La dimensione «metaindividuale» dei diritti fondamentali nell'elaborazione della Corte di Strasburgo

Fundamental rights violations committed by member States of the Convention against social groups, like trade unions, political parties, associations, etc., can frequently be found in the ECHR case law. Article 34 of the European Convention provides that "the Court may receive applications from any person, non-governmental organisation or group of individuals claiming to be the victim of a violation". As a result the Court recognized that several articles of the European Convention shall also protect meta-individual rights. The thesis points out that the protection of the «meta-individual» dimension of fundamental rights is necessary in order to ensure full compliance with the European Convention on Human Rights, not only because the collective exercise of the human rights is an important way to develop the personality of the individual, but also and above all because some individual rights are better protected by collective actions. In such a way it is understandable the concept of «social formation» set out in the Italian Constitution, that considers each collective entity as an «intermediate group» between the State and the individual. The progressive recognition of the ownership of the human rights – in a «meta-individual» dimension – to these social groups is nothing more than the logical consequence of the subsidiarity principle, that considers social groups as guardians of the rights and liberties of individuals.