Spruogis, Ernestas

The author presents his view on the relationship among democracy, the rule of law, terrorism and human rights. He discusses whether it can be claimed that human rights in some way undermine democracy, by transferring power from democratic political institutions to judges. It is stressed that in the minds of the framers of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms the defence of democracy was the instrument's fundamental purpose and the primary means of achieving this aim was the promotion of the rule of law through an international system of collective guarantee. The Convention was seen as a kind of insurance policy for democratic stability in Europe, a pact for collective action to ensure that countries did not slip back from democracy into totalitarianism, an early warning system activated by individual complaints intended to make it possible to identify and therefore counter a gradual process of regression. The author analyses the case-law of European Court of Human Rights.

The article discloses problems of the social purpose of the modern democratic state...