Month: February 2016

European Court Buttresses Binational Same-Sex Couples’ Right to Family Reunification

Guest Blogger Pajić v. Croatia, Prohibition of Discrimination, Right to Private Life, Right to Respect for Family Life, Sexual Minorities

This guest post was written by Zsolt Bobis, Program Coordinator with the Open Society Justice Initiative’s Equality and Inclusion Cluster @ZsoltBobis

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled in Pajić v. Croatia that Croatia’s former legal regime that had categorically denied same-sex couples the possibility of obtaining family reunification had violated human rights standards. The court sided with the applicant, a national of Bosnia and Herzegovina, who alleged she had faced discrimination on the basis of her sexual orientation during her application for a residence permit in Croatia.

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The Winners: Poll on Best and Worst ECtHR Judgment of 2015

Lourdes Peroni Uncategorized

The results of our poll on best and worst ECtHR judgment of 2015 are in! We are excited to announce the results now that exactly a month has passed since the opening of the polls.

In the category of best judgment, celebrating the best the ECtHR had to offer in 2015, the top three are:

Bouyid v. Belgium: 29%

Oliari and Others v. Italy: 27%

Khlaifia and Others v. Italy: 20%

In the category of worst judgment, indicating that there is always room for improvement, the top three are:

Ebrahimian v. France: 26%

Pentikäinen v. Finland: 23%

A.S. v. Switzerland: 18%

Thanks for voting. We already look forward to next year’s edition of the poll!

Partei Die Friesen v. Germany: Federalism trumps uniform protection of national minority rights

Guest Blogger Partei Die Friesen v. Germany, Prohibition of Discrimination, Right to Free Elections

By Pieter Cannoot, academic assistant and doctoral researcher of constitutional law (Ghent University)

On 28 January 2016 the European Court of Human Rights declared the complaint by the regional Frisian political party “Die Friesen” against Germany unfounded. The party argued that the electoral system of the German Land of Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen) was discriminatory in conjunction with Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 to the ECHR, in so far as it applied a 5% threshold to the 2008 parliamentary elections.

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Migrants’ avoidance of the European Court of Human Rights concerns us all

Guest Blogger Asylum Seekers, Migration, Rule 39

By Marie-Bénédicte Dembour, Professor of Law and Anthropology at the Brighton Business School, University of Brighton (*) This post has been re-published on When Humans Become Migrants Blog.

Every year towards the end of January, the President of the European Court of Human Rights holds a press conference that takes stock of the previous year. This year, President Raimondi reported in his speech that the situation of the Court was ‘generally satisfactory’. Can we be so sure?

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Insulting a politician right after her death: Does the ECHR protect the reputation of the deceased?

Valeska David Freedom of Expression, Genner v. Austria, Right to Private Life, Right to Reputation

By Valeska David

At the end of 2014, when deciding on the admissibility of a case brought by Stalin’s grandson, who sued a newspaper and the author of an article for defamation of his grandfather, the ECtHR stated that the heir of a deceased person could not claim a violation of the latter’s article 8’s rights since they are non-transferable.[1] Less than two years later, however, the recent judgment in Genner v. Austria (Application no. 55495/08) seems to cast a shadow of doubt on that principle. Furthermore, this judgment brings about interesting questions on what can and cannot be said about a public figure who has just passed away. Before turning to these questions, let’s first examine the facts of the case.

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Mandet v. France: Child’s “duty” to know its origins prevails over its wish to remain in the dark

Guest Blogger Children's Rights, Right to Private Life, Right to Respect for Family Life

By Evelyn Merckx, academic assistant and doctoral researcher at the Human Rights Centre (Ghent University)

The European Court of Human Rights has delivered many judgments about a child’s right to know its origins and whether this right can prevail over the refusal of the anonymous biological parent. In Mandet v. France, the opposite scenario took place. A presumed biological father wanted to have his paternity recognised vis-à-vis a child who already had a legal and social father and asked the judges not to change his established family ties. However, the domestic courts decided that it was in the son’s best interests that he knew the truth about his origins.

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L.E. v. Greece: Human Trafficking and States’ Positive Obligations

Guest Blogger Human Trafficking, L.E. v. Greece

By Vladislava Stoyanova, Postdoctoral Researcher, Faculty of Law, Lund University, Sweden. Author of Human Trafficking and Slavery Reconsidered. Conceptual Limits and States Positive Obligations in European Law (Cambridge University Press, 2016 forthcoming)

Against the backdrop of the rich judicial output of the ECtHR, the case law under Article 4 of the ECHR is scarce. This is more than surprising against the backdrop of ample empirical evidence showing that migrants, including sex workers, are subjected to severe forms of exploitation in Europe (see, for example, the report by the EU Fundamental Rights Agency published in 2015 Severe Labour Exploitation: Workers Moving within or into the European Union. States’ Obligations and Victims’ Rights). To be more precise, the existing judgments in which the Court has dealt with abuses inflicted by non-state actors (i.e. employers) reaching the level of severity of Article 4 are five:[1] Siliadin v. France, Rantsev v. Cyprus and Russia, C.N. and V. v. France, C.N. v. The United Kingdom and M. and Others v. Italy and Bulgaria (the complaint under Article 4 was found inadmissible in this case). On 21 January 2016, the ECtHR delivered L.E. v. Greece, which is the sixth judgment in this context. It is an important judgment not only because it is a positive step for remedying the above mentioned dearth of judicial engagement with exploitation of migrants in Europe, but also because it raises some intriguing questions about positive obligations under the ECHR. In this note, I will cover some of these.

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