Kanstantsin Dzehtsiarou, a PhD researcher at University College Dublin, has just posted a working paper on one of the more opaque aspects of Strasbourg case-law: the notion of a European consensus : ‘Consensus from within the Palace Walls’. The innovative aspect is that his findings are based on interviews with the judges in Strasbourg themselves. This is the abstract:
The Article is based on interviews with Judges of the European Court of Human Rights examining their attitude to the European Consensus argument conducted by the author in 2008-2009. The Judges were asked about the impact the European Consensus argument can have on their judgments and what those situations are when they can decide a case in a way opposite to European Consensus. The judges also identified certain functions that comparative law and European Consensus can accomplish in the Court’s reasoning. The process of consensus identification was also a separate issue discussed with the judges during the interviews. The article summarises an attitude to European Consensus by the decision-makers in the Court.
