Strasbourg Observers
  • Zoë Grossi and Pauline Charlotte Janssens

Zăicescu and Fălticineanu v. Romania: Forsaking Non-Retroactivity – a Positive Shift in Judicial Activism Recognising Secondary Victimisation

November 08, 2024

by Zoë Grossi and Pauline Charlotte Janssens Introduction On 23 April 2024, the European Court of Human Rights delivered a judgment in the case of Zăicescu and Fălticineanu v. Romania. The Court unanimously held that Romania violated Article 8 juncto Article 14 of the Convention by acquitting two high-ranking military officials previously convicted of war […]

  • Ola Johan Settem

Crime victims’ hurdles in access to court claims: The Fabbri Grand Chamber judgment raises the bar

November 05, 2024

By Ola Johan Settem On 24 September 2024, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) delivered a Grand Chamber judgment in Fabbri and others v. San Marino (6319/21). The judgment concerns the rights of crime victims who attempt to pursue a civil claim against the offender by joining the criminal proceedings. The Grand Chamber clarifies […]

  • Cathérine Van de Graaf, Eva Brems and Stéphanie Hennette-Vauchez

Third Party Intervention to the ECtHR in F.D. and I.M. and three others (les Hijabeuses) v. France

October 31, 2024

By Cathérine Van de Graaf, Eva Brems and Stéphanie Hennette-Vauchez The Human Rights Centre[i] of Ghent University, joined by prof. Stéphanie Hennette-Vauchez (Université Paris Nanterre) submitted a third party intervention to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR or the Court) in the communicated case of F.D. and I.M. and three others v. France (38506/23, […]

  • Sarah Ganty

Sliding Fast Down the Slippery Slope of Criminalization of Poverty in Strugurel Ion Dian against Denmark

October 29, 2024

By Sarah Ganty In Dian, the Court flushes the promise of the Lăcătuş judgment that ‘begging, as a form of the right to call on another person to obtain his or her assistance, must evidently be regarded as a basic freedom’ (§59) down the drain. The Court adopts a skewed vision of poverty, finding in […]

  • Yasir Gökce

The European Court’s Deference to Türkiye: A Critical Review of the Yasak Judgment

October 25, 2024

by Dr. iur. Yasir Gökce The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) pronounced recently an interesting judgment in the Yasak case, which appears to negate many of its conclusions in the landmark Yalcinkaya ruling. In the latter judgment, the Court characterised the practice of the Turkish judiciary to equate the alleged download or use of […]

  • Isabel Kienzle and Jonathan Kießling

Evidently unlawful, yet difficult to evidence: M.A. and Z.R. v. Cyprus advances Strasbourg’s case law on pushbacks

October 22, 2024

By Isabel Kienzle and Jonathan Kießling For the first time, in M.A. and Z.R. v. Cyprus, the ECtHR has decided on a pushback case against Cyprus, addressing the island state’s practice to intercept and return migrants arriving from Lebanon without an individual assessment of their protection needs. As the parties provided conflicting accounts of the […]

  • Deekshitha Ganesan and Richard Köhler

Trans People in Prison and the Law: Lessons from W.W. v. Poland

October 18, 2024

Deekshitha Ganesan and Richard Köhler On 11 July 2024, the European Court of Human Rights (the Court) delivered an important decision in the case of W.W. v. Poland, finding that Polish prison authorities’ denial of access to hormone replacement therapy to a trans woman who was imprisoned violated Article 8 of the European Convention on […]

  • Strasbourg Observers

Strasbourg Observers 15th Anniversary Symposium: Call for papers

October 14, 2024

8-9 May 2025, Ghent  Founded in April 2010, the Strasbourg Observers Blog is soon celebrating its 15th Anniversary. At this occasion, we are organizing a symposium in Ghent, Belgium. This symposium will be an occasion for real-life exchange between the blog’s readers, contributors and the current and former members of its editorial team. At the […]

  • Moritz Baumgärtel

Whatever happened to Greek hotspots? The routine handling of routine violations in M.A. and others v. Greece

October 11, 2024

Moritz Baumgärtel On 3 October 2024, the Fifth Section of the ECtHR, sitting as a Committee, delivered its judgment in the case of M.A. and others v. Greece. The Court found a violation of Article 3 ECHR due to the unacceptable living conditions in the Chios Vial and Samos Reception and Identification Centres (“RICs”). Together […]

  • Petra Järvinen and Ville Vikman

Pasquinelli and others v San Marino – The momentous competing interests of the community as a whole against healthcare workers refusing the COVID-19 vaccine

October 04, 2024

1. Introduction On 29 August 2024, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) delivered a judgement in Pasquinelli and others v. San Marino (24622/22) concerning COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) vaccines. The judgement, issued by the Court’s First Section, supplements the Court’s previous case law concerning COVID-19 vaccination and the pandemic in general (Communauté genevoise d’action syndicale (CGAS) […]

  • Strasbourg Observers

HRC to disseminate overviews of communicated cases

September 27, 2024

The Ghent University Human Rights Centre is proud to announce a new initiative! The team at the HRC has been scanning all communicated ECtHR cases regularly for a while. We find this helpful for our research, as well as for deciding on third party interventions. Starting from September, we will now be making these overviews […]

  • Donatas Murauskas

Manoeuvring between the constitutional order and the Convention rights – context dependent deliberation of Ždanoka v. Latvia (No. 2)

September 17, 2024

By Donatas Murauskas It is not just the individual restriction of rights that matters—the broader context in which they exist is equally crucial. This is the key lesson from the second review of Ms. Ždanoka’s attempts to overcome the restrictions on her candidacy for Parliamentary elections in Latvia. The recent judgment in Ždanoka v. Latvia […]

  • Anca Ailincai

Should the Polish authorities request the CoE Parliamentary Assembly to lift MP Marcin Romanowski’s immunity?

September 10, 2024

By Anca Ailincai Immunity of high-ranking State officials from foreign criminal jurisdiction has been a topic of considerable debate for several years (e.g. here). The summer news has provided a rare opportunity to shed light on the more confidential issue of the immunities from jurisdiction and arrest of members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the […]

  • Maja Lysienia

For better or for worse? Grand Chamber takes over cases concerning pushbacks at the Belarusian border

September 06, 2024

Maja Lysienia For over three years now, crisis at the Belarusian border has been testing national authorities’ commitment to human rights. Since July 2021, Belarus has allowed for, facilitated or forced the irregular entry of third-country nationals to the EU. This new state conduct was quickly labelled as an “instrumentalization of migration”. Poland, Lithuania and […]

  • Dr Dimitrios Kagiaros and Dr Inga Thiemann

M.A. and others v. France: The ‘End Demand’ model of Regulating Sex Work goes to Strasbourg

September 03, 2024

by Dr Dimitrios Kagiaros and Dr Inga Thiemann In M.A. and others v. France, the Court’s fifth section was called to decide on a particularly controversial issue: whether France’s 2016 law, which criminalised the purchase of sex without exception, was compatible with Articles 2, 3 and 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). […]

  • Dirk Voorhoof

Sokolovskiy v. Russia: criminal conviction for religious ‘hate speech’ violated the right to freedom of expression of a blogger

August 27, 2024

by Dirk Voorhoof 1. – Introduction In its judgment of the 4th June 2024 in the case of Sokolovskiy v. Russia the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) dealt with the issue of religious hate speech as a criminal offence interfering with the right to freedom of expression and information under Article 10 ECHR (see […]

  • Júlia Miklasová

The Conflation of Jurisdiction and Attribution Tests, the ‘Law,’ and the International Legal Status of Abkhazia and South Ossetia: A Review of Recent ECtHR Case Law

August 23, 2024

By Júlia Miklasová This blog features an analysis of the common threads that link three recent ECtHR judgments related to the Russia-controlled parts of Georgian territory – the de facto entities of Abkhazia and South Ossetia –with the Court’s existing case law. Particularly, the blog focuses on the conflation of the jurisdiction and attribution tests, […]

  • Holly Greenwood

Case of Nealon and Hallam v. the United Kingdom: Article 6 (2) and the presumption of innocence in wrongful conviction compensation proceedings: nothing but semantics?

August 20, 2024

by dr Holly Greenwood Introduction The case of Nealon and Hallam v. the United Kingdom concerned a joint application from two individuals who were denied compensation for their wrongful convictions under the statutory scheme in England and Wales. The applicants argued s.133(1ZA) of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, as amended by the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime […]

  • Marie-Sophie de Clippele

Who owns art over time? The judicial saga of the Statue of Victorious Youth in Getty Trust v. Italy

August 16, 2024

By Marie-Sophie de Clippele Who owns the famous antique Statue of Victorious Youth on display in the Getty Museum (USA)? Does the Getty Trust have rightful ownership after nearly fifty years, or is it Italian public property, given Italy’s claim that it was discovered in its waters? The ECtHR carefully avoids a straight answer to […]

  • Andrew Novak

Saakashvili v. Georgia and the Global Trend Toward Judicial Review of the Pardon Power

August 13, 2024

By Andrew Novak The decision of the European Court of Human Rights in Saakashvili v. Georgia provides a novel comparative analysis of the executive clemency power and an executive’s immunity from prosecution for misuse of that power. The debate over the nature of the pardon, filed by the former president of the Republic of Georgia, […]

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