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Judicial Power in a Globalized World pp 547–557Cite as

The Subjective Right of Judges to Independence: Some Reflexions on the Interpretation of Article 6, Para. 1 of the ECHR

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Abstract

I have had the privilege of working together with President Vincent De Gaetano since the beginning of my mandate at the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), either in the Committee on working methods, or in the Grand Chamber and in the Bureau. His sense of humour but also the clarity of his positions, defended with brio, has made this cooperation a real pleasure. The independence of the judiciary is always a recurrent theme in his thinking and legal discourse. This is the reason why I decided to focus the present contribution in his honour to the issue of the independence of judges and more precisely to the question whether one could interpret Article 6, paragraph 1 of the ECHR so as to cover the subjective right of judges to independence. This question has not been examined by the Court expressis verbis, but was closely related to the facts of the case Baka v. Hungary decided by the Grand Chamber in 2016.

Linos-Alexander Sicilianos is President of the European Court of Human Rights.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Baka v. Hungary, GC, no. 20261/12, 23 June 2016.

  2. 2.

    See Campbell and Fell v. the United Kingdom, 28 June 1984, § 78, Series A no. 80.

  3. 3.

    See Clarke v. the United Kingdom (dec.), no. 23695/02, ECHR 2005-X.

  4. 4.

    See Stran Greek Refineries and Stratis Andreadis v. Greece, 9 December 1994, § 49, Series A no. 301-B.

  5. 5.

    See, for example, National & Provincial Building Society, Leeds Permanent Building Society and Yorkshire Building Society v. the United Kingdom, 23 October 1997, § 112, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1997-VII; Zielinski and Pradal and Gonzalez and Others v. France [GC], nos. 24846/94 and 34165/96 to 34173/96, § 57, ECHR 1999-VII; Scordino v. Italy (no. 1) [GC], no. 36813/97, § 126, ECHR 2006-V; and Tarbuk v. Croatia, no. 31360/10, § 49, 11 December 2012.

  6. 6.

    See Parlov-Tkalčić v. Croatia, no. 24810/06, § 86, 22 December 2009, and Agrokompleks v. Ukraine, no. 23465/03, § 137, 6 October 2011; see also Moiseyev v. Russia, no. 62936/00, § 182, 9 October 2008.

  7. 7.

    See Parlov-Tkalčić, cited above, § 86; Agrokompleks, cited above, § 137; Moiseyev, cited above, § 184; and Daktaras v. Lithuania, no. 42095/98, §§ 36 and 38, ECHR 2000-X.

  8. 8.

    See in this regard, the observations of Judges Pinto de Albuquerque and Dedov in their common concurring opinion (annexed to the Baka v. Hungary judgment, cited above), mainly §§ 20–21.

  9. 9.

    See Baka v. Hungary, cited above, §§ 72–87.

  10. 10.

    CCJE (2010)3 Final, Magna Carta, 17 November 2010, par. 3.

  11. 11.

    Venice Commission, Opinion on the draft law on introducing amendments and addenda to the judicial code of Armenia (term of Office of Court Presidents), adopted by the Venice Commission at its 99th Plenary Session (Venice, 13–14 June 2014, CDL-AD(2014)021 par. 47); see also paragraph 97 of the Joint Opinion of the Venice Commission and the Directorate of Human Rights (DHR) of the Directorate General of Human Rights and the Rule of Law (DGI) of the Council of Europe, on the draft law on amendments to the Organic Law on General Courts of Georgia, adopted by the Venice Commission a its 100th Plenary Session (Rome, 10–11 October 2014, CDL-AD (2014)031).

  12. 12.

    United Nations Human Rights Committee, General Comment no. 32 on Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Right to equality before courts and tribunals and to a fair trial), 23 August 2007, UN doc. CCPR/C/GC/32, par. 19.

  13. 13.

    See Munyo Busyo et al. v. Democratic Republic of Congo, Communication No. 933/2000, 19 September 2003.

  14. 14.

    It is well known that Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention, although developed and supplemented through case-law, is more limited in scope than Article 25 of the ICCPR.

  15. 15.

    Human Rights Committee, Bandaranayake v. Sri Lanka, Communication No. 1376/2005, 24 July 2008, par. 7.3.

  16. 16.

    Inter-American Court of Human Rights, 23 August 2013, Supreme Court of Justice (Quintana Coello et al.) v. Ecuador, par. 153.

  17. 17.

    Inter-American Court of Human Rights, 28 August 2013, Camba Campos et al. v. Ecuador, par. 188–199.

  18. 18.

    Inter-American Court of Human Rights, 5 October 2015, López Lone et al. v. Honduras, par. 190–202 and 239–240.

  19. 19.

    See Golder v. the United Kingdom, 21 February 1975, § 28, Series A no. 18.

  20. 20.

    Cited above, §34.

  21. 21.

    Cited above.

  22. 22.

    Cited above, §§ 35, 36.

  23. 23.

    See, for example, Siegle v. Romania, no. 23456/04, § 32, 16 April 2013; Varnienė v. Lithuania, no. 42916/04, § 37, 12 November 2013; Solomun v. Croatia, no. 679/11, § 46, 2 April 2015; Ustimenko v. Ukraine, no. 32053/13, § 46, 29 October 2015; and Amirkhanyan v. Armenia, no. 22343/08, § 33, 3 December 2015.

  24. 24.

    See, among many other authorities, Hassan v. the United Kingdom [GC], no. 29750/09, §§ 100 and 102, ECHR 2014.

  25. 25.

    CCJE (2010)3 Final, Magna Carta, cited above.

  26. 26.

    CCJE, Report on judicial independence and impartiality in the Council of Europe member States in 2017, 7 February 2018, doc. CCJE-BU(2017)11.

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  1. European Court of Human Rights, Strasbourg, France

    Linos-Alexander Sicilianos

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  1. European Court of Human Rights, Strasbourg, France

    Paulo Pinto de Albuquerque  & Krzysztof Wojtyczek  & 

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Sicilianos, LA. (2019). The Subjective Right of Judges to Independence: Some Reflexions on the Interpretation of Article 6, Para. 1 of the ECHR. In: Pinto de Albuquerque, P., Wojtyczek, K. (eds) Judicial Power in a Globalized World. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20744-1_33

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