Senior Lecturer of the Department of Civil Procedure 

of the Siberian Federal University 

The author concludes that judgments of the ECHR are acts of «soft law». They are considered legislator and national courts in specific procedural relations. However legal positions of the ECHR can’t be considered without analyses national procedural law in relation to idea of justice which is fastened in Article 6 of the Convention. The legal instrument, which shows interaction of the ECHR and national jurisdictions are principle of margin of appreciation. The author expresses scholars’ positions on the legal force of the ECHR judgments and emphasizes three main conceptions about the essence of legal nature of the ECHR judgments: a) the ECHR judgment – act of justice; b) the ECHR judgment – judicial precedent, i.e. source of civil and arbitration procedural law; c) the ECHR judgment – act of official interpretation of the Convention. The author proves opinion that there are weighty arguments not to share the given positions; the legal nature of the Court’s activities is predetermined soft-legal value. 

Keywords: ECHR; soft law; margin of appreciation principle; legal nature of the ECHR judgments.

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Information about the author 

Lubchenko M.Ya. (Krasnoyarsk, Russia) – Senior Lecturer of the Department of Civil Procedure of the Siberian Federal University (660041, Krasnoyarsk, Maierchaka St., 6, room 205; e-mail: [email protected]). 

Recommended citation 

Lubchenko M.Ya. Postanovleniya Evropejskogo suda po pravam cheloveka kak «myagkoe pravo» (soft law) [Judgments of the European Court of Human Rights as a Soft Law]. Вестник гражданского процесса = Herald of Civil Procedure, 2017, no. 3, p. 256–270. (In Russian) DOI: 10.24031/2226-0781-2017-7-3-256-270