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RAIMO LAHTI of the incorporation method, Finland can be said to represent dualism in form but monism in practice when implementing international law in the domestic legal order. This method of implementation affects the application of human rights treaties. The Parliamentary Constitutional Law Committee has confirmed the following principles: the hierarchical status of the domestic incorporation act of a treaty determines the formal rank of the treaty provisions in domestic law (that is, their rank is normally that of an Act of Parliament). Incorporated treaty provisions are in force in domestic law in a form corresponding to their representation in international law; and the courts and authorities should resort to “human-rights friendly” interpretations of cases which have domestic status, in order to avoid conflicts between domestic law and human rights law. New provisions on the fundamental rights in the Finnish Constitution were enacted in 1995, and they were included into the new Constitution of 1999. The new provisions on these basic rights, which are much more detailed than the earlier ones, for instance those concerning not only fundamental freedoms but also social rights, have been essentially inspired by the international human rights treaties. From the point of view of criminal law, there are important new provisions, for example on the legality principle in criminal law (corresponding to Article 7 ECHR) and the provision stating that a punishment entailing deprivation of liberty can only be imposed by a court. Several of the enacted constitutional provisions make reference both to basic and human rights, thus giving semi-constitutional status to human rights treaties. The travaux préparatoires for this reform emphasize the fact that the constitutional provisions are also directly applicable in the administration of law by judges and authorities, and so their binding effect is not restricted to law-making only. In addition to the ‘human-rights-friendly’ interpretation of the law, a similar ‘basic-rights-friendly’ interpretation is recommended, although the prohibition of courts to examine the constitutionality of Acts of Parliament was maintained. In all, the requirements of Rechtsstaatlichkeit include several criteria which should be applied in constitutionally governed states like Finland: first, anticipatory guarantees such as the general principles limiting the use of substantive criminal law (see more supra) and the principles concerning the organization of the judiciary; second, the procedural rules regarding the different phases of criminal proceedings; and, third, the methods of appeal in criminal proceedings and the 3 See Martin Scheinin, Incorporation and Implementation of Human Rights in Finland, in Scheinin (ed.), International Human Rights Norms in the Nordic and Baltic Countries, The Hague, Nijhoff, 1996, 257-294, 276. + 404 +
