Pöördumine

Dear Mr. Villu Kõve

President of the Supreme Court of the Estonia

I am a law researcher holding a Ph.D. degree in law. Currently, I am associated with the University of Warsaw (Poland), where I am conducting a research project on social rights protection in Central and Eastern European Constitutionalism. To provide a possible comprehensive picture, I decided to contact you, as well as other Presidents of the Constitutional Courts from Central and Eastern Europe. This is because I’m convinced that the Constitutional Courts are key to protecting individual rights including social rights in Central and Eastern Europe.

I would be very grateful if you could support my research by answering the following questions:

1.     What are the main features of social rights jurisprudence of the Supreme Court of Estonia - Riigikohus (i.a. what are the boundaries in the realisation of social rights that the Supreme Court has set for the legislature)?

2.     Did the Supreme Court of Estonia refer (and to what extent) to the concepts of justiciability of social rights developed internationally, like the standard of reasonableness, the minimum/core content of rights and minimum/core obligations of states or proportionality?

3.     Has the global crises, that have been taking place in recent years, meaning the economic crisis that started in 2008 (which resulted in the adoption of different austerity measures) and the COVID-19 crisis or any other domestic crisis affected the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court of Estonia concerning social rights, and if yes – how?

4.     To protect the social interests of the individual, does the Supreme Court of Estonia turn to civil and political rights (such as the right to dignity or equality) in addition to or instead of social rights?

I would also like to kindly ask you to send me the most important (in your opinion) judgments of the Supreme Court of Estonia concerning:

1)    the right to social security,

2)    the right to health care,

3)    the right to education,

4)    the right to housing.

I would appreciate it if these judgments were available in English.  If they are not, please send them to me in the original language.

If you are willing to help me with my research I would appreciate your response by the 15th of April. Once I complete this research I am planning to publish the results in open-access format. I will be happy to share them with you.

Yours faithfully,

Dr Adam PLOSZKA

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dr Adam Ploszka

Assistant Professor (adiunkt),

Centre for Human Rights

Faculty of Law and Administration

University of Warsaw