May the Czech Railways lodge an application with the European Court of Human Rights? Legal standing of state-owned companies: approaches of the Czech Constitutional Court and the European Court of Human Rights
Abstract
This paper's goal is to compare the standing of state-owned companies as applicants before the European Court of Human Rights, as opposed to before the Czech Constitutional Court. It will be argued that the European Convention's principle of 'sufficient institutional and operational independence from the state' is not relevant for the practice of the Czech Constitutional Court.
The analysis should prove that the approaches of the European Court of Human Rights and the Czech Constitutional Court are based on significantly distinctive concepts. Both the 'European Convention model' and the 'Czech model' will be defined not only from the perspective of current case-law, but also with regard to the underlying principles of the human rights protection, as applied by these two courts.
This comparison may serve as a basis for describing the cross-fertilization of both institutions, while keeping in mind the spirit of the European Convention of Human Rights.