CYIL vol. 9 (2018)

CYIL 9 ȍ2018Ȏ THE CZECH REPUBLIC BEFORE THE EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN 2017 Finally, as mentioned previously, this situation probably has a complex explanation flowing from various factors, such as the role of national courts that have a Constitutional Court as their court of last resort, who quite effectively detect potential violations and secure appropriate redress, the principle of subsidiarity and the doctrine of the margin of appreciation which have become the functional leitmotiv of this decade in the Convention system, and possibly also the overall attitude of judges to the Court recently elected by the Parliamentary Assembly who may be prone to a more restrictive interventionist approach into the decision- making of national authorities. It seems clear that these factors must be intertwined and their list can also be incomplete. In any event, at least some of the cases decided in 2017 in the area of fair trial, referred to above, may have well received a different outcome and result in a finding of a violation of the Convention. After all, if everything in this area was absolutely clear from the start, lawyers would become superfluous to the adjudication of both human behaviour and the functioning of institutions and could easily be replaced by computers.

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