Protection of ECHR rights in administrative proceedings

This paper aims to analyse the role of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in safeguarding and developing participatory rights in administrative proceedings. The need to protect the citizens through effective participation in the administrative decision-making process is not only met in national laws context or at the community law level. Another source for protecting private persons against public authorities deserves consideration: the European Convention on Human Rights, in particular though the very important creative interpretation work of its Court in Strasbourg. In its judgments the European Court applies the ECHR provisions creating autonomous meanings which allow a modern approach to the traditional conventional rights to the present reality of the relationship between individuals and public powers . In this creative interpretation’s activity the Court develops new rules derived from the Conventional provisions, in particular from Article 6 ECHR (right to a fair trial), which represent important guarantees for the issue of participative democracy.