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András Zs. Varga: Constitutional identity and judgements of the ECtHR. Nr. 2016/16.

One of the recent challenges regarding the legislation and jurisdiction of the different European institutions – of the European Union and of the Council of Europe – is the sharpening conflicts among them and the Member States. The question of final appreciation of constitutional conflicts, particularly conflicts based on or deducted to human rights is essential and important. The question is the following: what can a state or its Constitutional Court do if it finds that a judgement of an international court (the ECJ or the ECtHR) is contrary to the Constitution? Such conflicts are observed also between the ECJ (Opinion 2/2013) and the ECtHR (Bosphorus presumption). The answer cannot avoid the fundamental principle that the rule of law and primacy of international law requires that judgements of international courts are observed and enforced. But if there is no instrument to correct inappropriate international judgments, if there is no balance to the unlimited power of international courts that expropriate legislation, if constitutional courts are mere servants of international courts than arbitrariness is faced.

pdfThe working paper is available for download here.

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