Tangents between the Estonian Legal Space and the European Court of Human Rights
As of spring 2009, the European Court of Human Rights had issued 18 substantive court decisions regarding cases originating in Estonia.
The European Convention on Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and the decisions of the European Court Human Rights are directly applicable in the Estonian legal space, including by courts. Unfortunately there is a lack of comprehensive data for evaluating the actual extent to which these decisions are applied and their impact on ensuring of the fundamental rights of persons under Estonian jurisdiction. The decisions of the Supreme Court as the highest court in the Republic of Estonia evince an observable but not dominant reliance on the convention and European Court of Human Rights decisions. In the opinion of the author there are still a number of areas in the Estonian legal space where the regulatory environment established by legal norms or the application of standards in practice may be in conflict with the European Court of Human Rights’ interpretation of the Convention’s scope of protection.