Demokrati eller demokratisk kontrol? : en kritisk diskursanalyse af politikere og juristers fremstilling af Den Europæiske Menneskerettighedsdomstol

This paper examines the discourse regarding The Danish Chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe. The study is focused around eight articles from 2017 in which the European Court of Human Rights dynamic interpretation of the Euro-pean Convention of Human Rights is either questioned or defended. In choosing these articles the study focuses on including both politicians and lawyers since this discourse represents a continuing battle between democratic control and democracy. In analyzing these articles, the study will use Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis with a theoreti-cal social constructivism perspective. The analysis of this study shows that the discourse regarding the dynamic interpretation is constantly changing and is an example of what happens when making a national problem international. The analysis shows clear repre-sentations of power, hierarchy and status in the public debate for both politicians and law-yers and this study can therefore serve as an example for other discourses where the in-ternational society and human rights are criticized. This study shows the power hierarchy with the Danish Justice Minister, Søren Pape Poulsen, at the top followed by the lawyers and then the following politicians. The lawyers never gained more than minimal influence because of the Ministers ability to placate them