Conflicts between Individual Rights and Public Morality in the European Court of Human Rights Case Law

Abstract

"public morality" is one of the most important restricting concepts of human rights and freedoms, Despite its inclusion in many human rights instruments, there is no precise definition and clear explanation of its meaning and conditions for imposing its limitations on individual rights. To avoid arbitrary restrictions to these rights, and in the absence of laws and regulations that can provide a complete and comprehensive formulation of the conditions for the application of general ethical constraints on individual rights, the reference to the case laws of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) as a leading, active and innovative institution in the field of human rights could be promising. In context of conflicts between individual rights and public morality, ECHR has adopted different approaches: regarding conflict between individual and sexual morality, mostly public morality overcomes individual rights, although in homosexuality cases, unlike the usual case laws, ECHR prefers individual rights to public morality. In non-sexual case laws, united approaches cannot be deduced from ECHR precedent. Although the lack of a definition of public morality and the granting of "broad margin of appreciation" to member states in defining the concept of universal morality and its implications are the greatest weaknesses of the ECHR precedent, the precise formulation of the conditions for imposing restrictions is one of the greatest achievements of the Court.

Keywords

• "public morality"
• "individual rights"
• "european court of human rights"
• "restriction of human rights"
• "limitation on restriction of human rights"