Strasbourg Observers

View posts from: Migration

  • Eva Brems

Sakir v Greece: Racist violence against an undocumented migrant

April 06, 2016

By Eva Brems In a recent case, the Court found a violation of article 3 ECHR on account of the defective investigation into a serious incident of racist violence that occurred in Athens in 2009. In addition, the detention conditions imposed upon the victim (sic!) also violated article 3. The judgment explicitly recognizes the structural […]

  • Guest Blogger

Migrants’ avoidance of the European Court of Human Rights concerns us all

February 10, 2016

By Marie-Bénédicte Dembour, Professor of Law and Anthropology at the Brighton Business School, University of Brighton (*) This post has been re-published on When Humans Become Migrants Blog. Every year towards the end of January, the President of the European Court of Human Rights holds a press conference that takes stock of the previous year. […]

  • Guest Blogger

S.J. v. Belgium: missed opportunity to fairly protect seriously ill migrants facing expulsion

April 30, 2015

This guest post was written by Sarah Ganty, Ph.D. student at the Institute for European Studies and at the Faculty of Law (Perelman Centre for Legal Philosophy) of the ULB within the Research project ARC “Sous le signe du mérite et de la conformité culturelle, les nouvelles politiques d’intégration des immigrés en Europe”. See also […]

  • Lourdes Peroni

New Publication on Migration and Human Rights: The Strasbourg and San Jose Courts

April 07, 2015

I am happy to share with the readers the recent publication of my chapter “On the Road to Substantive Equality: Due Process and Non-discrimination at San José,” written for the book When Humans Become Migrants: Study of the European Court of Human Rights with an Inter-American Counterpoint, by Marie-Bénédicte Dembour (Oxford University Press 2015).

  • Lourdes Peroni

Impoverished “Family Life”: Its Problematic Pervasiveness at Strasbourg

December 18, 2014

By Lourdes Peroni At a time when family life takes increasingly diverse forms in Europe and elsewhere, the recent judgment in Senchishak v. Finland clings to the ideal of parents and minor children as the yardstick to determine the existence of family life at Strasbourg. The Court declared the complaint under Article 8 inadmissible, after finding […]

  • Lourdes Peroni

Jeunesse v. the Netherlands: Quiet Shifts in Migration and Family Life Jurisprudence?

October 30, 2014

By Lourdes Peroni Readers familiar with the Court’s case law on family life and immigration will know that applicants’ chances of success are slim if family life was formed at a time when those involved knew that the migration status of one of them was such that their family life would be precarious in the […]

  • Maris Burbergs

Financial considerations in an expulsion case?

May 08, 2014

In Palanci v. Switzerland – an expulsion case – the Court held against the applicant his unsuccessful business efforts and the time that authorities needed to process his asylum and residence permit applications.

  • Guest Blogger

Biao: Danish family reunification policy does not violate the prohibition of discrimination

April 18, 2014

This post was written by Nadia Ismaili, Ph.D. researcher at the migration law section of the Free University Amsterdam (*) On 25 March 2014 the second chamber of the European Court of Human Rights handed down its judgment in the case of Biao v. Denmark. The case concerned the refusal to grant family reunion in […]

  • Lourdes Peroni

Family Reunification in Berisha v. Switzerland: The Child’s Best Interests, Really?

August 01, 2013

This week, in a divided ruling, the Court rejected the case of Berisha v. Switzerland. By four votes to three, the Court held that the refusal of residence permits to the applicants’ three children – who were born in Kosovo and entered Switzerland illegally – did not violate the parents’ right to respect for family […]

  • Guest Blogger

Françoise Tulkens, indefatigable defender of migrants’ human rights

August 28, 2012

The Strasbourg Observers are delighted to post this tribute to Judge Tulkens by Professor Marie-Bénédicte Dembour, University of Sussex. Françoise Tulkens arrived at Strasbourg because she wanted to make a contribution to the development of European human rights law. She had no prior judicial experience but brought to her new office fine legal skills and […]

  • Guest Blogger

Hirsi (part II): Another side to the judgment

March 02, 2012

This is the second post written by Marie-Bénédicte Dembour* on the case Hirsi Jamaa and Others v. Italy. As I said yesterday, Hirsi is a fantastic judgment. It is ground-breaking not only for declaring interception-at-sea as currently practiced illegal on a number of grounds but also for potentially lightening the burden of proof which falls […]

  • Guest Blogger

Interception-at-sea: Illegal as currently practiced – Hirsi and Others v. Italy

March 01, 2012

This post is written by Marie-Bénédicte Dembour. She is Professor of Law and Anthropology at the University of Sussex. She is the author of Who Believes in Human Rights? Reflections on the European Convention and currently preparing a monograph provisionally entitled Migrant First, Human When? Testing Human Rights in the European and Inter-American Courts. Europe […]

  • Laurens Lavrysen

Less stringent measures and migration detention: overruling Saadi v. UK?

January 25, 2012

The recent cases of Yoh-Ekale Mwanje v. Belgium and Popov v. France illustrate how a ‘less stringent measures test’ is entering the Court’s reasoning under Art. 5 § 1 ECHR in migration detention cases. The Court appears to be slowly moving away from its deferential approach in Saadi v. The United Kingdom. This might result […]

  • Laurens Lavrysen

French Roma policy violates European Social Charter

December 06, 2011

In a decision of 28 June (COHRE v. France, no. 63/2010), which was only recently made public, the European Committee of Social Rights has found the French zero tolerance policy towards East European Roma living in illegal camps to be in violation of the European Social Charter. The case, which was lodged by the NGO […]

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