessment of many observers that Russia's full-scale attack on Ukraine was the last straw in an inevitable collision course leading to its exit from the Council of Europe. Haddad and Sundstrom debunk the idea that foreign donors are pushing NGOs toward strategies of human rights litigation. Instead, they argue, there is more evidence that NGOs themselves promoted the mechanism of international litigation as a strategy that donors later adopted. This article is a poignant reminder of the advocacy tools that Russian human rights activists and citizens have lost as a result of their government's departure from the Council of Europe, including ECtHR jurisdiction. Yet it also provides insight into the likely roles of foreign donors in other country cases where NGOs are using international court litigation as a human rights advocacy strategy, which is often a target of the ire of national governments, as explored in the next article in the symposium. When states attack human rights NGOs within their borders and/or international human rights courts themselves, how does this affect the willingness of those NGOs to take cases to international courts, and the ways in which they do so? De Silva and Plagis ask this question in their article about state backlash against NGOs in the case of Tanzania and the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights. A fascinating empirical question they pose is: does state backlash against NGOs increase NGO litigation at international courts (to contest state repression at those courts and use international mechanisms when domestic ones are not available), roughly in line with Keck and Sikkink's famous “boomerang pattern” (Keck & Sikkink, 1998), or decrease it due to heightened fear and restricted NGO capabilities that state repression creates? Employing a process-tracing analysis of NGOs' involvement in three cases before the African Court at different stages of the Tanzanian government's backlash against the Court, De Silva and Plagis find that “two-level backlash” by states can result in both phenomena, either promoting or deterring NGO legal mobilization at international human rights courts, depending on certain conditions. The three selected cases concerning the death penalty, the rights of persons with albinism, and the rights of pregnant schoolgirls and mothers, which took place at different time periods, demonstrate a number of patterns of state backlash interacting with NGO strategies. The authors find that domestic-level state backlash deterred domestic NGOs from partnering with international NGOs in litigation, but that such backlash, when it repressed domestic political and legal mobilization opportunities, actually encouraged both Tanzanian and international NGOs to turn to the African Court more frequently to seek remedies. International-level backlash in turn only deterred NGOs from international litigation when such backlash consisted of state efforts to restrict NGOs' ability to engage in litigation, and not when the international backlash was in the form of routine noncompliance with African Court rulings. Importantly, the authors find that NGO responses to state backlash were significantly shaped by their degree of legal consciousness and expertise with the rules, proceedings, and workings of the African Court. Those NGOs with less knowledge and experience were more likely to back away from engaging with the Court under the pressure of state backlash. De Silva and Plagis conclude that “NGOs' persistent human rights advocacy in the face of state backlash is a double-edged sword,” in the sense that they may not be deterred by state backlash initially, but there is a danger that their continued determination to engage in international litigation could prompt governments to engage in even more severe forms of backlash, with critical impacts on international courts and already vulnerable human rights defenders. Rights advocates have a growing menu of institutions and courts available to them. How do activists choose at which institution to lodge their cases in a world where legal remedies have diversified, or as some have argued, fragmented (Koskenniemi & Leino, 2002)? In “What Makes an International Institution Work for Labor Activists? Shaping International Law through Strategic Litigation,” Filiz Kahraman goes beyond the tendency of legal mobilization studies to only examine how activists interact with a single court or institution. Instead, Kahraman opens up how rights advocates imagine which institution is most receptive to their claims. Drawing on a comparative interview study of British and Turkish trade union activists and their legal mobilization campaigns at international courts and quasi-judicial institutions like the International Labor Organization (ILO), Kahraman examines how activists first probe and then strategically identify which court or international institution is most susceptible to their primary goals of influencing structural reforms and setting new norms. Through this probing process—or dynamic signaling game between courts and litigants—activists push a court's jurisprudence and case law into new issue areas. For instance, at the ECtHR, Turkish trade unionists challenged domestic courts' ruling that public sector workers did not have the right to establish unions, even though the ECtHR had no established case law on labor rights in 1990s. They won the case, with the ECtHR finding that Turkey violated the right of public sector workers to unionize. These cases not only had an impact within Turkey, but over the next decades, similar cases brought by British unionists would spin off the early precedent set by the Turkish legal mobilization efforts. Kahraman argues that they ultimately pushed the ECtHR to recognize the basic trade union rights as fundamental human rights. Kahraman sheds light on the often hidden strategies behind international litigation. Activists litigate not just for the immediate impact on the current case they work on, but how they envision that all the cases they work on may shape norms and domestic structural reforms further in the future. Whether an institution is perceptive of claims lies in the eye of the beholder. Kahraman finds that besides targeting institutions with high compliance rates, they also take cases to institutions with low rates of compliance, especially “if these institutions have extensive judicial authority to create new international norms.” So, it is not the de jure protection set by an international courts, but rather how activists perceive the juridical responsiveness and judicial authority of courts—or, how judges adopt either an activist approach or restraint in response to incoming cases and how willing states are to implement cases of a court, respectively—that determines why activists select certain courts or quasi-judicial institutions (like the ILO). Kahraman gives us new tools to interpret how activists perceive authority and receptiveness and respond to opportunities. Rather than static external legal remedies, courts and quasi-judicial institutions are opportunity structures that are malleable to the strategic vision of the activist or litigant. The articles in this symposium together reveal a number of key overlapping insights. At the broadest level, they demonstrate that activists' behaviors and strategies influence international courts' jurisprudence, politics within states, and the human rights outcomes of everyday citizens—and these influences have often been hidden in our existing canon of research on international courts. In addition, all of these articles show that, while activists may face challenges in their efforts, often including significant backlash from their home state governments, they also continue to retain significant agency through their creative efforts to develop legal strategies and circumvent state repression. Activists perennially innovate: sparking the ideas that inspire donors who fund them; calculating how to continue their litigation work when government actors threaten them; and taking risks in litigation to push courts to expand how they define human rights. However, along with these uplifting conclusions, there are worrying patterns that demand future research. States are increasingly pushing back against the powers of international courts to bind them to costly measures, and as this symposium has shown, national governments often point to activists as contributors to this “problem” of invasive international human rights standards. A growing body of research has tracked how human rights defenders of all kinds globally are under threat from actors like governments and corporations who disagree with their contentious actions. We need more studies that gather comprehensive data and systematically track these threats, specifically with regard to activists who engage in international human rights litigation. We suspect that such activists are likely disproportionately targeted due to the international visibility of their complaints. We also desperately need research into possible innovative responses to these threats to activists—responses from activists, funders, governments of countries that support human rights, and international courts themselves. Freek van der Vet is a University Researcher at the Erik Castrén Institute of International Law and Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Helsinki and the principal investigator of the Toxic Crimes Project. Lisa McIntosh Sundstrom is Professor of Political Science at the University of British Columbia. She is the director of the ActinCourts network at UBC and conducts research on legal mobilization by Russian activists.

1. Introduction 1.1 Introduce the Problem Right of protection from arbitrary interference with personal and family life is conserved with major multipurpose international law acts in effect at the relevant time in the area of human rights protection: Art. 12 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948, Art. 17 of The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 1966. This right is also protected at the level of regional international organizations, i.a. Council of Europe. The Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms 1950 is one of key international acts created within the framework of Council of Europe (hereinafter referred to as--the European Convention on Human Rights, European Convention, the Convention). Art. 8 of the Convention (item 1) guarantees everyone the right to respect for private and family life, Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his (the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, 1950). The European Convention established the unique mechanism of human rights and freedoms protection that foremost involves practice of European Court of Human Rights (hereinafter referred to as--ECtHR, the European Court, the Court). According to Overview data of 1959-2014, the European Court rendered 1085 judgments on complaints about violation of Art.8 of the European Convention by State Parties to the Convention from 1959 to 2014. Most violations of Art.8 of the Convention over the specified period (with regard to time necessary for state accession to the Convention) were established against Italy (145 decrees), Russia (131 decrees), Poland (103 decrees). Given this, ECtHR adopted 17754 regulations in total over the specified period, among them 14877 involved at least one infringement of the European Convention (European Court of Human Rights, 2015). The above states that protection of the right to respect for private and family life is significant on the part of Council of Europe member states' citizens and holds a prominent place in ECtHR practice. The research objective is to cover issues regarding opportunities and matters of protection of the right to respect for private and family life with the use of the European Convention monitoring mechanism. It should be mentioned the paper considers the practice of the European Court in the context of protection of private and family life with no regard to respect for home and correspondence that are also guaranteed under Art. 8 of the Convention. Meeting the objective defined statement and solution of the following tasks: to examine the notion of private and family life in the European court practice, to research European court's legal views concerning understanding of admissibility criteria of interference to the right to respect for private and family life, to study ecological rights protection in the context of Art. 8 of the Convention. In the course of paper preparation scientists' works dedicated both to universal mechanisms of international law protection of human rights and human rights protection under the European Convention in general as well as rights to respect for private and family life in particular were studied. Findings of the research develop and complement international and European law sections dedicated to human rights protection. They can be used in different kinds of legal practice, in academic activity when teaching various branches of jurisprudence. 1.2 Importance of the Problem Modern legal science pays much attention to human rights protection, but there are few complex researches devoted to protection of the right to respect for private and family life in European Court of Human Rights. Recently a research dedicated to the right to respect for private and family life and inviolability of home and correspondence has been undertaken (as exemplified by European Court of Human Rights practice) in Russian legal science (Gracheva, 2013). …

The article is devoted to the study of the European Court of Human Rights practice implementation into the national legal system by domestic legal science, in particular, administrative law. It is noted that the issue of the European Court of Human Rights decisions implementing into the national legal system arose before Ukraine in 1997 when the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms was ratified. It is noted that a significant role in the process of national law improving belongs to the European Court of Human Rights, which is the body monitoring compliance with the Council of Europe’s Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms by the Member States. Emphasis is placed on the fact that to date there has been no comprehensive study of the European Court of Human Rights practice in the administrative law sources system, which would be based on Western legal culture in Ukraine. It is noted that the European Court of Human Rights decisions nature is a “challenge” for the domestic legal system, that did not recognize case law as a source of law and, moreover, the interpretation of the category “human rights” by Strasbourg court is qualitatively different from its understanding by domestic legal doctrine, still being largely based on the perception of rights as opportunities guaranteed by law. Until now, the principle of legality was the fundamental law principle, and the justification of the decision taken in the administrative process was reduced to a reference to the prescription of the normative legal act. Legal provisions set out in judgments of the European Court of Human Rights are based on other legal postulates. The analysis of scientific sources, the object of study of which is the European Court of Human Rights practice as a source of administrative law, is being tcarried ou. It is suggested that the existing scientific research of the European Court of Human Rights as a source of administrative law be classified into two groups: scientific papers, the subject of which is the European Court of Human Rights practice; scientific papers, the subject of which is the impact of the European Court of Human Rights practice on the national legal system, the immanence of features of forms of lawforms to this practice, etc. It is concluded that the analysis of scientific developments of the European Court of Human Rights practice as a source of administrative law by domestic legal science allows us to conclude about the relevance of the chosen topic, its lack of research and the need for elucidation.

In the recent period of Ukrainian history, scholars pay attention to the discussion of the relationship between Ukrainian constitutional law and the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and the place of rulings and decisions of the European Court of Human Rights in the legal system of Ukraine. The analysis of the provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights and current Ukrainian legislation is made in the article. It is made in order to determine the impact of this act of the Council of Europe on the constitutional law of Ukraine. It is noted that the Convention plays an important role in the process of protection of human rights and freedoms in Ukraine and has an impact on the implementation of the rule of law, which relate to individual’s constitutional status. It is noted that the European Convention significantly increases the level of the effectiveness of constitutional human rights legislation. The role of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights in the formation and activity of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine has been determined. The thesis that within the ratio of the Convention and Ukrainian law, the supremacy of the latter within the national legal system does not eliminate the need to comply with international obligations is substantiated in the article. The grounds for restricting human and civil rights and freedoms in accordance with the requirements of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and the constitutional legislation of Ukraine are considered in the article. In order to ensure national security, the restriction of human and civil rights and freedoms in a state of martial law and emergency is analyzed. By introducing martial law and a state of emergency, it is possible to concentrate temporarily all the levers of control over the individual’s status by coercive means within the framework of official power. The conclusion that the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and the case law of the European Court of Human Rights have had a significant impact on the formation and development of human and civil rights and freedoms as basic, value priorities of the constitutional law of Ukraine is substantiated in the article. Key words: constitutional law, sources of law, Council of Europe, Constitution of Ukraine, Constitutional Court of Ukraine, Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, European Court of Human Rights.

This article examines the influence of the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights on the development of the civil procedural law of Ukraine and the practice of applying its norms by domestic courts. The concept and essence of the precedent nature of decisions (decisions) of the European Court of Human Rights, their place in the system of so-called "judicial sources" of civil procedural law are defined. The shortcomings of the Law of Ukraine "On the implementation of decisions and application of the practice of the European Court of Human Rights" are indicated, which recognizes the practice of the European Court of Human Rights as a source of law and the position of domestic courts regarding this deficiency.
 It is noted that the source of law according to the Law of Ukraine "On the Execution of Decisions and Application of the Practice of the European Court of Human Rights" is also the practice of the European Commission on Human Rights and its role in the procedure for considering complaints about violations of the Convention is determined.
 The directions of the influence of the practice of the European Court of Human Rights on civil proceedings are outlined, where it is concluded that a precedent can be formed on any procedural issue due to the dynamic interpretation by the specified court of the provisions of the Convention on the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of 1950 and its protocols . It is noted that the practice of the European Court of Human Rights generally constructs legal ideas regarding the principles of civil procedure and the right to a fair trial. On the example of a separate decision of the European Court of Human Rights, the law enforcement and regulatory influence on the results of consideration and resolution of a civil case and the development of the civil procedural law of Ukraine, respectively, are analyzed. The importance of the practice of the European Court of Human Rights for the civil justice of Ukraine is summarized. In particular, taking into account the precedent practice of the ECtHR during the consideration and resolution of civil cases will eliminate the factors that serve as the reason for the appeal to the Court and will introduce European standards of protection of human rights and freedoms into Ukrainian civil proceedings. As a result, the impact of the decisions of the ECtHR will reduce the need to appeal to an international judicial institution in search of just satisfaction, which will accelerate the protection of the rights and freedoms of the parties to a civil case within the framework of national judicial jurisdiction.

Ukraine has recognized the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights by acceding to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. The implementation of Western concepts of the rule of law, human dignity and human rights stipulates study of the European Court of Human Rights practice, which, in accordance with national law, is the source of Ukrainian law. It is emphasized that the enshrinement of the rule of law principle in a number of laws was accompanied by a normative provision on the necessity to understand the content of this principle through the European Court of Human Rights practice.
 The purpose of the study is to elucidate the general provisions characterizing the impact of the European Court of Human Rightsice practice on the national system of Ukraine.
 It is substantiated that the European Court of Human Rights ensures the relevance of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms provisions, compliance of its rules with modernity, ensuring the general spirit of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms which is designed to uphold and ensure the values of a democratic society.
 It is noted that in interpreting the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, the European Court of Human Rights is a kind of subject of legal doctrines making in the field of human rights affecting the legal systems of the states parties to this Convention.
 Some decisions of the European Court of Human Rights in cases against Ukraine, which played a significant role in changing the national legal system, are analyzed, in particular,the decisions in the cases Koretsky and Others v. Ukraine, Natalia Mykhaylenko v. Ukraine, and Volokhy v. Ukraine.
 The following legal provisions as the separation of law and the law are mentioned, giving priority to law over the law in case of contradiction between them; understanding the content of the rule of law, the importance of legal certainty and reasoning of the decision to restrict human rights, legal equality of people, and giving real access to a fair trial to a person, etc.
 It is concluded that when considering the applicants' complaints about Ukraine's non-fulfillment of its obligations in the field of human rights, the European Court of Human Rights forms legal provisions that become an integral part of the domestic legal system, in some cases they (the decisions) are the factor in changing legislation, and influence the legal doctrine transformation.

In the article, the author highlights the issue of implementing the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights into the national legal system. It is outlined that the issue of approximation of national legislation, including court decisions, was outlined back in 1991, when Ukraine received the status of an independent state and took the European integration path of the country’s legal development. Since 1998, Ukraine has ratified a number of European conventions, among which it is worth noting: the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, the European Convention on Human Rights. As an impetus for the approximation of European Union law and the implementation of the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine in 2006 adopted the Law of Ukraine «On the Execution of Decisions and Application of the Practice of the European Court of Human Rights». And, although the Romano-Germanic legal system does not provide for case law, at the same time elements of case law are traced in Ukrainian legislation. The author emphasizes in the article that the European Court of Human Rights calls its own practice precedent. In turn, judicial precedent is that the European Court, when resolving a particular case, tends to generally follow the approaches that it used earlier. At the same time, legal practice has shown significant difficulties not only with the correct understanding, but also with the application of both international documents and decisions of the European Court of Human Rights. The application of thе European Court of Human Rights practice should contribute to the formation of unity of judicial practice in the protection of human rights, freedoms and interests. The author also gives his own commentary on the theses put forward by legal scholars on the issue of implementing the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights into Ukrainian legislation and the procedures for approximating European legislation to national legislation. In his study, the author reveals the issue of stagnation in the national legal system not only in resolving individual cases by analogy, but also in fully applying case law. The author also believes that a reasonable consensus is needed between the Constitutional Court of Ukraine and other bodies in the state.

The urgency of the issue of human rights implementation is determined by its permanent nature. Human rights ensuring has become not only a moral imperative, but also a key indicator of the countries' development and their readiness to cooperate in the international arena. Human rights implementation is an important component of any democratic society. The level of freedom and justice within society depends on how efficiency human rights are implemented. The European Court of Human Rights activity, the practice of which is recognized as a source of national law, is of particular importance. The purpose of the study is to cover the practice of the European Court of Human Rights as a factor in improving the human rights provision in Ukraine. It is emphasized that the practice of the European Court of Human Rights is considered as having a precedent nature, although the system of decisions of the Strasbourg Court does not have formal features characteristic of "classical” precedent law. It is indicated that the European Court of Human Rights practice can influence national law in several ways: the use of legal provisions formulated by the European Court of Human Rights by national courts; interpretation by national public authorities of the norms of national legislation through legal provisions formulated by the European Court of Human Rights; amending national legislation in accordance with the practice of the European Court of Human Rights; development of the human rights doctrine. It is emphasized that the decisions of the Court are binding for all member states, parties to the Convention. Therefore, national judicial authorities are also obliged to apply the legal provisions set forth in the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights in cases where they concern the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Convention on the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. It is summarized that the European Court of Human Rights practice is a crucial factor in the development of domestic law, contributing to the improvement of the human rights implementation. The practice of the European Court of Human Rights influences the formation and development of national legislation. In the case that national legislation does not meet international standards, the decision of the European Court of Human Rights may encourage the state to amend its legal acts to meet convention standards.

The urgency of the research is stipulated by the necessity to study the European Court of Human Rights practice as a source of law at the regional level, which affects the development of national legal systems. The purpose of the article is to elucidate the European Court of Human Rights practice as a source of law for member states to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (on the examples of individual decisions). The research is based on the understanding of law as a dynamic social and cultural phenomenon having a specific content and is closely related to human dignity, human rights and justice. Legislation is only one form of law that can exist outside the prescriptive texts, which requires the use of the hermeneutic method and content analysis of the European Court of Human Rights decisions. The article finds out that the European Court of Human Rights is one of the most effective institutions for human rights implementation. Applying the provisions of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, which was adopted in 1950, through a dynamic interpretation, the European Court of Human Rights ensures the effectiveness and efficiency of this international treaty, revealing the content in the aspect of modernity. States parties to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms are obliged to comply with the European Court of Human Rights decisions, which (the court) always follows its practice, ensuring legal certainty and the rule of law. This allows considering the European Court of Human Rights a subject forming legal doctrines at both regional and national levels. The materials of the article can be used for scientific research of the European Court of Human Rights practice as a source of law at the regional level, which affects national legal systems. The main provisions of the article can be used to justify the study of ECHR practice by lawyers as well as law students and civil servants.

The so-called Salduz doctrine that concerns the right to a fair trial and the right to the defense attorney emerged from the case of Salduz v. Turkey, decided on the part of the European Court of Human Rights where the Grand Chamber found the violation of Article 6, paragraph 3(c) of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. In this connection, the aim of this paper is twofold. In the first place, the paper aims to demonstrate how the European Court of Human Rights has overturned the two main tenents of the so-called Salduz doctrine derived from its landmark case of Salduz v. Turkey in its later Judgments delivered in the case of Ibrahim and Others v. the United Kingdom and the case of Beuze v. Belgium. The two tenets derived from the Salduz doctrine being examined in the paper are the right to access to the defense attorney as a rule during pre-trial proceedings and the absolute exclusionary rule. In the second place, the paper aims to offer a critique of the standard of compelling reasons employed in the Ibrahim Judgment. In order to achieve its aim, this paper primarily analyses the jurisprudence of the European Human Court of Human Rights in the cases of Salduz v. Turkey, Ibrahim and Others v. the United Kingdom, and Beuze v. Belgium. Besides, the paper also touches upon other judgments of the European Court of Human Rights related to its subject. The paper in question, therefore, primarily relies on the case-law method in achieving its aims. The paper concludes that in overturning the Salduz doctrine in relation to aspects examined in the paper, the European Court of Human Rights has exacerbated the legal standing of the person against whom criminal proceedings are being conducted.

The article is devoted to the issue of understanding freedom of expression and reputation protection by the European Court of Human Rights. New opportunities to exercise the right to freedom of expression arise and opportunities to implement the right to freedom of expression as well as the possibilities for defamation increase within a democratic and information society. It is emphasized that within a law-based state guarantees provided to the press are of particular importance, as the media should disseminate information and ideas of public interest, and the public has the right to receive such information and ideas. A clear understanding of the content of the right to freedom of expression and the right to reputation protection is the basis for resolving the issue of finding a balance between them, which designates the relevance of the study. The paper elucidates the results of the European Court of Human Rights decisions analysis under Articles 8 and 10 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (the right to privacy and the right to freedom of expression). Emphasis is placed on the various features of these rights and the peculiarities of their implementation in different circumstances. It is pointed out that the domestic judicial system actively uses the European Court of Human Rights practice in resolving cases related to reputation protection. Attention is placed on the fact that freedom of expression does not extend to hate speech. The spread of the right to reputation protection as for defamation of family members and relatives is analyzed. Emphasis is placed on the dynamic approach of the European Court of Human Rights towards the interpretation of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Even before the beginning of 2000, the European Court of Human Rights noted that the protection of reputation does not fall under the protection of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. The study describes the genesis of the positions of the European Court of Human Rights on a person’s reputation protection. It is stated that a person’s right to protection of his or her reputation is covered by Article 8 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms as part of the right to respect for private life (provided that causing considerable damage to reputation if it affects a person’s private life).

The article analyzes the condition for acceptability of individual applications to the European Court of Human Rights, which was introduced by The Protocol No. 14 to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, the substantial damage to which the applicant suffered as well as the circumstances that introduce the reservation of paragraphs B clause 3 of the Art. 35 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and their qualification features.It has been found that the European Court of Human Rights, even assuming that the applicant did not suffer material damage cannot declare as inadmissible any individual claim that raises the question: the adoption of law, interpretation of the norms of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, national right. It has been established that the respect for human rights, even if there is a presumption that the applicant did not suffer material damage, requires announcement as an admissible by the European Court of Human Rights such an individual application, since it has raised issues of a general nature regarding the observance of the norms of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms: 1) the necessity to clarify the obligations of the State under the Convention; 2) to compel the respondent State to resolve a structural problem affecting the interests of other persons in the same position as the applicant. The following conditions have been identified in the presence of which respect for human rights does not require consideration of the statement by the European Court of Human Rights: 1) the relevant national legislation and practice changed, and similar issues had already been resolved in other cases that the European Court of Human Rights reviewed; 2) the relevant law was canceled and the statement had only a historical character; 3) The European Court of Human Rights or the Council of Ministers have already considered this issue as a complex issue

The article has been devoted to the analysis of the nature of the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights as a source of constitutional law of Ukraine. The nature of the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights has been characterized depending on the following factors: state legal system, constitutional approach to the relation between national and international law, the level of bindingness of decisions of the European Court of Human Rights for public authorities. The author has concluded on the duality of nature the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights, namely that, the author considers that the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights have a complicated, complex structure, combining the properties of both a right-interpreting act and a judicial precedent. According to the author, the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights are intended not only to resolve the cases under trial, but also to specify and interpret the rules of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. It has been established that the current Ukrainian legislation, establishing the primacy of the rule of law before the law, provides for the obligation of the judicial authorities to apply the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights as a source of law and at the same time the duty of the state to enforce the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights in cases where Ukraine is the defendant. In addition, as the case law of the European Court of Human Rights shows, the judiciary itself emphasizes in its decisions the interpretative nature and the binding nature of all its decisions to be taken into account by all States parties. The Constitutional Court of Ukraine constantly uses the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights to form its own legal positions, after which they actually become a substantive element of the motivating part of the decision of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine. It has been concluded that regardless of whether or not the decision of the European Court of Human Rights has been ruled on Ukraine, it is a source of constitutional law in Ukraine.

The article deals with the role of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in protecting the right to social security. There is the analysis of the case law of the ECtHR on the violation of the right to social security, namely the right to receive a pension, which the ECtHR classifies as property rights. The authors have outlined the ways to improve the practice of the ECtHR in this area in modern national and world socio-economic conditions. According to available estimates, around 50 per cent of the global population has access to some form of social security, while only 20 per cent enjoy adequate social security coverage. Ensuring an ap-propriate mechanism for the protection of human and civil rights is a priority for every country. However, according to case law, the number of complaints of violations or non-recognition of their rights is growing every year. An important role in the protection of human rights in today's conditions is played by an international judicial body - the European Court of Human Rights. In Ukraine, where socio-economic rights are recognized at the constitutional level, their guarantee content in the current laws is still not clearly defined, and therefore, as evidenced by the practice of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, legal mechanisms their protection, in particular the means of judicial control remain ineffective. The right to social security is the right to access and retention of benefits, both in cash and in kind, without discrimination in order to protect, in particular, against (a) lack of income from work caused by illness, disability, maternity, occupational injuries , unemployment, old age or death of a family member; (b) inaccessible access to medical care; (c) insufficient family support, especially for children and adult dependents. It is well known that the European Convention does not contain many socio-economic rights as such (with a few exceptions - protection of property and the right to education). Thus , the former president of the ECtHR Jean-Paul Costa specifically pointed to another important European human rights treaty – the European Social Charter. Human rights are a universal value, and their protection is the task of every state. The European Court of Human Rights plays an important role in protecting human rights in modern conditions. The functioning of such an international judicial institution can not only solve a problem of protection of violated rights, but also affect the development of the judicial system of each state. The main principle of realization and judicial protection of social rights is non-discrimination on the grounds of sex, age, race, national and social origin of the individual, and the role of auxiliary institutions of the Council of Europe in generalizing and improving the ECtHR’s activity has been emphasized.