Strasbourg Observers

View posts from: Immunity

  • Anca Ailincai

Should the Polish authorities request the CoE Parliamentary Assembly to lift MP Marcin Romanowski’s immunity?

September 10, 2024

By Anca Ailincai Immunity of high-ranking State officials from foreign criminal jurisdiction has been a topic of considerable debate for several years (e.g. here). The summer news has provided a rare opportunity to shed light on the more confidential issue of the immunities from jurisdiction and arrest of members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the […]

  • Andy Jousten

Money is not everything: the immunity of a minister and the deprivation of a specific remedy to protect the civil right to a good reputation in Bakoyanni v. Greece

April 18, 2023

By Andy Jousten Introduction In its judgment in Bakoyanni v. Greece, the European Court of Human Rights held unanimously that there had been a violation of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention due to the Greek Parliament’s refusal to lift a former minister’s immunity. The latter had posted a tweet, which the applicant, a […]

  • Ash Stanley-Ryan

J.C. and Others v. Belgium: the delicate balance of state immunity and human dignity

January 12, 2022

By Ash Stanley-Ryan International law walks a tightrope between the rights of sovereign States and the rights of those who comprise them. Tip too far to either side and the system breaks – sovereignty either becomes unbridled power, or becomes meaningless. This delicate balancing is most evident when sovereign power and human rights directly collide, […]

  • Guest Blogger

Strasbourg v Kafka: Diplomatic Immunity of the Judges of the European Court of Human Rights

July 21, 2020

By Prof Kanstantsin Dzehtsiarou (University of Liverpool, Editor-in-Chief of the European Convention on Human Rights Law Review) I have already written about the unprecedented pressure that the Ukrainian authorities place on the sitting judge of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR or Court) in my previous blogpost on the issue. A while ago, the […]