The Interrelation of Private and Political Autonomy under the ECHR

This article examines the relationship between democracy and human rights within the framework of the ECHR through the case law of the ECtHR. WHile the COnvention presupposes democracy, it does not define it. In the Court's jurisprudence, democracy is primarily articulated through political participation rights. By contrast, rights concerning privacy, identity and self-determination are often treated as solely individual interests to be balanced against collective democratic concerns. The article challenges this dichotomy. Drawing on political theory and leading judgments on gender identity, sexual orientation, bodily integrity and religious expression, it argues that private autonomy is not opposed to political autonomy but constitutes a precondition for it. The article proposes an autonomy-based reading of the Convention: interferences with private life affect not only individual liberty but also the conditions of democratic participation. Human rights thus appear not as limits to democracy, but as structural requirements of an inclusive democratic order.