"Common Constitutional Tradition" as Europeanization of Constitutional Culture: the Finnish Case

Finland acceded to the Council of Europe in 1989 and to the European Union in 1995. This signalled the Europeanization of Finnish law and legal culture. Nowadays, fundamental rights, as they are construed by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, play a major role in both the legislative process and judicial praxis in Finland. As the content of fundamental rights comes from Strasbourg, it is very difficult to distinguish anything very “Finnish” from Finnish constitutional law that could then contribute towards “the constitutional traditions common to the Member States” (Article 6(3) TEU). Some peculiarities can be distinguished from institutional constitutional law, but these, too, have been affected by Europeanization. Thus, Finland has been on the receiving end of Europe’s common constitutional traditions.