The European Court of Human Rights Interptetation of Migrants Cases: Basic Doctrinal Approaches

Abstract

The doctrinal substantiation of the practical consideration of precedents in relation to ensuring and violating the migrants’ rights is in sight of the representatives of various field of science. It is also a subject of complex international legal, political, historical, economic, demographic, anthropological and social studies. However, a rapid dynamic development, caused by various factors in migration processes, and its institutionalization requires picky and thorough scientific analysis of some important issues such as the migration problem, the impact of the right to migrate, political and rational incentives for migration, consideration of the interpretation of such cases by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) for a further and comprehensive settlement of migration policy on both European and national level. Although particular steps are being taken to create a sustainable regulatory framework for the recognition and assurance of human rights in response to current challenges and to systemic drawbacks of the national human rights mechanism – the problems of migration and asylum are very urgent and thorny. The purpose of the article is to analyse doctrinal approaches and legal positions of the ECtHR in the process of interpretation in the field of migration. The use of the research methodology was caused by the specifics of the study subject. The comprehensive approach to analysis, which combines a wide range of philosophical, general scientific, special scientific and legal methods, served as a research basis. Thus, the dialectical method has allowed substantiating a regular nature of the formation of an evolutionary approach to the interpretation of ECtHR judgments. The anthropological approach emphasized on the place and role of man in the process of legal interpretation. With the help of the hermeneutic method, the concept of the categories “migrant”, “migrants’ rights”, “asylum”, as well as the content of the doctrinal approaches and legal positions of the Court were disclosed, while a systematic method reflected the interrelationship between them. The statistical method made it possible to quantitatively synthesize the case law of the ECtHR in the field of migration and asylum. The use of the comparative method allowed to carry out a comparative analysis of doctrinal approaches employed by the Court in considering various categories of migration issues in different periods of its activities. It is proved that the ECtHR uses many doctrinal approaches, the Court emphasizes on the need to adhere to the principle of wide margin of appreciation. In cases of deportation of foreigners convicted of a criminal offense, the Court is guided by the principle of proportionality. Most of the cases examined by the ECtHR concerning migrants are related to the provision of asylum. The interpretation activities of the Court are focused on identifying barriers to asylum and formulating the principle of prohibition of dismissal, if the asylum seeker was forced to leave his country caused by various circumstances such as humanitarian crisis, non-selective violence, real threat / danger, denial of justice, or unlawful detention or conviction by a manifestly unfair trial in country of residence, or procedural violations against migrants and etc. The ECtHR has also focused on assessing the risks of not granting asylum, in particular, harsh treatment and has formulated the predominance principle of the child’s extraordinary vulnerability, which prevails over the status of the illegal stay presence as a foreigner on the territory of the state