Magyar Jeti Zrt v. Hungary: the Court provides legal certainty for journalists that use hyperlinks

Guest Blogger Uncategorized

By Carl Vander Maelen (research group Law & Technology, Ghent University)

On 4 December 2018 the European Court of Human Rights (‘the Court’) found a violation of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights in Magyar Jeti Zrt v. Hungary. The case concerns the imposition of objective liability for posting a hyperlink leading to defamatory content, with the Court ultimately deciding that using hyperlinks does not simply equate to acts of dissemination. Instead, it requires a case-by-case assessment on the basis of five flexible criteria, resulting in a highly relevant and well-rounded judgment. Continue reading →

F.J.M. v. the United Kingdom: Judicial review of the proportionality of an eviction in private rental housing

Guest Blogger F.J.M. v. the United Kingdom, Right to Respect for Home

By Juan Carlos Benito Sánchez, PhD Researcher (FRESH) at F.R.S.-FNRS and UCLouvain (Belgium)

In its decision in F.J.M. v. the United Kingdom, delivered on 29 November 2018, the European Court of Human Rights (First Section) declared inadmissible a complaint of a violation of Articles 6 and 8 of the Convention. The applicant had been evicted following a possession order made by a court, but was not allowed to raise a defence on proportionality grounds. She claimed that the possession order was disproportionate in her case and that she should have been able to require the court to make a proportionality assessment before granting possession and evicting her. This case concerns no-fault evictions in the UK, also known as “Article 21 evictions.” Section 21 of the Housing Act 1988 allows landlords to evict tenants who are not at fault without the need to provide any reasons, as long as they notify the tenant in writing at least two months in advance. Continue reading →

The Curious Case of Molla Sali v. Greece: Legal Pluralism Through the Lens of the ECtHR

Guest Blogger Article 1 of Protocol No. 1, Molla Sali v. Greece, Pluralism, Sharia law

By İlker Tsavousoglou, Doctoral Candidate at Human Rights Centre, Ghent University, Attorney at Law

On 19 December 2018, the European Court of Human Rights delivered its judgement on the case of Molla Sali v. Greece. In its ruling, the Grand Chamber unanimously held that there has been a violation of Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights in conjunction with Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention. The Applicant, Ms Chatitze Molla Sali, a Greek national and member of the Muslim minority of Western Thrace, was the beneficiary of her deceased husband’s estate based on a notarised testament of civil law. Following a domestic legal dispute, the Greek Court of Cassation found that the will drafted by a Greek of Muslim faith is devoid of effect. This was because, pursuant to a series of binding international agreements and the relevant domestic norms, the law applicable to the case was Islamic inheritance law instead of the relevant civil law. Continue reading →

New publication on the history of the ECHR in Belgium

Laurens Lavrysen Publication

I’m happy to announce the publication of my article “‘Strasbourg was something new, it was an adventure’ – A history of the Belgian cases before the European Court of Human Rights in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s” in the December edition of the Legal History Review. This article is the product of a research project, funded by the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO), I undertook on the history of the European Convention on Human Rights in Belgium. It is to a large extent based on oral history accounts of actors involved in Strasbourg litigation during the period under consideration. This is the abstract:

In recent years, a burgeoning literature has focused on the history of human rights in general and the history of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in particular. In order to understand how the ECHR gradually managed to gain authority in diverse national settings, it is necessary to complement transnational historical perspectives with studies of national reception histories. The present article approaches the history of the ECHR in Belgium by focusing on the history of the Belgian cases in Strasbourg, which have played an important role in contributing to the ‘discovery’ of the ECHR in the Belgian legal system. On the basis of interviews with actors involved in the early cases against Belgium, it was possible to determine their position in the Belgian legal landscape as well as their motivations and aspirations in going to Strasbourg. Moreover, these interviews allowed gaining insight into the circumstances out of which litigation against Belgium arose.

 

Judgment of Burlya and Others v. Ukraine: Local authorities held accountable for violating Convention rights of Roma residents in pogrom

Guest Blogger Burlya and Others v. Ukraine, Prohibition of Degrading Treatment, Prohibition of Discrimination, Racism

By Tess Heirwegh, PhD researcher at the Human Rights Centre, Ghent University

This blog post will focus on the recent case of Burlya and Others v. Ukraine to highlight the negative role that local authorities may play in human rights realisation and why it is essential that the Court held them explicitly accountable for it. In this judgment of 6 November 2018, the Strasbourg Court dealt with the complaints of 19 Ukrainian nationals of Roma ethnicity following a pogrom by village residents against their houses. First, the Court held that this attack had undoubtedly been motivated by anti-Roma sentiment. Second, it stated that the applicants who had been forced to flee their homes due to this attack had suffered degrading treatment. One important factor for this finding was the local authorities’ attitude during the events, namely the appearance of their official endorsement for the attack, as well as the ineffective investigation into the crime. Therefore, the Court found a violation of both the substantive and procedural aspect of Article 3, taken in conjunction with Article 14 ECHR. Moreover, these findings were sufficient for the Court to rule that Article 8, taken in conjunction with Article 14 ECHR, had been violated as well. Continue reading →

Unravelling Salduz and the EU: Grand Chamber judgment of Beuze v. Belgium on the right of access to a lawyer

Guest Blogger Access to a Lawyer, Beuze v. Belgium, Right to a Fair Trial, Salduz v. Turkey

This guest blog post was written by Cedric Serneels, Teaching Assistant & Researcher at Institute for European Law, KU Leuven

On 9 November 2018, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights delivered its long-awaited judgment in the case of Beuze v. Belgium. In the present case, the Court was confronted with the question when a restriction on the right of early access to a lawyer in criminal proceedings renders those proceedings unfair and thus constitutes a breach of Articles 6(1) and 6(3)(c) of the European Convention. The majority ruled that under the principle established in Salduz v. Turkey a systematically applied general and mandatory restriction on the right of access to a lawyer will only amount to a breach of Article 6 ECHR when it compromises the overall fairness of the criminal proceedings. Accordingly, the mere existence of such a restriction does in itself not constitute a violation of the Convention. In a Concurring Opinion, analysed below, it is asserted that the majority interpreted Salduz in a way that departs from and even contradicts that judgment’s original meaning and that it adopted a much more relative — and thus less protective — approach without sufficient justification. While the Court was unanimous in finding a violation of the Convention, the soundness of its legal reasoning has thus been fiercely contested. Further, it will be argued that this ruling is particularly interesting for EU lawyers as well, as it provides an example of the two-directional interplay between EU fundamental rights law and the Convention. Continue reading →

ECtHR or CEDAW: Spoilt for Choice in Moldova?

Guest Blogger Domestic Violence, Implementation judgments, UN Treaty Bodies

By Irina Crivet (PhD Candidate, Koç University, Istanbul, Turkey)

The proliferation of international and regional human rights bodies has given the victims of human rights violations the chance to pick and choose where they can send their complaints. Whilst these choices are limited by geographical locations of individuals and the states’ acceptance of right to individual petition before multiple bodies, today some individuals and their lawyers have more than one choice. Moldova is one such country. Individuals can submit applications either before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) – or before  quasi-judicial human rights bodies of the United Nations, the UN Treaty Bodies (UNTBs).

This blog post examines the effects of this proliferation for Moldovan victims of domestic violence who can take cases both before the ECtHR and the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW or the Committee). In doing so, I first examine the ECtHR case law regarding domestic violence in Moldova and the status of views adopted by UNTBs against Moldova. Continue reading →