Author: Valeska David

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 →

Improving neighborhoods by preventing welfare recipients to take up residence: The Grand Chamber hearing in Garib v. the Netherlands

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

By Valeska David

On 25 January 2017, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) heard oral pleadings in Garib v. the Netherlands. The case concerns the refusal of a housing permit to a single mother living on social welfare on account of legislation imposing minimum income requirements on persons wishing to reside in a number of inner-city areas of Rotterdam. The Chamber judgment issued on 23 February 2016, which was discussed in a previous blogpost, held that there was no violation of Article 2 of Protocol No. 4 (right to choose one’s residence). As the case was referred to the Grand Chamber, the Human Rights Centre of Ghent University and the Equality Law Clinic of the Université Libre de Bruxelles submitted a joint third party intervention. In this post, I shall briefly recount the issues addressed in our intervention to subsequently provide an overview of the questions discussed during the hearing before the Grand Chamber.

Continue reading →

ECtHR condemns the punishment of women living in poverty and the ‘rescuing’ of their children

Valeska David Prohibition of Discrimination, Right to Respect for Family Life, Soares de Melo v. Portugal

By Valeska David

The recently delivered ECtHR judgment in Soares de Melo v. Portugal (application No.72850/14) conveys a strong message on childrearing responsibilities and child protection: families living in poverty (mostly led by women) cannot be punished for their deprivation and their children should not be ‘rescued’ from them. Instead, and because children are not the exclusive responsibility of parents, states must fulfill their supportive role and provide material and other forms of assistance to make family life possible.

Following a summary of the facts and the findings of the Court, I will first briefly contextualize the importance of such a message within the Council of Europe (CoE). Subsequently, I will highlight some of the main contributions explicitly and implicitly made by the judgment. Finally, I will conclude by taking the opportunity to suggest that the way forward requires the Court to be more attentive to the discrimination and stereotypes often at play in these types of cases.

Continue reading →

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.

Continue reading →

Ivinović v. Croatia: legal capacity and the (missing) call for supportive decision-making

Valeska David Disability, Ivinović v. Croatia, Right to Private Life

Valeska David is a PhD Researcher at the Human Rights Centre of Ghent University and a member of the Research Network “The Global Challenge of Human Rights Integration: Towards a Users’ Perspective.”

We have all heard about the so-called paradigm shift brought about by the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). The social model of disability and the duty of reasonable accommodation are some of the “conceptual innovations” reshaping human rights law. However, we know much less about what that means in practice. One field in which this question has utmost importance is that of legal capacity of persons with disabilities, particularly of those with intellectual, psychosocial and sensory impairments. The recent judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in Ivinović v. Croatia, like other cases decided against the same state, deals with that issue: the legal capacity of persons with disability. The decision is part of a growing corpus of disability case law and is welcome for a number of reasons – which I briefly sketch here. Yet, in this post, I suggest looking at this judgment as somewhat of a missed opportunity. Continue reading →