Strasbourg Observers
  • Serde Atalay and Vladislava Stoyanova

Jansons v Latvia: when is an ‘eviction’ actually an eviction?

November 10, 2022

By Serde Atalay and Vladislava Stoyanova When exactly does an eviction occur according to the Strasbourg Court? In Jansons v Latvia (application no. 1434/14), this question lurks behind the majority’s reasoning and the dissenting opinion of Judge O’Leary. This case is one of the “verticalized” cases brought before the Court, concerning, in essence, a private […]

  • Mathias Möschel

Basu v. Germany and Muhammad v. Spain: Room for improvement in the Court’s first judgments on racial profiling

November 08, 2022

by Mathias Möschel On 18 October 2022, the Third Section of the Strasbourg Court, decided two cases dealing for the first time with the question of whether and how far racial profiling by public authorities constitutes a violation of the Convention. The outcome is a mixed one. Whereas in Basu v. Germany the judges held […]

  • Sanna Mustasaari

The issue of extraterritorial jurisdiction in the repatriation of children detained in Syrian camps: shortcomings in the ECtHR judgment in H.F. and Others v. France

November 01, 2022

By Sanna Mustasaari The long-awaited Grand Chamber judgement in the case of H.F. and Others v. France addressed the refusal by France to repatriate the daughters and grandchildren of the applicants, all French nationals, from Syrian camps. The question of whether States should assume responsibility for their nationals, particularly children, who have been detained in […]

  • Cathérine Van de Graaf

Banning body-covering swimwear: the Human Rights Centre submitted a Third Party Intervention to the ECtHR in Missaoui and Akhandaf v. Belgium

October 28, 2022

By Cathérine Van de Graaf On the 12th of September, the Human Rights Centre[1] (HRC) of Ghent University (Belgium) submitted a third party intervention (TPI) before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR or the Court) in the communicated case of Missaoui and Akhandaf v. Belgium, after being granted leave to intervene by the President […]

  • Tommaso Virgili

Rabczewska v. Poland and blasphemy before the ECtHR: A neverending story of inconsistency

October 21, 2022

by Tommaso Virgili In the case Rabczewska v. Poland, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) held that the conviction of a Polish woman due to her blasphemous statements against the Bible violated her rights under Article 10 of the Convention. This case stands in contrast with the recent E.S. v. Austria, where the Court […]

  • Lewis Graham

Challenging State Responses to the Covid-19 pandemic before the ECtHR

October 18, 2022

In September 2022, the European Court of Human Rights handed down its decision in Thevenon v France, rejecting as inadmissible a challenge to the workplace vaccination requirements enforced following the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in France. That such an application would be declared inadmissible is not at all novel and represents something of a […]

  • Emma Varnagy

P.H. v Slovakia: When the concept of discrimination goes out the window at the Strasbourg Court*

October 14, 2022

The case of P.H. v Slovakia (Application no 37574/19) is at least the eleventh case before the Strasbourg Court in which it is confronted with the mysterious fall of a person from a police station window. It is the seventh case where questions of discrimination arise in connection with the fall and the fourth case […]

  • Charly Derave & Hania Ouhnaoui

C.E. & al. v. France: Legal recognition of intended parenthood from previous same-sex relationships (between women)

October 07, 2022

By Charly Derave & Hania Ouhnaoui In a judgment of 24 March 2022, the European Court of Human Rights, sitting in chamber, rules unanimously that the French authorities’ refusal to allow the establishment of a legal parent-child relationship between a child and a woman who is the former partner of their biological mother – also […]

  • Daniel Simon & Dr. Mark Klaassen

Age assessment and the presumption of minority as a prerequisite for effective human rights protection of asylum seekers: a discussion of Darboe and Camara v Italy

October 04, 2022

By Daniel Simon and Mark Klaassen There are no reliable tools to determine a person’s exact chronological age. And yet, legal safeguards for asylum seekers depend on it to a large extent. The way states determine whether an asylum seeker is a minor or not remains a widely controversial topic. In fear of abuse of […]

  • Zoe L. Tongue and Lewis Graham

Y.P. v Russia: Sterilisation Without Consent, Article 3, and Weak Reproductive Rights at the ECtHR

September 30, 2022

by Zoe L. Tongue and Lewis Graham On the 20th September 2022, the European Court of Human Rights handed down its judgment in Y.P. v Russia, a case concerning the non-consensual sterilisation of a 28-year-old women during a Caesarean section. The Court’s dismissal of the arguments made under Article 3 appears out of step with […]

  • Natalie Alkiviadou

Blasphemy and Choudhury v. the United Kingdom revisited in light of the attack on Rushdie

September 27, 2022

By Natalie Alkiviadou Salman Rushdie Internationally acclaimed, Indian-born writer Salman Rushdie has written a range of novels and stories on social, historical and philosophical issues. He is a controversial figure mostly because of his fourth novel, ‘The Satanic Verses’. The book was published in 1988 and was heavily criticised by some Muslim leaders as blasphemous, […]

  • Simona Florescu

Walking on a tightrope: some reflections on the ECtHR’s role in assessing the best interests of the child in parental disputes over the child’s religious upbringing

September 23, 2022

By Simona Florescu In T.C. v Italy, the ECtHR was once again called upon to decide on sensitive questions involving divergent parental views over the child’s upbringing. In this particular case, the main question was whether the Italian courts’ judgments ordering the applicant to refrain from actively involving his daughter in religious activities constituted discrimination […]

  • Dmitry Kurnosov

Russia without Strasbourg and Strasbourg without Russia: A Preliminary Outlook

September 20, 2022

by Dmitry Kurnosov On September 16, 2022 Russia ceased to be a party to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). This event is bound to have serious repercussions both for Russia and for the Strasbourg institutions. In this contribution, I chart some of the potential implications both for Russian domestic law and for the […]

  • Sofia Balzaretti

Political Satire and Sexist Stereotypes: A Critical Insight on the Case of Patrício Monteiro Telo de Abreu v. Portugal

September 14, 2022

By Sofia Balzaretti Introduction In the case Patrício Monteiro Telo de Abreu v. Portugal, the Strasbourg Court held that the judicial domestic authorities had not taken sufficient account of the context in which Patricio Monteiro Telo de Abreu, the applicant, had published satire cartoons depicting sexist stereotypes on his blog and that they had thus […]

  • Spyridoula (Sissy) Katsoni

How to Get Away with Refoulement: Some Thoughts on Safi and Others v. Greece

September 07, 2022

Spyridoula (Sissy) Katsoni Reports on deadly pushbacks at European borders have become so frequent by now that they hardly seem shocking. Yet, even the toughest of hearts cannot but be affected when reading the facts behind the Safi and Others v. Greece judgment, released by the European Court of Human Rights (Court/ECtHR) on the 7th […]

  • Andrea Broderick

Arnar Helgi Lárusson v. Iceland: Muddying the Waters on Inaccessibility of Public Buildings

August 30, 2022

By Andrea Broderick On 31 May 2022, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) published its ruling in Arnar Helgi Lárusson v. Iceland. The applicant is a wheelchair user who brought a complaint at the domestic and European levels regarding the lack of accessibility of buildings that housed arts and cultural centres run by the municipality where […]

  • Stella Christoforidou

Landi v. Italy: Proving Discrimination with Statistics in Cases of Domestic Violence

August 26, 2022

Stella Christoforidou Landi v. Italy is the most recent in a group of cases on domestic violence which have appeared before the European Court of Human Rights (the Court/the ECtHR) in recent years.[1] Taken together with Y and Others v. Bulgaria, it establishes a new direction in ECtHR case-law regarding the burden of proof which […]

  • Anna Pivaty

Does the Court really expand European fair trial rights standards in criminal proceedings with Wang v. France and Dubois v. France on ‘voluntary’ police interviews of suspects?

August 23, 2022

By Anna Pivaty On 22 April 2022 the European Court of Human Rights (hereafter ‘ECtHR’ or ‘the Court’) (Chamber) has issued two judgments – Wang v. France and Dubois v. France – on the rights of persons interviewed by the police ‘voluntarily’, meaning: upon invitation by police without placing them under arrest. The Court’s press […]

  • Lorenzo Bernardini

H.M. and Others v. Hungary: Immigration Detention, Burden of Proof and Principle of Necessity: Weakening Safeguards at the Borders?

August 19, 2022

By Lorenzo Bernardini Introduction How high is the burden of proof on the foreigner who claims to have suffered degrading treatments? In which cases may the authorities adopt coercive methods against a foreigner already detained? The European Court of Human Rights (‘the Court’, ‘the ECtHR’ or ‘the Strasbourg Court’) was called upon to answer these […]

  • Tobias Mortier

Taner Kılıç v. Turkey (no. 2): Court, don’t disregard Article 18 all too easily!

August 16, 2022

Over the last couple of years, the European Court of Human Rights (‘the Court’) has been tasked to deal with an enormous amount of cases pertaining to the attempted Turkish coup in 2016. In fact, Turkey currently has the dubious honor of having the second-highest number of applications pending against it before the Court out […]

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