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  • Sabrina Praduroux

Is it Safe to Bury the Truth under the Family Tree? The ECtHR’s Response in Gauvin-Fournis and Silliau v France

December 12, 2023

By Sabrina Praduroux There have been longstanding ethical concerns regarding the anonymity of gamete donors in the context of medically-assisted reproduction techniques. In recent years, the increasing importance placed on the right to know one’s biological origins as a fundamental aspect of personal identity has also raised questions about the principle of donor anonymity from […]

  • Mathieu Leloup

Wałęsa v Poland: a forceful culmination of the Court’s rule-of-law case law

December 08, 2023

By Mathieu Leloup Polish rule of law cases are by no means still a novelty at the European Court of Human Rights. Over the course of the last couple of years, the Court has ruled on a wide variety of aspects concerning the Polish legal “reforms” of its judiciary, going from the composition of the […]

  • Ignatius Yordan Nugraha

Ikotity and Others v. Hungary: Restricting the Opposition’s Freedom of Expression through a Wide Margin of Appreciation in the Context of Democratic Backsliding

December 05, 2023

by Ignatius Yordan Nugraha Does the right to freedom of expression imply the right to use posters in parliament to strengthen the point of your expression? In Ikotity and Others v. Hungary, notified in writing on 5 October 2023, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) seems to be sceptical of such a conception. At […]

  • Steve Foster

Prisoner voting rights and the ECHR: Myslihaka and Others v. Albania

December 01, 2023

by Dr Steve Foster Disenfranchisement of convicted prisoners in Europe remains varied despite the Grand Chamber’s pivotal decision in Hirst v. United Kingdom No. 2 that any interference with a prisoner’s right to vote had to be necessary and proportionate. Thus, since Hirst the Court has upheld a number of State restrictions on prisoner voting […]

  • Sarah Ganty and Dimitry V. Kochenov

Hijacking Human Rights to Enable Punishment by Association: Valiullina, Džibuti and Outlawing Minority Schooling in Latvia

November 23, 2023

by Sarah Ganty and Dimitry V. Kochenov[i] In Valiullina and others v. Latvia and Džibuti and others v. Latvia, the Fifth Section of the European Court of Human Rights unanimously approved of further restrictions on Russian-language education in Latvia, thereby depriving a huge proportion of the population of the Republic of Latvia of education in […]

  • Maria Tzanou

Bulk transborder surveillance, foreign nationals and the application of ECHR rights: Wieder and Guarnieri v. the UK– a seminal (but underwhelming) judgment

November 21, 2023

By Maria Tzanou Do persons outside an ECHR Contracting State fall within the Convention’s territorial jurisdiction if their electronic communications were (or were at risk of being) intercepted, searched and examined by that State’s intelligence agencies operating within its borders for the purposes of a complaint under Article 8 ECHR? The ECtHR’s Fourth Section judgment […]

  • Ignatius Yordan Nugraha

Consolidating the Legal Recognition and Protection of Same-Sex Couples: Koilova and Babulkova v. Bulgaria

November 07, 2023

by Ignatius Yordan Nugraha In today’s globalised world, a marriage contracted abroad is not a peculiar phenomenon. Same-sex couples from countries such as Bulgaria or Romania may decide to tie the knot in a country where same-sex marriage has been legalised to start a family life. These couples, however, face a major legal hurdle not […]

  • Dr. Betül Durmuş

Judicial Stereotypes on Female Sexuality and Reproduction: Nurcan Bayraktar v Türkiye

November 02, 2023

By Dr. Betül Durmuş I remember the first time I learned about Article 132 of the Turkish Civil Code (‘TCC’) in the family law classes in Turkey. This provision imposes a 300-day waiting period for divorced women to remarry unless they medically prove they are not pregnant. As a young woman and a law student, […]

  • Emre Turkut

‘Article 7’ Shockwaves, ByLock and Beyond: Unpacking the Grand Chamber’s Yalçınkaya Judgment

October 13, 2023

by Emre Turkut On 26 September 2023, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights delivered a highly anticipated decision in the case of Yalçınkaya v. Türkiye. The case concerns an application lodged on 17 March 2020 by a teacher who was dismissed from public service through a coercive state of emergency decree, […]

  • Harriet Ní Chinnéide

Hurbain v Belgium: Navigating the Intersection of Privacy and Press Freedom in the Digital Age

October 03, 2023

By Harriet Ní Chinnéide In the wake of the digital revolution, questions surrounding the right to privacy and the right to be forgotten have come to the fore. With the digitalisation of press archives, what once required extensive archival research can now be discovered – even sometimes accidentally – through a simple online search. This […]

  • Tsubasa Shinohara

Caster Semenya v. Switzerland: eligibility of intersex female athlete in female athletic events

September 27, 2023

By Dr Tsubasa Shinohara On 11 July 2023, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) rendered a significant judgment in Caster Semenya v. Switzerland (App. No. 10934/21, only available in French) after it delivered several judgments in the field of sports (especially, see Bakker v. Switzerland (dec.), Mutu and Pechstein v. Switzerland, Ali Riza v. […]

  • Benjamin Nurkić

Kovačević v. Bosnia and Herzegovina: the complete guidelines for the constitutional reform in B&H

September 12, 2023

by Benjamin Nurkić In the recently announced judgment in the case of Kovačević v. Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H), the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has found a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 12 regarding the complaint about the composition of the House of Peoples of the Parliamentary Assembly of B&H, and regarding […]

  • Eva Meyermans Spelmans

Mestan v. Bulgaria – finally a genuine recognition of linguistic rights?  

September 08, 2023

by Eva Meyermans Spelmans In the case of Mestan v. Bulgaria, the European Court of Human Rights (‘the Court’) found that a law imposing Bulgarian as the official language to be used in election campaigns violated the right to freedom of expression as enshrined in Article 10. In 2013, Mr Mestan was fined for speaking […]

  • Anaïs Brucher

Domestic enforcement of the right to housing of applicants for international protection: a (small) victory in Camara v. Belgium

September 01, 2023

By Anaïs Brucher Camara v. Belgium is the first of what could be a long series of cases on the enforcement of the right to housing and material assistance of applicants for international protection in Belgium. On 18 July 2023, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruled on the case of Mr Camara, who […]

  • Eva Sevrin

The exceptional case of Ghadamian v Switzerland: Private life and the obligation to regularize migrants

August 29, 2023

By Eva Sevrin Ghadamian v Switzerland is one of the rare cases where the European Court of Human Rights decides that the State is under a positive obligation to regularize an irregularly residing migrant. Even more rare perhaps, is the fact that the Court finds this obligation under the right to private life (Article 8). […]

  • Mark Klaassen

Deportation, mental illness and Article 8 ECHR: a discussion of Azzaqui v the Netherlands

August 25, 2023

By Mark Klaassen Mental illness can reduce the weight attached to the nature and seriousness of a crime in the context of balancing interests under Article 8 ECHR in deportation cases. In Azzaqui v the Netherlands, the European Court of Human Rights (the Court) confirmed the Grand Chamber judgment in Savran v Denmark and further […]

  • Meri Baghdasaryan

Sanchez v. France: Are the expanded liability rules foreseeable for social media users?

August 04, 2023

by Meri Baghdasaryan Earlier in July 2023, a blog post by Jacob van de Kerkhof discussed the shortcomings of the recent Grand Chamber judgment in Sanchez v. France, in which the Court expanded its intermediary liability rules for hate speech posted by third parties to individual users of social media platforms. This piece will not […]

  • Rianne Herregodts

Grosam v. the Czech Republic: being the master of characterisation, not the master of transformation

August 01, 2023

By Rianne Herregodts In Grosam v. the Czech Republic, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights concludes the Chamber of the First Section of the Court has gone too far in its characterisation of the complaint of Mr. Grosam. The judgment clarifies what it means to be ‘the master of characterisation’. It […]

  • Merel Vrancken

Not the Court’s finest work: inclusive education and reasonable accommodations for pupils with disabilities in T.H. v. Bulgaria

July 20, 2023

By Merel Vrancken In the case of T.H. v. Bulgaria, the European Court of Human Rights finds that a school provided sufficient reasonable accommodation to satisfy the needs of a pupil with a disability and that no discrimination or harassment existed. This judgment follows several other cases about the inclusion of pupils with disabilities in […]

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