Tell me more, tell me more: the obligation for national courts to reason their refusals to refer to the CJEU in Sanofi Pasteur.

Guest Blogger European Court of Justice, Right to a Fair Trial, Sanofi Pasteur v. France

By Jasper Krommendijk (Radboud University, the Netherlands)

On 13 February 2020, the ECtHR found for the fourth time ever a violation of Article 6(1) ECHR for a failure of the highest national court to give proper reasons for its refusal to refer preliminary questions to the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) in Sanofi Pasteur. In 2014 and 2015, the ECtHR already determined a breach for a similar omission of the Italian Court of Cassation in Dhahbi and Schipani, while the Lithuanian Supreme Administrative Court was given a rap over the knuckles in 2019 in Baltic Master. This time it was the French Court of Cassation who took the blame in a claim for damages for bodily harm resulting from vaccination against hepatitis B. The company Sanofi Pasteur was found liable by lower French courts and appealed to the Court of Cassation. It unsuccessfully requested the Court to refer questions about the Product Liability Directive 85/374 and, more specifically, the obligation for the victim to prove the damage, defect and causal relationship between defect and damage. The Court dismissed the appeal whereby it explicitly noted that it did so without a need to refer. In this comment I will argue that this judgment shows once again the unpredictability and inconsistency in the case law of the ECtHR. What is needed is a Grand Chamber judgment as well as guidance from the CJEU to tell us more about the exact requirements for national courts. Continue reading →

A picture of a same-sex kiss on Facebook wreaks havoc: Beizaras and Levickas v. Lithuania

Guest Blogger Beizaras and Levickas v. Lithuanaia, Effective remedy, hate speech, LGBT Rights, Prohibition of Discrimination

Ingrida Milkaite is a PhD researcher in the research group Law & Technology at Ghent University, Belgium. She is working on the research project ‘A children’s rights perspective on privacy and data protection in the digital age’ (Ghent University, Special Research Fund) and is a member of the Human Rights Centre at the Faculty of Law and Criminology at Ghent University and PIXLES (Privacy, Information Exchange, Law Enforcement and Surveillance).

Two young men publicly posted a photograph of themselves kissing on Facebook. The post ‘went viral’ and attracted around 800 comments, most of which were hateful. Some of the comments featured suggestions to burn, exterminate, hang, beat, castrate, and kill the two men as well as gay people in general. The national authorities, while acknowledging that some comments were ‘unethical’, refused to launch a pre-trial investigation for incitement to hatred and violence against homosexuals. They considered that the couple’s ‘eccentric behaviour’ had been provocative and that launching an investigation in this case would be a ‘waste of time and resources’. The judgement in the case of Beizaras and Levickas v. Lithuania (Application no. 41288/15) was published on 14 January 2020. The ECtHR found a violation of Article 14 ECHR in conjunction with Article 8 ECHR, as well as a violation of Article 13 ECHR. Continue reading →

The New Trial: Kafkaesque Punishment for Cooperation with the ECtHR

Guest Blogger Burmych v. Ukraine, friendly settlements, Implementation judgments, Zolotyy Mandaryn Oyl, TOV v Ukraine

By Prof Kanstantsin Dzehtsiarou (University of Liverpool), Editor-in-Chief of the European Convention on Human Rights Law Review

It has been discussed on various levels that weak enforcement of the ECtHR judgments is a major drawback of the whole system. The lack of political will of the governments of the Contracting Parties to the Convention to engage with the ECtHR and the Committee of Ministers is often deemed to be one of the key reasons for slow enforcement of judgments and limited impact of the ECtHR on the standards of human rights protection in Europe. One of the ways to ensure quick embeddedness of the Convention is to resort to friendly settlements where the state accepts the responsibility for an obvious violation and pays appropriate compensation. The Committee of Ministers supervises execution of these friendly settlements although not always to the maximum effect. Recently the Court has introduced a new mandatory period during the procedure in Strasbourg during which the parties should consider a friendly settlement. Apparently, Ukraine is the only Contracting Party to the Convention which opted out of this procedure for the reasons discussed below. Friendly settlement is a very useful tool especially in cases of repetitive routine violations. This blogpost will try to convey two key messages. First, that national politics can put a halt on effective implementation on human rights even through preventing friendly settlements. The ability of national politics to affect human rights is hardly an original point but the story that is happening now in Ukraine gave this point a new twist. Second, that the Council of Europe has responsibility to react when the reputation of the Court, its judges and decisions are undermined. Continue reading →

Poll: Best and Worst ECtHR Judgment of 2019

Strasbourg Observers Uncategorized

Dear readers,

As the Grand Chamber made clear in the (in)famous Lautsi case, “the decision whether or not to perpetuate a tradition falls in principle within the margin of appreciation”. Exercising our discretion in this respect, we hereby decide to perpetuate our tradition of celebrating the start of the New Year with the launch of our annual poll for the best and worst ECtHR judgment of the preceding year.

Where did the Strasbourg Court in 2019 seize the opportunity to truly act as a beacon of hope to victims of human rights violations across Europe? Conversely, where did the Court fail to provide robust human rights protection? We would like to warmly encourage you, our readers, to participate in answering these questions in the 2019 edition of our vote. Continue reading →

Call for papers: Conference “The ECHR Turns 70 – Taking Stock, Thinking Forward”

Strasbourg Observers Uncategorized

The Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, better known as the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), was opened for signature in Rome on 4 November 1950. The Convention will thus be 70 next autumn. Ghent University’s Human Rights Centre wishes to take the opportunity of this anniversary to take stock of the history of the Convention system and to think about its future during an international conference.

The conference will take place in Ghent (Belgium) on 18-20 November 2020. More information can be found in the call for papers below (or download the PDF version with clickable links from the conference website, which will be regularly updated).

During the conference, we will also be present in a Strasbourg Observers live format, allowing scholars to critically discuss single ECtHR judgments in the best Strasbourg Observers tradition. We hope to meet many of our readers and contributors there! Continue reading →

Dutch Supreme Court confirms: Articles 2 and 8 ECHR require a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions of 25% by 2020

Guest Blogger Climate change, Urgenda

By Dr. Ingrid Leijten, Assistant Professor at the Department of Constitutional and Administrative Law at Leiden University

On December 20th of last year, the Dutch Supreme Court ruled in the case of Urgenda v. de Staat der Nederlanden, confirming the finding of the Court of Appeal that the State violates articles 2 and 8 ECHR if it does not reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25% in 2020. Seconds after the live-streamed presentation of the summary of the judgment, online media in the Netherlands and beyond reported about this groundbreaking judgment: for the first time, worldwide, a court in a final judgment held a State accountable for not reaching certain climate goals – on the basis of human rights. The judgments of the District Court (2015) and the Court of Appeal (2018) had also received ample attention; their conclusions and argumentation have been both celebrated and criticized, and I will not try to summarize these discussions here. Neither will I provide a thorough analysis of the Supreme Court judgment in light of the case law of the ECtHR. The reason for this is that the ‘general interest character’ of Urgenda obstructs a straightforward comparison. Instead, I want to highlight what is interesting – as well as convincing – about the way the Supreme Court addresses the issue as a matter of human rights. I argue that the judgment provides a promising route, at least for some other climate cases, although it also raises questions about the role of human rights and the effectiveness of rights based climate litigation. Continue reading →

‘Peaceful assembly’ and the question of applicability of Article 11

Guest Blogger Admissibility, Freedom of peaceful assembly, Razvozzhayev v. Russia and Ukraine and Udaltsov v. Russia

Beril Önder: PhD Candidate, University of Strasbourg (Institut de Recherches Carré de Malberg) and Ghent University (Human Rights Centre)

The case of Razvozzhayev v. Russia and Ukraine and Udaltsov v. Russia[1] concerned the conviction of two men for organising “mass disorder” in a political rally at Bolotnaya Square in Moscow on 6 May 2012. The rally was held to protest against the alleged ‘abuses and falsifications’ in the elections to the State Duma and the presidential elections. This political rally has been at the centre of several earlier cases dealt with by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), such as Frumkin v. Russia,   Yaroslav Belousov v. Russia, Barabanov. Russia, Polikhovich v. Russia  and Stepan Zimin v. Russia. While, the previously examined cases had been brought by activists convicted of participating in the mass disorder at Bolotnaya Square, the applicants in the present case had been convicted of organising that mass disorder. Continue reading →