Strasbourg Observers

View posts from: Freedom of association

  • Ignatius Yordan Nugraha

Defusing a Brewing Conflict with the Constitution: Humpert and Others v Germany, Procedural Rationality, and the Right of Civil Servants to Strike

February 06, 2024

by Ignatius Yordan Nugraha Civil servants are constitutionally prohibited from striking in Germany. This general prohibition also affects State school teachers who have a civil servant status. On 14 December 2023, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruled in Humpert and Others v Germany that such a prohibition did not […]

  • Guest Blogger

Baldassi & Others v. France:  Article 10 protects the right to call for a boycott of goods from Israel

July 17, 2020

This guest post was written by Robert Wintemute (a Professor of Human Rights Law at King’s College London, who gave some comparative-law advice to the lawyers for the applicants) (*) Criticism of the policies of a government, and calls for peaceful action intended to put pressure on it to change its policies, would normally be […]

  • Guest Blogger

Spain: Does the Supreme Court judgment against Catalan leaders comply with human rights law?

December 16, 2019

By Massimo Frigo (Senior Legal Adviser of the International Commission of Jurists) On 14 October, the Supreme Court (Tribunal Supremo) of Spain convicted 12 people in connection with their part in the organisation on 1 October 2017 of a referendum on Catalonian independence, that was conducted despite having been declared illegal by the Constitutional Court. […]

  • Guest Blogger

Blanket ban on the right of military personnel to form and join a trade union violates Article 11 ECHR

November 06, 2014

This guest post was written by Isabelle Van Hiel, PhD Researcher and Teaching Assistant at the social law section of the Department of Criminology, Criminal Law and Social Law of the Law Faculty of Ghent University. In two recent cases of 2 October 2014 the ECtHR had to decide on the freedom of association of […]

  • Guest Blogger

A missed opportunity: how the Court’s judgment is commendable for seeking to protect religious minorities but nevertheless wide of the mark

May 19, 2014

This guest post was written by Lieselot Verdonck. Lieselot is a Ph.D. Candidate at the Human Rights Centre, Faculty of Law of Ghent University. More information on the author can be found here. The relationship between State and Church has always drawn much interest. It constitutes an inherently sensitive and political issue, which touches upon […]

  • Laurens Lavrysen

Strasbourg Court fails to adequately protect trade union freedom: secondary strike action only considered to be an ‘accessory’ aspect of Article 11 (R.M.T. v. UK)

May 12, 2014

According to the Strasbourg Court’s established case law, the right to strike action is protected by Article 11 ECHR (e.g. Enerji Yapi-Yol Sen v. Turkey), which more generally protects the right of trade unions to strive for the protection of their members’ interests (e.g. Demir and Baykara v. Turkey). In the recent case of R.M.T. […]

  • Guest Blogger

Vona v Hungary: Freedom of association and assembly can be restricted to protect Minority Rights

August 07, 2013

This guest post was written by Judit Geller and Dezideriu Gergely, European Roma Rights Centre. In the case of Vona v Hungary, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) openly stood up against racism and hatred when it ruled that if an association’s activities amounts to widespread racist intimidation of a group then the association […]

  • Guest Blogger

Herrmann v. Germany (GC): the importance of precedent and Strasbourg ‘micromanagement’

July 12, 2012

This guest post was written by Ingrid Leijten, Ph.D. researcher and teaching assistant at the Leiden University Faculty of Law, Department of Constitutional and Administrative Law. On 26 June 2012 the Grand Chamber delivered its judgment in the case of Herrmann v. Germany. It found a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 concerning […]