March 10, 2016
In the recent case of Garib v. the Netherlands, the Court considered that a policy imposing minimum income conditions on persons wishing to settle in a number of inner-city areas of the city of Rotterdam did not violate the freedom to choose one’s residence as guaranteed by Article 2 Protocol No. 4. In doing so, […]
March 03, 2016
By Fleur van Leeuwen, LL.M. Ph.D., human rights researcher and lecturer. On 14 January 2011 Selma Civek was murdered by her husband. It was the denouement of years of battering and abuse. Last week the European Court of Human Rights (the Court) ruled that Turkey had violated Civek’s right to life. It deemed it unnecessary […]
February 25, 2016
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 […]
February 18, 2016
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: […]
February 16, 2016
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 […]
February 10, 2016
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. […]
February 08, 2016
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 […]
February 04, 2016
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 […]
February 02, 2016
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 […]
January 20, 2016
This guest post was written by Dr. Başak Çalı, Director, Center for Global Public Law and Assoc. Prof. of International Law, Koç University Law School, Istanbul. It is not common to receive a letter from the registry of the European Court of Human Rights. At least, for me it’s not. I was excited to receive […]
January 18, 2016
Following an annual and cherished tradition, we are hereby launching our poll for the best and worst ECtHR judgment of 2015! As usual, preselecting a limited number of contenders was both fun and hard. There is always room for debate. Always other judgments that deserve a shot at the title. Other judgments to cheer at. […]
January 11, 2016
Guest post by Sanne Konings, Stafmedewerker Familiaal Internationaal Privaatrecht, Agentschap Integratie en Inburgering. On 8th of December 2015 the European Court of Human Rights pronounced a judgment in the case of Z.H. and R.H. v. Switzerland. The main question was if the Swiss authorities violated the right to respect of family life under article 8 […]
January 05, 2016
By Marina van Riel, Resident Fellow, Open Society Justice Initiative, New York (*) On 1 December 2015, the European Court of Human Rights released a judgment in the case of Cengiz and Others v. Turkey. The main question put before the Court was whether the blocking of the popular video-sharing website YouTube constituted a violation […]
December 28, 2015
By Eva Brems In the Grand Chamber judgment of SAS v France (2014) the European Court of Human Rights held that France’s ban on face covering in public could be justified under article 9 ECHR as a proportionate measure for the aim of guaranteeing ‘le vivre ensemble’ (living together). Given the storm of protest that […]
December 23, 2015
By Paul De Hert and Pedro Cristobal Bocos (Vrije Universiteit Brussels) The judgment of the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights in Roman Zakharov v. Russia last December 4, 2015 is part of the growing concern that some international human rights protection bodies have developed in the area of digital rights. This […]
December 15, 2015
By Corina Heri On 26 November 2015, the ECtHR published the Fifth Section’s judgment in Annen v. Germany. The majority in that case found a violation of the applicant’s freedom of expression under Article 10 ECHR by an injunction that prohibited him from distributing anti-abortion leaflets outside a day clinic and from publishing the names […]
December 07, 2015
By Lieselot Verdonck, doctoral researcher at the Human Rights Centre (Ghent University) and fellow of the Research Foundation – Flanders (Belgium). Özel & Others v. Turkey neatly fits into established case law of the European Court regarding human rights violations in which companies are involved. This is precisely the reason why the judgment may disappoint […]
December 02, 2015
By Ella Rutter and Jasmine Rayée, students of the Human Rights Law Clinic at the Faculty of Law of Ghent University. On 15 October 2015, in the case of Kudrevičius and Others v. Lithuania, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) delivered its first Grand Chamber judgment on the right to freedom of peaceful assembly. […]
November 27, 2015
By Eva Brems On 26 November, the Court added a new chapter to its ‘headscarf’ jurisprudence, upholding the non-renewal of a contract in a public hospital on the ground of the applicant’s refusal to take off her headscarf. The case in brief 15 years ago, in December 2000, the applicant, who had been working for […]
November 25, 2015
By Rebecca Deruiter, PhD Researcher at the Institute for International Research on Criminal Policy (IRCP), Ghent University[1] In recent years, the case of Farid Bamouhammed has been covered frequently by Belgian media, characterizing him as notoriously unmanageable and resulting in the widespread used nickname of Farid ‘Le Fou’. After numerous judicial proceedings, by both Farid […]