Rola europejskiej Konwencji o ochronie praw człowieka i podstawowych wolności w orzecznictwie niemieckiego Federalnego Trybunału Konstytucyjnego

The purpose of the article is to analyze the role that — according to the jurisprudence of the Federal Constitutional Court — is played in the German legal system by the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and the case law of the European Court of Human Rights under the Convention, relating particularly to the issue of rights competition between the Convention and national rights catalogues. First, the characteristics of the Convention are examined. Then, the author points to the basic elements of the constitutional law concerning the force of international law in the Federal Republic of Germany, and from this perspective he analyzes the role of the Convention within the meaning of the Strasbourg case-law, focused particularly on the judgments of the Federal Constitutional Court in the cases of Görgülü and Sicherungsverwahrung. Further analysis is carried out on the actual signifi cance of the Convention in the German legal system.