Judicialization of Politics in Europe: Keeping Pace with Strasbourg

Abstract

In Europe's multilayered constitutional arrangements, the work of national courts is increasingly influenced by directives and regulations of the European Council and Commission and decisions of the Court of Justice of the European Union and the European Court of Human Rights or Strasbourg Court as it is generally identified. Examined in this article are the recent efforts by courts in Germany, France, Italy, and the United Kingdom to keep pace with developments in European human rights law, especially the decisions of the Strasbourg Court, dealing with asylum and immigration. By focusing on recent decisions dealing with asylum and immigration issues, this article reveals the variety of approaches taken by courts in Europe to harmonize national law with international human rights law and concludes that the decisions that contributed most to the expansion of judicial power in this domestic policy area were those invoking principles of European human rights law to bolster the protection of rights that were already part of the national constitutional tradition.