European Convention on Human Rights and Enforcement of Ukrainian Competition Law

Sergiy O. Glushchenko

The impact of fundamental rights on competition law has been debated in the European Union (EU) for years. The context of the debate around engagement of these areas of law can be summarized as follows. The European Commission (Commission) accumulates the roles of investigator, prosecutor and judge without effective internal safeguards among those roles.

This raises legitimate doubt as to Commission’s impartiality as its decision-making powers are not detached from prosecutorial. Prosecutorial bias, which may lead to false positive convictions condemning beneficial practices, is alleged to be one of the main drawbacks behind the foregoing architecture of competition policy in the EU. Some assert that such a system fails to fully guarantee the protection of the right to a fair trial, as prescribed by Article 6(1) of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR)…