Preventive Defense of Democracy: The position of The European Court of Human Rights

Resumen

Freedom of expression and association are essentials to guarantee the opening of the democratic system, but they can also be exercised to undermine its foundations. For this reason, the Council of Europe was determined to establish a system capable of dealing with anti-democratic threats. This spirit is reflected in the European Convention on Human Rights. The European Court of Human Rights, when evaluating whether a particular political agenda can take part in the democratic process, has established a dual requirement: that the means used to implement it are pacific and that the political project advocated is democratic. Therefore, the democratic defence of an anti-democratic project can be legitimately excluded. According to it, the Court has formulated in Refah Partisi v. Turkey a doctrine of preventive defence of democracy that raises complex and sensitive questions.