European Human Rights Law and Estonia: One- or Two-way Street?

• Author: Julia Laffranque
• Pages: 4-16

Julia Laffranque

Judge, European Court of Human Rights

Professor of European Law, University of Tartu

European Human Rights

Law and Estonia:

One- or Two-way Street?

1. Historical background: Ratif‌i cation of

the convention and its protocols by Estonia

After re-gaining its independence in 1991, Estonia was eager to conf‌i rm the country’s historical belonging to

Europe and opened itself up to a democratisation process. All efforts were taken in order to return Estonia

to the family of democratic states governed by the rule of law and again join the international community,

including the Council of Europe (on 14 May 1993) and later on the EU (on 1 May 2004). European human

rights law as understood for the purpose of this article is above all the European Convention on Human

Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (the Convention) and the case law of the European Court of Human

Rights (the Court, the Strasbourg Court) in applying and interpreting it.

Lennart Meri, President of Estonia in 1992–2001, in the f‌i rst years of the re-established Republic of

Estonia (in the 1990s) pointedly warned that if we do not build a state governed by the rule of law, Estonia

will be as lonely as the Moon rotating around the Earth.*1

Estonia ratif‌i ed the Convention on 13 March 1996 and it became binding for Estonia as of 16 April 1996.

A reservation to the Convention was made by the Government of Estonia regarding Article 1 of Protocol No.

1 of the Convention as far as Estonian laws on property reform are concerned. The reservation turned out

to be a pragmatic choice, because in Estonia some property-reform-related issues are many years later still

not solved. In its decision in the case Shestjorkin v. Estonia,*2 which concerned the restitution of nation-

alised property, the Court examined Estonia’s reservation and found that it satisf‌i ed the requirements of

the Convention. The European Commission of Human Rights had already held the reservation applicable

and the application inadmissible in another Estonian property reform case.*3 Despite this reservation, the

case law of the national judiciary, especially of the Supreme Court and its Administrative Law Chamber, has

followed the principles of rule of law and found them to be applicable also in often both factually and legally

very complicated cases of privatisation. On the other hand, the Court has even without going necessarily

into the substance of the Estonian reservation accepted that the national authorities enjoyed a wide margin

of appreciation in regulating ownership relations that involved large-scale economic and legal reforms and

that the national authorities succeeded in striking a fair balance between the proprietary interests of the

persons concerned.*4

1 Available online at: http://www.tsitaat.com/tsitaadid/teemad/%C3%B5igusriik.

2 Shestjorkin v. Estonia, [dec.] No. 49450/99, 15 June 2000.

3 Vesterby v. Estonia, No. 34476/97, 1 July 1998.

4 See Poder and Others v. Estonia, [dec.] No. 67723/01, 26 April 2005.

4JURIDICA INTERNATIONAL 23/2015

http://dx.doi.org/10.12697/JI.2015.23.01