April 07, 2022
By Pieter Cannoot On 17 February 2022, the European Court of Human Rights delivered its judgment in the case of Y. v. Poland. The Court unanimously found no violation of Article 8 of the Convention (ECHR), and no violation of Article 14 taken together with Article 8. The case concerned a trans man who had […]
April 04, 2022
By Kyriaki Patsianta In the case of D.M. and N. v. Italy, the ECtHR found that there had been a violation of article 8 of the Convention in respect of the applicants, a mother also acting on behalf of her daughter, who alleged that the adoption procedure initiated by the Italian authorities in relation to […]
April 01, 2022
By Dirk Voorhoof, Human Rights Centre UGent and Legal Human Academy The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has recently delivered a judgment in which, for the first time, it refers to the notion of SLAPP (Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation). In its judgment of 15 March 2022 in the case of OOO Memo v. […]
March 29, 2022
Dear readers, In February, we presented you with the 2021 Strasbourg Observers Best & Worst Poll, in which we asked you to vote for your preferred candidates as shortlisted for the categories of Best Judgment of 2021, Worst Judgment of 2021, and Best Separate Opinion of 2021. We would like to thank each and every […]
March 25, 2022
By Daniel Krotov and Yannick Schoog On 3 February 2022, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR; the Court) handed down yet another judgement on compensation for a child’s erroneously undetected disability in the aftermaths of the French “loi anti-Perruche”. Over 15 years after Draon and Maurice, the Court reached a similar conclusion but opted for a […]
March 22, 2022
By Aurélie Van Baelen On the early morning of 24 February 2022, when Russian tanks crossed the border into Ukraine, brutally invading sovereign territory, Europe entered a new era. After weeks of build-up tensions alongside the Russian-Ukrainian border, and the Belarusian-Ukrainian border, the Russian President dared to do what many feared, but hoped he would […]
March 17, 2022
By Philip Leach [i] The brutal, unprovoked and illegal Russian invasion of Ukraine, which started on 24 February 2022, has resulted in the swift utilisation of the machinery of international law. Ukraine itself instigated proceedings at the International Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights. On 28 February, Karim Khan QC, the […]
March 14, 2022
By Sarah Ganty One might expect that with the emphasis placed on the best interests of the child in recent years (even decades), the issue of surrogacy would not be so haphazardly approached by the ECtHR. And yet the patchwork quilt of protection afforded to children (and their parents) born from surrogacy is strikingly insufficient, […]
March 09, 2022
By Maïté De Rue The Open Society European Policy Institute (OSEPI, a branch of the Open Society Foundations network) submitted on 24 January 2022 a collective complaint against Bulgaria to the European Committee of Social Rights (ECSR), the body of the Council of Europe that monitors States’ compliance with the European Social Charter. OSEPI claims […]
March 02, 2022
By Diana Dimitrova Introduction In the past years, the European Court of Human Rights (the Court) has been asked numerous times to examine different aspects of the Council of Europe’s Member States’ (secret) surveillance regimes, ranging from (mass) secret surveillance against their own residents to bulk surveillance or interception of electronic communications coming from abroad. […]
February 18, 2022
By Waleed Mahmoud Elfarrs 1. Introduction On 22 July 2021 the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) rendered a judgment that could be relevant to the presently sensitive topic of Western Sahara – E.H. v. France, application no. 39126/18. The first of its kind, the judgment concerns the expulsion of an asylum seeker of Sahrawi […]
February 16, 2022
Dear readers, As we step into the year 2022, we are taking the occasion to look back at 2021. It has been an eventful year: as President Spano points out in the Court’s Annual report, now is a crucial time for human rights law, between technological and societal advances, increasing polarisation and political upheaval, and […]
February 11, 2022
by Germain Haumont Introduction The historic position of the European Court of Human Rights (hereafter: “the Court” or “the ECtHR”) on the immigration detention of children is that such detention is compatible with the Convention where it is strictly necessary and adapted to children’s specific needs (see L. Cools, “L’enfermement d’enfants migrants à la lumière […]
February 08, 2022
By Merel Vrancken In the case of Toplak and Mrak v. Slovenia, two persons with muscular dystrophy complained that they had been discriminated against with respect to their right to vote because their polling stations had not been made fully accessible so as to ensure that they could vote fully independently and in secret. The […]
February 04, 2022
Avci v Denmark concerns an expulsion order and a permanent re-entry ban issued by the Danish High Court against Mr Avci, a settled migrant born and raised in Denmark. This judgment provides a clear illustration of the burgeoning trend towards process-based, procedural review by the European Court of Human Rights (hereinafter ‘the Court’) – a […]
February 01, 2022
By Ellen Vandennieuwenhuysen On the 7th of December 2021, the Grand Chamber issued its long awaited judgement in the Savran-case, concerning the expulsion of a Turkish national with paranoid schizophrenia from Denmark. Contrary to the Chamber, the Grand Chamber found no violation of Article 3 ECHR, as the health risks did not reach the high […]
January 28, 2022
By Dr. Cathérine Van de Graaf and Reza Khabook In this blogpost, we zoom in on the Chamber judgment of Ali Riza v. Switzerland. Some might recognise the name of the applicant. Indeed, on an earlier occasion, M. Ömer Kerim Ali Rıza (together with three amateur football players and one referee) brought a case against […]
January 25, 2022
By Meri Baghdasaryan Standard Verlagsgesellschaft MBH v. Austria (No. 3) represents an interesting development in the case law of the European Court of Human Rights (‘ECtHR’, ‘the Court’) on user-generated content and anonymous speech online. This case stands out as it concerns the liability of host providers for refusal to disclose anonymous user data for […]
January 21, 2022
Dr. Ramute Remezaite[1] Introduction Article 18 of the European Convention on Human Rights (the Convention), prohibiting the Council of Europe member states’ acting in bad faith, has been put under the spotlight by litigators and the Court in recent years, exposing ulterior practices by states. Azerbaijan’s particularly repressive context for civil society and the political […]
January 18, 2022
By Toby Collis Should the European Court of Human Rights (‘ECtHR’ or ‘the Court’) dispose of a complaint by resorting to judicial policy reasoning to prevent judicial overload? A recent decision of the Court – Turan and Others v Turkey – handed down on 23 November 2021, brings this issue into sharp focus, not due […]