EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN ACTION / Alla Tymofeyeva (ed.)

INTRODUCTION Last year we celebrated the 70 th anniversary of the European Convention on Human Rights (Convention/ECHR). This international treaty was entered into force for the Czech Republic on 1 January 1993 and on the same day, the Czech Republic became an independent state. Consequently, the systemof the ECHRand the new state establishment began in theCzechRepublic simultaneously. This meant that the new Czech state has based its activities on the principles of a respect for human rights from the very beginning. Human rights were not only proclaimed on the national level, but strongly promoted. The educational system of the Czech Republic actively encourages the learning of human rights. These ideas are also reflected within the educational program of Charles University. The Faculty of Law at Charles University offers its students a number of courses on human rights. One of them is specifically focused on the Convention and is titled ‘Case-law of the European Court of Human Rights.’ Initially, this course emphasised the protection of human rights in the post-communist countries. However, since the situation with human rights protection in the Council of Europe’s member states has gradually changed over the years, the title of the course and of the textbook have been revised. At the end of nineties and the beginning of the millennium, the post-communist countries faced a number of specific problems. They were in worsening financial situation and it was extremely difficult for them to conduct the required judicial and political reforms. Due to the historical past of these countries, it was not easy to bring their legal systems in compliance with the Convention. Thirty years have passed since the collapse of the Soviet Union and many countries that had been a part of or under the strong influence of the USSR have become much more developed and have achieved important reforms aimed at democratisation and the rule of law. Perhaps, they were not totally successful in accomplishing all of their desired goals, but the level of respect for human rights in these states have become much greater. The use of internet and a general globalisation demonstrates that the dividing line between the old and new democracies is not so clear anymore. The case-law of the European Court of Human Rights (Court/ECtHR) corroborates that the problems involving violations of human rights are now often the same for the founding states of the Council of Europe and those who became its members only in nineties. For example, the Court found a violation of Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention on account of an exclusion of convicted prisoners from voting in parliamentary elections with respect to Russia ( Anchugov and Gladkov v. Russia , nos. 11157/04 and 15162/05, 4 July 2013) and the United Kingdom ( Hirst v. the United Kingdom (no. 2) [GC], no. 74025/01, ECHR 2005-IX). Likewise, both disagreed with the position of the Court and refused to enforce the judgments at issue. The new Grand chamber judgment in the case of Big BrotherWatch and Others v. the United Kingdom of 25May 2021 raised the issue of non-compliance with the Convention of a secret surveillance system and the interception of electronic communications. In the case of Roman Zakharov v. Russia , the Court also held that there had been a violation of Article 8 of the Convention relating to shortcomings in Russian legal framework governing secret surveillance of mobile telephone communications. These examples vividly confirm the fact that the need in protection of human rights on international level still exists and that the difficulties of old and new democracies are very similar. COVID-19 became the new challenge to the world and it will definitely be reflected in the forthcoming case-law of the Court. The restrictions imposed on human rights in all of the states, parties to the Convention were of the same manner: strong interferences with the private life of persons, prohibitions on travelling, restrictions on the freedom of assembly, and the closing of many businesses, etc. There already are a few complaints pending before the Court alleging infringements on the right to the freedom of expression with regards to information concerning COVID-19 ( Avagyan v. Russia , no. 36911/20), suspensions of

EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN ACTION

11