Strengthening subsidiarity: integrating ECtHR case-law into national law and judicial practice

Strengthening subsidiarity: integrating ECtHR case-law into national law and judicial practice

Skopje, 1–2 October 2010

Strengthening the principle of subsidiarity through the effective implementation of the standards of the European Convention on Human Rights in the domestic legal orders of Council of Europe member states is essential for ensuring the long-term effectiveness of the Convention system. Opening a conference organised on this subject in Skopje on 1 and 2 October, Minister of Justice Mihajlo MANEVSKI said, on behalf of the Chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers: "We hope that this conference, organised by the Macedonian Chairmanship, will identify tangible ways and means of recognising the interpretative authority of judgments against other States, improving the effectiveness of domestic remedies and ensuring swift and full execution of the Court’s judgments.”

Some 100 representatives of the highest national courts, government experts, ECtHR judges, the Parliamentary Assembly, the Office of the Human Rights Commissioner and civil society will work together to tackle these issues. The participants will discuss subsidiarity from their different perspectives and the role they play in fulfilling it.

Conclusions from the Conference in Skopje will be presented at the next High-level Conference on the Future of the Court, to be held in 2011, during the Turkish Chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers.

On the margins of the Conference, the Minister of Justice, H.E. Mr. Mihajlo Manevski, will promote a publication consisting of selected Grand Chamber judgments.

Comment: In my view, it is the subsidiarity principle which destroys the doctrine of the Supremacy of Parliament. Given that Baroness Scotland signed the UK up to this at the Interlaken Conference in February, I am surprised that it appears that nobody from the UK attended the Skopje conference.