Meaning and Effects of the European Convention on Human Rights and of the Judgments of the European Court of Human Rights in Germany
The European Convention on Human Rights, its protocols and the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights are shaping the German legal order to a considerable extent, although the Convention formally takes only the hierarchical rank of a simple federal statute. The reason for this triumphant success of the Convention guarantees in Germany is that the European Convention is much more than an ordinary international treaty: it limits the power of the State in the interests of individual freedom, equality and human dignity. It is true that the European Court of Human Rights has no competence to abolish national laws that are in conflict with the Convention. Nevertheless, the Strasbourg Court has a significant indirect influence on the national legal order and, in a way, performs constitutional functions in substance. The European Court of Human Rights is legitimized philosophically by the fact that the European Convention on Human Rights does not draw up its own sovereignty but is exclusively called upon to interfere with and to limit other sovereign powers, namely those of its High Contracting Parties.