Iulia Motoc

Macedonia: The impact of the European Convention on Human Rights and the case law on the Republic of Macedonia

Th is chapter presents our fi ndings concerning the eff ects of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the case law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) on some of the key pillars of democratisation in the Republic of Macedonia. Within the general framework of the book, ‘the eff ects’ are analysed through the legislative, institutional, and other changes, which have been introduced in the country because of its policy of domestication (ratifi cation, application, and interpretation) of the norms and principles of the ECHR and its court’s case law. Th eoretically, ‘the eff ects’ are understood as the power of one specifi c international system, the one established by the ECHR, to infl uence changes in the national or, more specifi cally, the Macedonian legal system for the protection of human rights through its democratic political system. Such infl uences are identifi ed in the specifi c rational (normative and political) behind various legislative, institutional, or educative initiatives and projects introduced by relevant national actors. Th e specifi city of this rational is formulated usually as ‘harmonisation’ of the national system with the respective European international system. In this particular case, we are dealing with the process of harmonisation of the national system with the ECHR. Th is process could be interpreted in a narrower sense, as a ‘conventionisation process’, and in a broader sense, as a ‘Europeanisation process’. 1 In both cases, harmonisation