Russia and the Council of Europe

... that the ECHR has a framework nature, and its actual reading and concretization are completely dependent on the case law the ECtHR forms. This case law is an ECHR in action. The ECHR does not exist in isolation from the law enforcement practice of the ECtHR. The ECHR and case law form a coherent whole. States-parties themselves legalized a large-scale and at times arbitrary expansion of the competence of the ECtHR. Contrary to the letter and spirit of the ECHR, they allowed him to prescribe to the national authorities ...