УДК 340.13

ORCID: 0000-0001-6439-5927

DOI 10.37566/2707-6849-2024-4(49)-4

PDF

Olha BALATSKA

Judge of the Rivne city court of Rivne region,  PhD in Law, Associate Professor at the Educational and Scientific Institute of Law by I. Malynovskyi, National University of Ostroh Academy

THE RIGHT OF ACCESS TO COURT IN THE PRACTICE OF EUROPEAN JUDICIAL INSTITUTIONS.

This article is devoted to the study of the concept of access to court in European case law. It examines the case law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and EU law to define the essence of access to court, which stems from the concept of justice as an integral part of the right to a fair trial and the rule of law.

The article dedines that ECtHR interprets the right of access to a court within the context of the «right to a court» as defined in Article 6 (1) of the Convention. Access to a court embodies not only the ability to initiate proceedings but also the right to have them resolved and to obtain justice overall. According to the ECtHR’s case law, the right of access to a court includes a substantive dimension, encompassing civil rights and obligations as well as criminal charges, and a procedural dimension, addressing potential procedural barriers to securing judicial protection of this right.

The article establishes that the rights of access to court and the right to an effective remedy, as provided by the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU, have both common and distinctive features, with national legal systems playing a pivotal role in their enforcement. The distinct roles of the two European supranational judicial systems do not preclude their complementarity or occasional competition, as evidenced by the interplay between the provisions of the Convention and the Charter, as well as the case law developed under each framework. Moreover, their respective scopes of jurisdiction must align with the competence of national judicial authorities.

Concluded, that the key difference in the application of Article 47 of the EU Charter compared to Article 6 of the ECHR lies in its broader coverage, encompassing all rights and freedoms recognized under EU law, rather than being limited solely to criminal or civil matters.

Key words: access to court, the right to an effective remedy, the right to a fair trial, the right to a court, justice.

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