Legal Certainty in Substantive Law as a Condition for Effective Civil Proceedings : The Perspective of the European Court of Human Rights

Abstract

Abstract

Historically, the effectiveness of civil proceedings has been analyzed mainly through procedural guarantees; the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights, however, increasingly shows that the quality of substantive regulation also affects the practical effectiveness of judicial protection. Under conditions of normative instability and broad judicial discretion, legal certainty acquires systemic importance for the foreseeability of the law and for public trust in the justice system. Although the principle of legal certainty is well developed in the rule-of-law literature, its structural role as a precondition for effective civil adjudication remains insufficiently explored. This study seeks to demonstrate the fundamental significance of legal certainty in substantive law as a structural condition of civil proceedings, and to develop an account of the quality of substantive regulation as a precondition for the effective enjoyment of the right to a fair trial under Article 6 of the Convention. It applies the dogmatic and comparative methods, together with a structured interpretative analysis of case-law, and examines 180 judicial decisions: 120 judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (2000–2024) and 60 judgments of the highest courts of Poland, France, and Germany, supplemented by civil codes and statutes. The analysis shows that foreseeability, consistency of judicial practice, protection of legitimate expectations, legal stability, and the finality of judicial decisions operate as interdependent indicators of the normative quality of substantive law within the civil limb of Article 6, and that vagueness or internal inconsistency in substantive norms may render formally correct proceedings ineffective as a means of protecting rights.