June 27, 2023
by Dr. Ronagh McQuigg The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has now built up a substantial body of jurisprudence on domestic abuse. It is now firmly established that failure on the part of State authorities to respond in a sufficient manner to this issue may constitute violations of Articles 2, 3, 8 and 14 of […]
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 […]
January 05, 2021
By Dirk Voorhoof and Inger Høedt-Rasmussen (*) The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), delivered an interesting judgment in the case of Tölle v. Croatia about insulting allegations of domestic violence. In a newspaper article a father accused an association to be responsible for his child’s abduction by the mother. The president of this association […]
March 11, 2020
By Fleur van Leeuwen (Boğaziçi University) ‘The legal system is designed to protect men from the superior power of the state but not to protect women or children from the superior power of men.’ It is a quote from Harvard psychiatrist Judith Herman in an article on domestic violence in the Guardian last weekend. The […]
August 13, 2019
By Zane Ratniece On 4 July 2019, a Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (‘Court’) delivered a judgment in Kurt v. Austria. The case concerned a disturbing situation of domestic violence, which escalated over time and ended with the killing of the applicant’s son by her violent husband. (para. 3) The Chamber found that […]
July 30, 2019
By Corina Heri, postdoctoral researcher at the University of Amsterdam ‘When he kills you, come and see us’, police reportedly told the applicant in Volodina v. Russia before proceeding to ignore her allegations of domestic violence. On 9 July, the Third Section found that the respondent State had violated its positive obligations under Article 3 […]
December 07, 2018
By Irina Crivet (PhD Candidate, Koç University, Istanbul, Turkey) The proliferation of international and regional human rights bodies has given the victims of human rights violations the chance to pick and choose where they can send their complaints. Whilst these choices are limited by geographical locations of individuals and the states’ acceptance of right to […]
April 19, 2017
What are the elements necessary to support a finding of discrimination in domestic violence cases? In the recent case of Talpis v. Italy, two judges voted against an Article 14 violation. The dissenting opinions offer an opportunity to reflect on this and other broader questions that may be relevant for future cases. The questions flow […]
April 14, 2016
This guest post was written by Fleur van Leeuwen (*) Around a month ago, the Court ruled in Civek v. Turkey that it was not necessary to examine the applicant’s complaint of discrimination in a domestic violence case that ended in death. This was disheartening, especially because in recent domestic violence judgments the Court has […]