Kansallisen lainsäädännön, ihmisoikeussopimuksen ja unionin oikeuden tavoitteellinen tulkinta – mikä muuttuu?
Avainsanat:
tulkintaopit, teleologia, tavoitteellinen tulkinta, kansallinen lainsäädäntö, Euroopan ihmisoikeussopimus, Euroopan unionin oikeusAbstrakti
Teleological interpretation as applied to national legislation, the European Convention on Human Rights, and EU law – Where are the differences?
The article assesses the teleological (or purposive) method of interpretation in three contexts: National legislation, the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and European Union (EU) law. The focus is on whether there is a difference in emphasis as between the teleological interpretation of national legislation and the teleological interpretation of the ECHR and EU law. The perspective adopted in relation to the interpretation of national legislation is distinctively Nordic, where the legislator’s intent plays a crucial role. This means, in practice, that preparatory legislative works are an important interpretative source. Consequently, in the context of national legislation, application of the teleological method of interpretation means, in essence, ascertaining the purpose of the legislation at hand by reference to the preparatory works (e.g. government bills). Teleological interpretation of the ECHR and EU law, however, differs in many ways from the approach taken in respect to national legislation. First, there are no comparable preparatory legislative works from which the purpose of a certain ECHR/EU rule might be ascertained. Second, the purposes of the ECHR and EU law differ by nature from those of national legislation, and concern the functioning of the respective legal system as a whole and the reasons for which the system was created in the first place. The primary purpose of the ECHR is to protect human rights, which relates to moral obligations. In turn, EU law encompasses both judicial purposes (e.g. legal certainty, rule of law, equality) and non-judicial purposes (e.g. fundamental freedoms of movement, economic integration, internal market). The authors conclude that while differences exist in terms of the emphasis in the method as between interpretation of the ECHR and EU law and national legislation, largely due to the fact that the ECHR and EU law operate on a more general level, these differences are not radical. The basic idea of the method is the same, which is to say that seeking to ascertain the purposes underlying the law (such as justice and fairness) is the key driver, one that does not change even where the purposes of the various legal systems differ.
