Strasbourg Observers

View posts from: Right to Property

  • Emma De Clerq

State omission to compensate unharvested wood, towards more consolidation? Associations of communally-owned forestry proprietors v. Romania

January 26, 2024

By Emma De Clerq In a recent judgment from 28 November 2023, the Strasbourg Court found a violation of the right to property, as environmental protections kept the applicants from enjoying the economic benefits of their forests, without compensation. The forests in question were designated as protected areas under the European “Natura 2000” network. This […]

  • Maija Dahlberg

More human rights at the cost of the state sovereignty? Clarifying the scope of applicability of Article 8 ECHR to social welfare benefits in Beeler v Switzerland

February 21, 2023

By Maija Dahlberg In Beeler v Switzerland the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) had to balance between its far-reaching human rights interpretations and the principle of state sovereignty. Concretely, the case concerned an interesting interpretative question whether to extend the scope of applicability of Article 8 ECHR to social welfare benefits.

  • Dr Elif Askin

Guidance for Assessing Discrimination under Article 14 ECHR: Advisory Opinion on the Difference in Treatment between Landowners’ Associations “having a recognised Existence on the Date of the Creation of an approved Municipal Hunters’ Association” and Landowners’ Associations set up after that Date

January 31, 2023

By Dr Elif Askin The prohibition of discrimination in Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) has been criticised for being a ‘parasitic’ right of marginal impact and ‘a kind of a Cinderella provision that has not been given an opportunity to shine’. Over the past decade, however, the European Court of […]

  • Cathérine Van de Graaf

Belgium reprimanded in Anderlecht Christian Assembly of Jehovah’s Witnesses and Others: the procedure for recognition of a religion lacks minimum guarantees of fairness

June 14, 2022

By Cathérine Van de Graaf Anderlecht Christian Assembly of Jehovah’s Witnesses and Others v. Belgium is one of these judgments where you are reading the reasoning of the European Court of Human Rights (hereinafter: Court or ECtHR) and you think you know the direction it is going, but it then takes a turn that nobody […]

  • Kurt Xerri

Bartolo Parnis and Others v. Malta: rigid rent controls that violate property rights call for effective future remedies, not necessarily an eviction

December 17, 2021

Introduction Bartolo Parnis and Others v. Malta (Bartolo Parnis) is the last in a series of judgments in which Maltese landlords have been contesting before the ECtHR the remedy afforded to them by the domestic Constitutional Court, after concluding that strict rent controls were in breach of their property rights. The finding of such a […]

  • Guest Blogger

“Protecting the Public Purse” in cuts to Social Security: Krajnc v Slovenia

November 30, 2017

By Dr Ben Warwick (University of Birmingham) Krajnc v Slovenia continues the ECtHR’s grappling with the interaction between Convention rights and public finance questions. Relying on Article 1, Protocol 1 the applicant successfully argued that a law change, which resulted in a halving of his disability allowance, was a breach of the Convention. The case […]

  • Guest Blogger

Bélané Nagy v. Hungary: a self-standing right to obtain social benefits under the ECHR?

March 10, 2015

This guest post was written by Ingrid Leijten, Ph.D. researcher and lecturer at the Leiden University Faculty of Law, Department of Constitutional and Administrative Law. See also the post she wrote for Verfassungsblog. Over the years, the Court’s social security case law has not become much easier to understand. Meanwhile, the Court has rendered numerous […]

  • Guest Blogger

The European Court of Human Rights has spoken … again. Does Turkey listen?

July 07, 2014

This guest post was written by Dr Elena Katselli, Senior Lecturer in Law at Newcastle Law School Thirteen years have elapsed since the European Court of Human Rights’ (ECtHR) judgment in Cyprus v Turkey in which the Court found Turkey responsible for 14 violations of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and its Protocols. […]

  • Laurens Lavrysen

Transforming the right to property

July 17, 2013

Reading Strasbourg case-law on a systematic basis, I always feel uncomfortable when I see the Court’s expansive protection in the field of Article 1 Protocol 1. Basically, that is because I don’t really like the idea of a human right to property for a number of reasons. Firstly, a right to property takes the present […]

  • Guest Blogger

N.K.M. v. Hungary: Heavy Tax Burden Makes Strasbourg Step In

June 10, 2013

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. The debate on the future of the European Court of Human Rights is often phrased in terms of the individual justice/constitutional justice dichotomy. In the recent case of N.K.M. […]

  • Guest Blogger

The Grand Chamber on hunting rights (once again): It is all about convictions

October 22, 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. Only a few months ago I took the opportunity to discuss Herrmann v. Germany. In that case the Grand Chamber found a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. […]

  • 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 […]

  • Guest Blogger

Stummer v. Austria: gradually moving towards a right to an old-age pension for working prisoners?

October 03, 2011

By Ingrid Leijten. Ingrid Leijten works as a Ph.D. fellow and teaching assistant at the Leiden University Faculty of Law, Department of Constitutional and Administrative Law. Her research interest lies in the development of the ECHR and the practice of the ECtHR in relation to the Member States’ policymaking. Stummer v. Austria deals with the […]

  • Saïla Ouald Chaib

Şerife Yiğit v. Turkey: The Court did it again!

November 10, 2010

The first post I wrote for our blog was titled: “Is a more inclusive wind blowing through the Court?”. In this post I discussed the case of Muñoz Díaz v. Spain that came out atthe end of 2009, about the non-entitlement to a widow pension by a women who was married for 29 years, but […]

  • Maris Burbergs

Deciding on the pilot judgment procedure

July 15, 2010

On 6 July 2010 a chamber judgment in the case of Yetis and Onthers v. Turkey has been issued by the Court’s second section finding a violation of Article 1 Protocol No 1. The Court observed that the violation it had found had originated in a systemic problem connected with the absence in Turkish law […]

  • Weichie

Strasbourg dances around the Cypriot question

April 12, 2010

Recently, the Strasbourg Court declared inadmissible a series of applications by Greek-Cypriot applicants claiming a violation of their property rights due to the continued occupation of the Northern part of Cyprus by Turkey. The eight admissibility cases were the first such applications to be examined by the Court following the pilot-judgment Xenides-Arestis v. Turkey (app. […]