The International Legal Nature of the Interaction between the Judicial Authorities of the Member States of the Council of Europe and the European Court of Human Rights

Abstract

The current stage of development of international relations and international law is characterized by the active growth of interstate cooperation and the emergence of new more integrated forms of such cooperation. A special manifestation of this modern phenomenon is observed in the field of judicial cooperation. Moreover, the emergence in the modern world of international universal and regional courts and the gradual increase in their number, has become one of the prerequisites for a new form of international judicial cooperation — the interaction of national courts with international regional courts. In this regard, the greatest interest for the theoretical analysis of international legal regulation of judicial interaction is the study of the experience of such interaction in the European space, which operates the «oldest» international regional courts — the Court of Justice of the European Union, which was established in 1952 and was called the Court of Justice of t he European Coal and Steel Community and the European Court of Human Rights, established in 1959. The legal nature and forms of interaction of national courts of European states with the named international regional courts are of special interest for scientific analysis, which is explained both by considerable experience of judicial cooperation accumulated by them and novelty of legal forms and mechanisms of cooperation requiring theoretical understanding. Without exaggeration, the reopening of proceedings based on judgments of the European Court of Human Rights is one of the most effective, and often the only, measures to restore violated individual rights and improve the practice of national courts and ensure full and effective enforcement of ECHR judgments. The basis of cooperation between the courts of the member states of the Council of Europe and the ECHR is the provisions of the Convention, which makes the decision of the ECHR binding. The judicial authorities of the member states of the Council of Europe are obliged to apply the convention law of the Council of Europe, as well as the case law of the ECHR, which is the only source of cooperation between the courts of the member states of the Council of Europe and the European Court of Human Rights.