The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), although a legally independent institution from the European Union (EU), has in recent years found itself a frequent enforcer of European Union diktat.
The ECHR is designed to enforce the European Convention on Human Rights, a document commissioned through the Council of Europe in 1950. The Convention ranges from protections to individual freedoms such as the rights to privacy, freedom of religion, and personal dignity. The ECHR, however, like many European legal bodies, has sought to extend the scope of its authority and the importance of the Convention.
The ECHR consistently demonstrates a clear ideological slant, prioritising the rights of migrants while undermining conservative governments and their policies. Time and again, its rulings favour open-border advocacy, restricting national sovereignty and limiting governments’ ability to enforce immigration controls. This relentless litigation against conservative governments for protecting their borders undermines the judicial legitimacy of the ECHR and highlights the insincerity of European human rights discourse. In the post-war rebuilding of Europe, human rights were viewed as the panacea to national conflict and domestic instability, today it is clear that this poisoned chalice is a politically expedient tool to abuse non-conforming states. This pattern reveals the court’s broader political agenda—one that aligns with the progressive liberal leaders of the European Union and shows no regard for the well-being or democratic will of European citizens.
European leaders for all their obsession with the “rule of law” and “democracy” have frequently run afoul of their own principles. Politically weaponised courts have been used across the continent from domestic cases such as the Romanian electoral commission’s March 9 decision to ban front-runner candidate Călin Georgescu from further campaigning for the presidency. At the European level, blatantly politicised bodies like the ECHR have frequently threatened states’ legitimate authority to perform routine border security and asylum processing tasks.
Călin Georgescu, a former member of the conservative Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) party, drew the ire of the Romanian political establishment for his criticism of European militarisation. The ECHR ruled March 6 that Georgescu’s application to the court on December 16 2024, that the Romanian government by annulling the Presidential election results, had not violated the “right to free elections” under article 3 of the Convention.
The politicisation of the ECHR is most egregious in the realm of migration controls, where the court has actively weaponised the European Convention to hinder states’ legitimate authority to conduct deportations of illegal migrants.
Since the 2022 election of Prime Minister Georgia Meloni’s conservative government, Italy has taken a vocal stance against illegal migration, however, the hinderances of migration related ECHR case rulings during her tenure has introduced unnecessary obstructions to the Italian government’s ability to control its borders and protect its citizens.
Most exemplary of this is the ECHR undermining Italian authorities’ procedural ability to manage migrant flows across the Mediterranean Sea, with one ruling obliging the state to pay financial compensation of €27,000 to migrants who were subject to alleged human rights abuses during a medical examination.
Italy was previously found to have broken the Convention for deporting illegal migrants to the country from which they departed, as it placed migrants at risk of repatriation to their home countries. The court also found Italy in violation of Protocol 4 of the Convention, which states the “collective expulsion of aliens is prohibited.”
The Conservative Party and Nigel Farage’s Reform UK have spoken openly about Britain’s need to leave the ECHR due to its restrictive influence on British immigration policy and its sabotage of the Rwanda Plan.
The Hungarian government is no stranger to the meddling of the ECHR in its border security either. In one case, the court ruled that Hungary had failed to consider the need for special detention treatment of a homosexual Iranian asylum seeker, which he was supposedly entitled to as member of a “vulnerable group.”
European institutions need major reform, and the ECHR, in its scope, authority, and biases, is no exception. The ECHR allows its member state signatories to select judge candidates who are then approved by the institution, allowing for consistent ideological curation. As demonstrated by the litany rulings against conservative populists and their immigration policies, the court works hand-in-glove to enforce the liberal ethos of the European Union, hamstringing the ability of member states to conduct basic procedures relating to the processing and deportation of asylum seekers.
If the European Convention on Human Rights is consistently used as a tool by the European establishment to strong-arm countries into political conformity, then it can no longer be considered an impartial body. With its track record defending migrants who have attempted to enter Europe through illegal means, restricting the authority of states to control migrant flows, and enforcing the Romanian government’s decision to annul its presidential elections, it is clear the ECHR does not care for democracy but rather serves as an obedient lapdog to its masters in Brussels.
Max Keating