Principled Criticism and a Warning from the ‘UK’ to the ECtHR?

The ‘UK’ has been a major critic of the ECtHR over recent years, and especially since 2009. This chapter provides a unique analysis and assessment of the criticism, and, importantly, the constitutional context that forms the backdrop to it. It distinguishes between bad faith, political criticism of the ECtHR, and other more measured criticism of the ECtHR emanating from the ‘UK’ which, in effect, called for more self-restraint from the Court (and which should not be readily dismissed as ‘Strasbourg bashing’ or ‘anti-Strasbourg’). As to the latter, the chapter argues that, taken overall, aspects of the UK criticism could be considered ‘principled’, and that its general effect was such that it may be said that a ‘principled warning’ was issued by the ‘UK’ to the ECtHR over the 2010s. It proceeds to argue that the evolved nature of UK-Strasbourg judicial relations constitutes an adequate and proportionate response to the criticism and the warning, highlighting how the senior UK judiciary is, especially post-2015, far more robust in its interactions with Strasbourg than it once was. The chapter concludes by reflecting on these developments, in terms of what they may mean for human rights protection in the UK under the Human Rights Act 1998, as well the dangers to guard against for Strasbourg.