Strasbourg Observers

View posts from: Admissibility

  • Guest Blogger

Extra-territorial Jurisdiction & Flexible Human Rights Obligations: The Case of Jaloud v. the Netherlands

December 08, 2014

This guest post was written by Cedric De Koker, Phd Researcher, IRCP, Ghent University. With its judgment in the case of Jaloud v. the Netherlands, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has added another chapter to its growing body of case law relating to the extra-territorial application of the European […]

  • Guest Blogger

Mocanu v. Romania: do large-scale human rights violations justify only a mild admissibility test?

October 17, 2014

This guest post was written by Helena De Vylder, Ph.D. researcher at the Human Rights Centre of Ghent University. Her research focuses on admissibility criteria in regional human rights systems. Mocanu and others v Romania fits in a series of cases in which the Strasbourg Court needed to deal with grave and large-scale human rights […]

  • Guest Blogger

Stensholt v. Norway: Why single judge decisions undermine the Court’s legitimacy

May 28, 2014

This guest post was written by Helena De Vylder. Helena is a Ph.D. Researcher at the Human Rights Centre of Ghent University. Her research concerns admissibility criteria in regional human rights systems. Apart from the new admissibility requirement – significant disadvantage –, the 14th Protocol contains a number of procedural changes. The competences of chambers […]

  • Guest Blogger

UN immunity overrides ius cogens norms of international law

July 23, 2013

This guest post was written by Bella Murati, Ph.D. Candidate at the Human Rights Centre of Ghent University.   July 2013 marks the 18th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre, when in the period of 13-19 July 1995, more than 8,000 unarmed Bosnian Muslims were deliberately killed by Bosnian Serb forces. The case itself has been […]

  • Maris Burbergs

Crossing the red line: application of the ‘significant disadvantage’ criterion in an Article 5§3 case

July 04, 2013

Recently, Judges De Gaetano and Ziemele did not hide their bewilderment with the Latvian government’s argument in favor of the application of the ‘significant disadvantage’ admissibility criterion in the case of Bannikov v. Latvia.

  • Weichie

Manifestly ill-founded … by a majority

June 17, 2013

In this post I want to flag three inadmissibility decisions, delivered by the Court’s Chambers over the past few months, in which the applicant’s claims are declared manifestly ill-founded, by a majority. Like so many inadmissibility decisions, the three summarised below may have easily passed under the radar of many of our readers. These particular […]

  • Maris Burbergs

Should the Court fix leaking roof problems?

October 03, 2012

Is the roof of the house in which you own a flat leaking? Is there a delay in repairs? Do you have to repaint the walls? Is there a delay of enforcement of decisions that ordered the repairs? These now seem to be valid questions for your potential human rights violation. In the case of […]

  • Alexandra Timmer

Gender equality and religious freedom in politics; Dutch SGP case declared inadmissible

July 23, 2012

The ECtHR has brought a turbulent Dutch legal saga to a close. In the highly interesting Staatkundig Gereformeerde Partij v. the Netherlands, the Court has declared the complaint by the Dutch political party ‘SGP’ inadmissible. The SGP is, in the words of the Court, “a confessional political party firmly rooted in historical Dutch Reformed Protestantism” […]

  • Maris Burbergs

The ‘significant disadvantage’ in a ‘20 million case’

May 18, 2012

In a recent case the Court used the ‘significant disadvantage’ criterion to declare a complaint inadmissible. In Liga Portuguesa de Futebol Profissional v. Portugal the Court made a clear distinction between the human rights issue at stake and the case at large (which concerned 20 million euros).

  • Maris Burbergs

Ambit and Scope of Article 8 in Citizenship Cases

October 23, 2011

In a recent judgment in the case of Genovese v. Malta the Court gave very few words when determining the scope and ambit of Article 8. The Court managed to exclude a right, find no violation and determine the scope in the same sentence, and, in contrary to previous citizenship cases, did not give one word […]

  • Maris Burbergs

How significant is the ‘significant disadvantage” of the new admissibility criterion (Part II)?

May 09, 2011

It has been claimed[1] and it is also my understanding that human rights protect important aspects of a human life. The views on what are the important aspects may vary. The drafters of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights put in their views; inspired by the rights in the Declaration, the European Convention was composed, […]

  • Maris Burbergs

How significant is the ‘significant disadvantage’ of the new admissibility criterion (Part I)?

May 04, 2011

In its decisions in the cases of Holub v. the Czech Republic and Bratři Zátkové, a.s. v. the Czech Republic the Court has unanimously declared the applications inadmissible. The Court used the new admissibility criterion to determine that.

  • Alexandra Timmer

Gypsy Way of Life “By Birth” or “By Choice”

February 22, 2011

This post is co-authored by Lourdes Peroni and Alexandra Timmer In an inadmissibility decision that might have gone unnoticed by many, the Court has recently ruled in an interesting case, Horie v UK. The case involves a “New Age Traveler” who complained of an impediment on her ability to pursue a nomadic way of life. […]

  • Maris Burbergs

‘De minimis non curat praetor’ principle in the Court’s practice

August 25, 2010

The Court has recently issued an inadmissibility decision in the case of Korolev v. Russia invoking the new admissibility criterion, introduced with the entry into force of Protocol No.14 to the Convention on 1 June 2010. The new admissibility criterion provides that applications are inadmissible where “the applicant has not suffered a significant disadvantage, unless […]

  • Eva Brems

Zubczewski v Sweden: margin of appreciation as a blank check

April 12, 2010

An observer of the Strasbourg case-law should always remember to include the inadmissibility decisions in her research. The changes in the Court’s procedures, introducing committees of three judges and judges sitting alone, have made this more difficult (those decisions are not on HUDOC), yet at the same time have resulted in a situation in which […]

  • Weichie

Strasbourg dances around the Cypriot question

April 12, 2010

Recently, the Strasbourg Court declared inadmissible a series of applications by Greek-Cypriot applicants claiming a violation of their property rights due to the continued occupation of the Northern part of Cyprus by Turkey. The eight admissibility cases were the first such applications to be examined by the Court following the pilot-judgment Xenides-Arestis v. Turkey (app. […]

1 2