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European Standards of Judicial Governance: From Soft Law Standards to Hard Law**
David Kosar is the head of the Constitutional Law Department, Masaryk University Faculty of Law, Czech Republic.
The article describes the effect of the ever-expanding case-law of ECtHR and the CJEU on domestic judicial design and its connection to judicial independence. The right to a fair trial and the right to effective remedy, which are fundamental parts of both legal order, has been interpreted in recent times as a yardstick to evaluate the national judicial system, which also leads to an empowerment of the judges and enforcement of soft law standards. These new instruments were established especially to protect judges in illiberal or transitional democracies but they seem to be more and more relevant for established democracies as well.