The pilot judgements as a paradigmatic example of transformation of the European Court of Human Rights

Fifty years after the ECtHR delivered its first judgement, the time has come to rethink the defining function of this jurisdiction. That means recognizing and analyzing in detail the tension between its role as a protector of individual rights and its role as a standard-setting body through which the process of European harmonisation in the field of fundamental rights takes place. This rethinking actually means considering which of the two functions, the protective or the harmonising one, should prevail in determining the position of the Court of Strasbourg in the European judicial area. One of the clearest elements of this transformation of the Court is the pilot judgment procedure, which tests the potential of the European Court as the European Constitutional Court.