“Objectivity of Law”: ECtHR vs Russian Constitutional Court

Abstract

The contestation of the objectivity of law remains a hot topic amid a gradual rise in criticism of Eurocentrism. This paper discusses similar critical approaches to the analysis of the modern legal systems by Martti Koskenniemi and Mikhail Antonov, who claim that the contemporary mechanisms of law application provide no possible objective solution to any given hard legal problem without the intervention of an external factor (ideology or political solution) both in international and national (Russian) law. This hypothesis is tested using Koskenniemi ́s methodology of legal justification analysis by comparing the legal argumentation of the European Court of Human Rights and the Russian Constitutional Court in the Markin case. The paper concludes that both courts operate on similar principles that, in hard cases, require a subjective political decision usually based on the values belonging to local legal cultures.

Keywords: objectivity of law, comparative law, ECtHR, CC of Russia, human rights law