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THE COURTS AND THE ECHR: A PRINCIPLED APPROACH TO THE STRASBOURG JURISPRUDENCE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 July 2013

EIRIK BJORGE
EIRIK BJORGE*
Affiliation:
Shaw Foundation Junior Research Fellow, Jesus College, University of Oxford.
*
Address for correspondence: Eirik Bjorge, Jesus College, Turl Street, Oxford OX1 3DW. Email: eirik.bjorge@law.ox.ac.uk.
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Abstract

The way in which the courts in the United Kingdom have interpreted and applied the Ullah principle has created problems in the national application of the European Convention on Human Rights. As is evident particularly in Ambrose, this is partly because Lord Bingham's approach in Ullah has been misunderstood. The article analyses these issues in relation to the notion of binding precedent, finding that judicial authority belongs to principles. The national courts ought not, though that is what the Ullah–Ambrose approach enjoins, to expend their energies seeking to align the case before them with the least dissimilar of the reported cases. Rather they should stand back from the case law of the European Court, and apply the broad principles upon which the jurisprudence is founded.

Keywords

Human Rights Act 1998European Convention on Human Rights“no more, but certainly no less”principled approach
Type
Shorter Articles
Information
The Cambridge Law Journal , Volume 72 , Issue 2 , July 2013 , pp. 289 - 300
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge Law Journal and Contributors 2013 

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References

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