Month: November 2017

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

Guest Blogger Krajnc v. Slovenia, Right to Property, Social security

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 follows many other cases in the same vein. Despite reaching this positive conclusion, in its reasoning the Court relies upon deeply problematic assumptions about the relationship between rights and fiscal policy, and fails to interrogate harmful stereotypes of disabled persons. Continue reading →

‘Of course a stranger must conform’: reading the Ndidi judgment with Euripides’ Medea

Guest Blogger Migration, Ndidi v. the United Kingdom, Right to Respect for Family Life

By Benoit Dhondt, Belgian lawyer specialized in migration and refugee law. As a teaching assistant, he is also connected to the Human Rights Centre of Ghent University, more specifically its Human Rights and Migration Law Clinic.

Recently the ECtHR took an umpteenth swing at the question to what extent the family life and private life of a settled migrant with a criminal record is worthy of protection. At a time in which Council of Europe Member States, such as Belgium, have developed new legislation concerning the deportation of migrants allegedly posing a threat to public order, the case of Ndidi v. the United Kingdom does little to clarify the Court’s rather heterogenous case law in this matter.  I will give a brief description of the case, after which I will propose a new approach to private life and family life in deportation cases, based on a reading of Euripides’ famous play Medea, and inspired by the dissenting opinion of Judge Turković to the case. Continue reading →

Tamiz v. UK: Google’s blog-publishing service is not liable for offensive comments

Guest Blogger Freedom of Expression, Intermediary Liability, Payam Tamiz v. the United Kingdom, Right to Private Life, Right to Reputation

This guest post was written by Ingrida Milkaite (Ghent University)*

On 12 October 2017 the European Court of Human Rights (the Court, the ECtHR) decided on the liability of Google Inc. as an information society service provider for offensive comments posted below a blog post about Mr Payam Tamiz. His application filed under article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR, the Convention) was declared inadmissible.

Background and facts Continue reading →

Strasbourg fails to protect the rights of people living in or at risk of poverty: the disappointing Grand Chamber judgment in Garib v the Netherlands

Valeska David Freedom to Choose One’s Residence, Garib v. the Netherlands., Poverty, Prohibition of Discrimination

By Valeska David and Sarah Ganty, PhD researchers at Ghent University and Université Libre de Bruxelles

On November 6th the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights issued its judgment in Garib v. the Netherlands (Application n° 43494/09). It thereby confirmed the Chamber’s finding that refusing a housing permit to a single mother living on social welfare on account of legislation imposing minimum income requirements to reside in a number of hotspot areas of Rotterdam, did not violate her freedom to choose her residence (Article 2 of Protocol 4 ECHR). While the applicant and our third party intervention invited the Grand Chamber to examine the case also under Article 14 (prohibition of discrimination) read in conjunction with Article 2 of Protocol 4 ECHR, the Grand Chamber declined to do so. Five judges, rightly so, annexed three highly critical dissenting opinions. As we shall show in this post, this is a deeply disappointing judgment in terms of both reasoning and outcome.

Continue reading →

Preventive detention as a “penalty” in the case of Ilnseher v. Germany

Guest Blogger Detention, Ilnseher v. Germany

By Emilie Rebsomen, Méryl Recotillet and Caroline Teuma (Aix-Marseille University) 

The internment of mentally ill offenders has a long history. The first safety measures were envisaged in the writings of the criminologists of the 18th and 19th century. Since then, various and varied security and safety measures have been introduced, security internment being one of them.

Faced with criminal policies increasingly oriented towards control, prevention or even precaution, security internment for an indefinite period as in the case of Ilnseher v. Germany threatens to spread even further. This is explained by an increasing social demand for justice and psychiatry. In the case Ilnseher v. Germany, a Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (reaffirmed its position, developed in the Bergmann case, concerning the retrospective preventive detention of convicted murderer placed in a centre for psychiatric treatment. On 29 May 2017, the Grand Chamber Panel accepted Mr Ilsneher’s request that the case be referred to the Grand Chamber. The hearing will take place on 29 November 2017. In this framework, the European Prison Litigation Network was invited by the President of the Grand Chamber to intervene as a third party in this case. Thanks to our partnership with the European Prison Litigation Network, our law clinic Aix Global Justice, had the opportunity to participate in this intervention.[1]

Continue reading →

Difference in Treatment on the Ground of Sex Arising from Penal Policy Issues: Alexandru Enache v. Romania

Guest Blogger Alexandru Enache v. Romania, Prisoners, Prohibition of Discrimination

By Beril Onder, PhD researcher at Ghent University and University of Strasbourg

On 3 October 2017 the Fourth Section of the Court delivered the judgment in Alexandru Enache v. Romania. The case concerned a discrimination complaint under Article 14 read in conjunction with Article 8 of the Convention, regarding a special measure granting women stay of execution of their prison sentences if they were pregnant or had a child under the age of one.[1] The issue concerned the difference in treatment between men and women arising from the penal policy, like the recent Grand Chamber judgment Khamtokhu and Aksenchik v. Russia, as the applicant was refused this stay of execution based solely on his gender. The Court, in both judgments, left a wide margin of appreciation to the State Parties, and supported its conclusion by referring to the international instruments addressing the needs of women for the protection of pregnancy and motherhood. However, both judgments can be considered problematic for different reasons from a perspective of gender stereotypes. Corina Heri, in her comment, already discussed the problems related to gender stereotypes in Khamtokhu and Aksenchik. The following comments will focus on the judgment in Alexandru Enache v. Romania. Continue reading →

New book: Integrated Human Rights in Practice. Rewriting Human Rights Decisions

Strasbourg Observers Publication

We are glad to present you the recent volume “Integrated Human Rights in Practice. Rewriting Human Rights Decisions”, with Edward Elgar Publishing (Eva Brems and Ellen Desmet, eds.). The book is the result of a collaborative effort of the Human Rights Integration network with international human rights experts Martin Scheinin, Rhona Smith, Gerald L Neuman, Malcolm Langford and Magnus Killander.

This is the book’s blurb: Continue reading →