The ECtHR and National Constitutional Courts. A General Overview

The Chapter provides a general overview of the relationship between the ECtHR and national constitutional courts. It begins by providing an illustration of the various factors that shape this relationship. In the Second Section, the patterns and techniques employed by the Strasbourg Court to interact with constitutional courts are analysed. The Third Section deals instead with the ECtHR case law applying the fair trial guarantees to constitutional courts, trying to identify the minimum content of the right to a fair constitutional process. Finally, the different interactions between the two levels outside Article 34 ECHR proceedings are presented, focusing in particular on the advisory opinion mechanism of Protocol 16.