November 04, 2019
By Dirk Voorhoof and Ronan Ó Fathaigh In Szurovecz v. Hungary, the European Court of Human Rights has held that a refusal to grant a journalist access to an asylum-seeker ‘reception centre’ in Hungary violated his right to freedom of expression under Article 10 ECHR. The ECtHR emphasised that newsgathering, including ‘first-hand’ observation by a […]
October 14, 2019
By Ronan Ó Fathaigh and Dirk Voorhoof The European Court’s Second Section recently found that criminal proceedings against the owner and the editor of a newspaper for having published statements by the leader of a terrorist organisation were justified and did not violate the right to freedom of expression. The Court in Gürbüz and Bayar […]
August 08, 2019
By Ronan Ó Fathaigh On 25 July 2019, the European Court of Human Rights delivered an important judgment in Brzeziński v. Poland, concerning a provision in Poland’s election law which allows a court, within 24 hours, to consider whether ‘untrue information’ has been published, and to issue an order prohibiting its further distribution. The European […]
May 17, 2019
This blogpost was written by Ronan Ó Fathaigh and Dirk Voorhoof On 30 April 2019, in Kablis v. Russia, the European Court’s Third Section unanimously found that the blocking by Russian authorities of an activist’s social networking account and entries on his blog had breached his right to freedom of expression under Article 10 ECHR. […]
January 23, 2019
This blog post was written by Ronan Ó Fathaigh and Dirk Voorhoof On 15 January 2019, the European Court’s Second Section unanimously found that an anti-corruption activist’s conviction for staging an “obscene” demonstration outside a prosecutor’s office, targeting a number of public officials, violated the activist’s freedom of expression. The Court in Mătăsaru v. the […]
November 26, 2018
By Sophia Sideridou (intern at the Human Rights Centre of Ghent University) On 30 October 2018, the European Court of Human Rights held unanimously that, in the case of Kaboglu and Oran v. Turkey, there has been a violation of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The applicants were two university professors […]
November 15, 2018
By Joanne Fish (University of Glasgow) In Tuskia and Others v. Georgia (11 October 2018) the European Court of Human Rights ruled on a case concerning a protest against university reforms by a group of academics at Tbilisi State University. The applicants are nine professors, six of which were members of the Grand Academic Council, […]
November 07, 2018
By Stijn Smet, Assistant Professor of Constitutional Law at Hasselt University In a recent judgment that has made headlines around the world, the ECtHR rules – not for the first time – that Austria can legitimately curb free speech to protect the religious feelings of believers. That the believers in E.S. v. Austria happened to […]
October 29, 2018
This blog post was written by Ronan Ó Fathaigh On 4 September 2018, the European Court of Human Rights delivered a unanimous judgment on Turkey’s controversial Article 301 insult law, and for the first time applied Article 46 of the European Convention, holding that amending the insult law would “constitute an appropriate form of execution” of […]
October 22, 2018
By Vigjilenca Abazi (fellow at Yale Law School) and Flutura Kusari (legal advisor at the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom) In April 2018, the European Commission put forward a much-anticipated ‘package of measures’ to strengthen whistleblower protection in the European Union. This includes a proposal for a Directive on the protection of persons […]
October 09, 2018
By Dirk Voorhoof (Human Rights Centre, Ghent University and Legal Human Academy) In Savva Terentyev v. Russia the ECtHR has applied a very high level of free speech-protection for aggressively insulting and hostile comments about police officers, published on a weblog. The ECtHR observes that some of the wording in the blog post was offensive, […]
September 11, 2018
By Dirk Voorhoof, Human Rights Centre, Ghent University and Legal Human Academy In its judgment of 17 July 2018 the ECtHR has found various violations of the rights of the members of the feminist punk band Pussy Riot. The ECtHR found violations under Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment), Article 5 § 3 […]
June 12, 2018
By Dirk Voorhoof, Human Rights Centre, Ghent University and Legal Human Academy In its recent judgment in Stomakhin v. Russia, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) launched the message to all domestic authorities to adopt a “cautious approach” in determining the scope of “hate speech” crimes and to avoid “excessive interference” with the right […]
April 03, 2018
Written by Senem Gurol, PhD candidate at Ghent University Introduction After the failed coup d’etat in Turkey, critics have raised concerns about the European Court of Human Rights’ (ECtHR or the Court) ability and willingness to provide an effective remedy for the human rights violations occurred. These concerns arose from the Strasbourg Court’s recent inadmissibility decisions […]
March 19, 2018
By Ronan Ó Fathaigh and Dirk Voorhoof The European Court’s Fourth Section has held, by four votes to three, that a protestor’s conviction, including a suspended three-year prison sentence, for frying eggs over the flame of a war memorial, did not violate the protestor’s freedom of expression. The judgment in Sinkova v. Ukraine prompted a […]
March 06, 2018
By Dirk Voorhoof and Daniel Simons In a case about a Ukrainian journalist being arrested during an anti-globalisation protest in Russia, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Butkevich v. Russia (13 February 2018) has clarified that the gathering of information is an essential preparatory step in journalism and an inherent, protected part of […]
January 19, 2018
This guest post was written by Ingrida Milkaite, Ghent University* On 7 November 2017 the European Court of Human Rights (the ECtHR, the Court) found a violation of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The main issue at hand was the Court’s assessment of whether the right balance between the applicant’s right […]
December 08, 2017
By Jonathan McCully (Media Legal Defence Initiative / Columbia Global Freedom of Expression) On 28 November 2017, in MAC TV v. Slovakia, the European Court of Human Rights (European Court) found a violation of the right to freedom of expression under Article 10 of the Convention where the Broadcasting Council of Slovakia had fined a […]
November 23, 2017
This guest post was written by Ingrida Milkaite (Ghent University)* On 12 October 2017 the European Court of Human Rights (the Court, the ECtHR) decided on the liability of Google Inc. as an information society service provider for offensive comments posted below a blog post about Mr Payam Tamiz. His application filed under article 8 […]
October 10, 2017
By Dirk Voorhoof, Human Rights Center UGent, Legal Human Academy and member of the European Center for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF) In the judgment in the case Becker v. Norway the ECtHR showed once more its concern about the importance of the protection of journalistic sources for press freedom and investigative journalism in particular. […]