Protocols Nos. 15 and 16 to the European Convention on Human Rights – Amendments and New Trajectories

Abstract

This paper aims at emphasizing, in its first part, the development of the European Convention on Human Rights, as it was mirrored during time due to the significant changes that its Protocols brought to the initial form of the European document. More specifically, this approach focuses on the reconfiguration of the Convention under the auspices of Protocol No. 15 (Council of Europe, 2013a) and Protocol No. 16 15 (Council of Europe, 2013b) and tries to map the most important changes brought by these two instruments as well as the manner in which they impacted the procedures and the entire European jurisdictional construct. This way, the first one is an amendment protocol which materializes in the rethinking of the Preamble of the Convention by specifically stating the principle of subsidiarity and the margin of appreciation. Therefore, the reason of introducing these two concepts reconfirms their importance while applying the provisions of the Convention. Additionally, this Protocol introduces a few procedural changes as well as a series of aspects related to the structure and the organization of the European Court of Human Rights. Secondly, Protocol No. 16 to the Convention tries to enhance communication between the Court and the domestic courts by introducing the advisory opinion procedure and stating upon those entities entitled to access it, also specifying a series of conditions which have to be fulfilled when seeking for an advisory opinion.