ABSTRACT
The Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, commonly referred to as the ‘European Convention on Human Rights’ (ECHR), has arisen out of the disastrous events of World War II. The lesson learned from the Nazi era was that it did not suffice to leave protection of fundamental rights to national constitutions. The Convention entered into force in 1953, and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) was established six years later. It might be rather unusual to cite the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in a contribution dedicated to the European Convention on Human Rights. The ECJ has held in a long-standing jurisprudence that the right to effective judicial protection is ‘one of the general principles of law stemming from the constitutional traditions common to the Member States’, a right that has also been ‘enshrined in Arts. 6 and 13 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms’.
