June 04, 2019
By Kanstantsin Dzehtsiarou (University of Liverpool) The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) delivered its first ever judgment in an infringement procedure request (under Article 46-4 ECHR) in the case of Mammadov v Azerbaijan. The applicant in this case was an opposition leader from Azerbaijan who was put in prison contrary […]
May 22, 2019
By Dr. Dániel A. Karsai, attorney at law, Dániel Karsai Law Firm The Commissioner of Human Rights of the Council of Europe recently issued a report following her visit to Hungary where she made the following rather astonishing statement: “Human rights violations in Hungary have a negative effect on the whole protection system and the […]
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. […]
May 06, 2019
By Emre Turkut, PhD researcher at Ghent University On 16 April 2019, the Second Section Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (the ECtHR) delivered a long-awaited decision in the case of Alparslan Altan v. Turkey, an application lodged by a former judge serving on the Turkish Constitutional Court (TCC) to challenge his arbitrary […]
April 29, 2019
By Kanstantsin Dzehtsiarou (University of Liverpool) As I have predicted in my previous blog post on this issue, the campaign for election of a judge in Ukraine has already proved to be a good case study illustrating the challenges that the Council of Europe institutions have to confront. These challenges now mainly result from poor […]
April 24, 2019
On 10 April, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Right adopted its first Advisory Opinion under the new Protocol No. 16 to the ECHR, which entered into force on 1 August last year. This Protocol, which has so far been ratified by twelve States, allows the “highest domestic courts” to request the […]
April 18, 2019
By John Ip, University of Auckland Faculty of Law On 28 February 2019, the First Section Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) delivered its decision in Beghal v United Kingdom, a de facto appeal from a 2015 UK Supreme Court decision concerning the question of whether Schedule 7 to the Terrorism Act […]
April 15, 2019
By Nino Jomarjidze and Philip Leach Resolving problems through settlements and by eliciting undertakings from governments has become a significant feature of the Strasbourg landscape. At the European Court of Human Rights (the Court), the use of friendly settlements (agreed confidentially between the parties) has been on the increase. So too, for ‘unilateral declarations’ (UD) […]
April 12, 2019
By Corina Heri, postdoctoral researcher at the University of Amsterdam Three years ago, on this blog, Lourdes Peroni wrote about the failings of the domestic response to the alleged rape of an 11-year-old girl in M.G.C. v. Romania. Today, the ECtHR is continuing to apply ‘coercive obligations’ regarding rape and sexual violence, as crystallized by […]
April 09, 2019
By Kanstantsin Dzehtsiarou (University of Liverpool) Election of judges is crucially important for the legitimacy, reputation and authoritativeness of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). The Court needs leading academics and practitioners not only to come up with well-drafted and reasoned judgments but also to ensure that these judgments are then embedded into the […]
April 02, 2019
This post was written by Mariam Gaiparashvili and Sarah Schoentjes, Master students at the Human Rights Legal Clinic, Ghent University In X v. FYROM, the ECtHR confirmed the Member States’ positive obligation under Article 8 ECHR to establish a clear legal procedure for gender recognition. Disappointingly, however, it refused to examine the applicant’s claim that […]
March 29, 2019
By Elina Todorov, PhD Candidate, Tampere University (Finland) On 28. February 2019 the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) delivered a judgement concerning unaccompanied minors in an irregular situation, namely H.A. and others v. Greece. In H.A. the Court found several violations of the Convention, in particular a partial violation of Article 3 regarding the […]
March 26, 2019
Lewis Graham is a PhD Student at Pembroke College, University of Cambridge. Life sentences – that is, indefinite detention without any opportunity for release – is a thorny issue, and the involvement of the European Court of Human Rights in this field, particularly in cases concerning the United Kingdom, have recently courted great controversy. After […]
March 21, 2019
By Sofia Sideridou (intern at the Human Rights Centre of Ghent University) The Human Rights Centre of Ghent University (Belgium)[1] and the Scholars at Risk Network (New York, U.S.), have jointly submitted a third party intervention before the European Court of Human Rights in the cases of Telek, Şar and Kivilcim v. Turkey. The cases […]
March 18, 2019
By Peter Bartlett (Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust Professor of Mental Health Law, Institute of Mental Health and School of Law, University of Nottingham) On its face, this case considers the duty of the State to protect the lives of voluntary (or informal) psychiatric patients under Article 2 of the ECHR (right to life). Below the […]
March 15, 2019
Marie Bourguignon is a PhD researcher at the Leuven Centre for Public Law, Institute for Human Rights. She specializes in linguistic rights and access to law in multilingual Belgium. On 31 January 2019, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights convicted Belgium for inhuman or degrading treatment as well as for violating […]
March 08, 2019
By Fulvia Staiano, Adjunct Professor of International Law and European Union Law (Giustino Fortunato University) On 15 January 2019, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) delivered an inadmissibility decision on the case of Emabet Yeshtla v. the Netherlands. In this case, the ECtHR was asked to determine whether the withdrawal of the applicant’s housing […]
February 25, 2019
Dear readers, A month ago, we launched our yearly vote for best and worst ECtHR judgment of the year (for a shortlist of the candidates, see our previous blog post). Today, it is our pleasure to announce the winners. In the category of best judgment of the year 2018, the winner is…
February 22, 2019
This blogpost was written by Judith Vermeulen, PhD researcher in the Law and Technology Research Group at Ghent University. Shortly after Big Brother Watch (see also the blogpost for this case), the European Court of Human Rights again had the opportunity to pronounce itself on the compatibility of Article 8 ECHR with the collection, retention […]
February 14, 2019
By Kanstantsin Dzehtsiarou (University of Liverpool) On 31 January 2019, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) delivered a judgment on just satisfaction in the inter-state case of Georgia v Russia (I). The ECtHR ordered the respondent state to pay 10 million euros to the applicant country. In turn, Georgia will have to distribute this […]