Recommendation 5

If domestic courts did not have to take due account of Strasbourg jurisprudence that was relevant to the case before them this would risk domestic cases being decided without due regard to the relevant human rights standards and case law. This in turn would simply mean more successful cases against the UK in Strasbourg. Therefore, any attempt to reduce the extent to which domestic courts are required to ‘take into account’ caselaw of the ECtHR relevant to the case before them—for example were section 2 to say that a judge “may” take ECtHR case law into account rather than “must”—would inevitably lead to greater numbers of successful appeals to the ECtHR in Strasbourg, as well as poorer enforcement of human rights for victims in the UK.