January 18, 2019
By Carl Vander Maelen (research group Law & Technology, Ghent University) On 4 December 2018 the European Court of Human Rights (‘the Court’) found a violation of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights in Magyar Jeti Zrt v. Hungary. The case concerns the imposition of objective liability for posting a hyperlink leading […]
January 15, 2019
By Juan Carlos Benito Sánchez, PhD Researcher (FRESH) at F.R.S.-FNRS and UCLouvain (Belgium) In its decision in F.J.M. v. the United Kingdom, delivered on 29 November 2018, the European Court of Human Rights (First Section) declared inadmissible a complaint of a violation of Articles 6 and 8 of the Convention. The applicant had been evicted […]
December 19, 2018
By Tess Heirwegh, PhD researcher at the Human Rights Centre, Ghent University This blog post will focus on the recent case of Burlya and Others v. Ukraine to highlight the negative role that local authorities may play in human rights realisation and why it is essential that the Court held them explicitly accountable for it. […]
December 11, 2018
This guest blog post was written by Cedric Serneels, Teaching Assistant & Researcher at Institute for European Law, KU Leuven On 9 November 2018, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights delivered its long-awaited judgment in the case of Beuze v. Belgium. In the present case, the Court was confronted with the […]
December 07, 2018
By Irina Crivet (PhD Candidate, Koç University, Istanbul, Turkey) The proliferation of international and regional human rights bodies has given the victims of human rights violations the chance to pick and choose where they can send their complaints. Whilst these choices are limited by geographical locations of individuals and the states’ acceptance of right to […]
December 03, 2018
By Constantin Cojocariu, human rights lawyer specialised in disability and transgender rights On 25 October 2018, the European Court of Human Rights issued its first substantive ruling under Article 12 regarding people placed under guardianship.[i] Delecolle v. France involved an elderly man who was not allowed to marry a long-time friend under the pretext that […]
November 30, 2018
This guest post was written by Cathérine Van de Graaf, a PhD student at Ghent University. In Mutu and Pechstein v. Switzerland, the European Court of Human Rights considered the lawfulness of proceedings at the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS) in Lausanne. In its analysis, the Court focussed on three elements: the free acceptance of […]
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 23, 2018
By Julie Ringelheim, researcher with the FRS-FNRS and Professor at Louvain University. In Lachiri v. Belgium, decided on 18 September 2018, the European Court of Human Rights held that excluding a woman from the courtroom, who was a civil party to the case, on the ground that she wore an ‘Islamic headscarf’ (hijab) amounted to […]
November 20, 2018
By Evelyn Merckx, teaching assistant and PhD-researcher at Ghent University To many, the simultaneous reading of Mandet v. France and Fröhlich v. Germany proves to be a crucial inconsistency in the case-law of the ECtHR. In Mandet v. France, the paternity of a legal father was withdrawn in favour of the biological father, despite the […]
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 12, 2018
Simona Florescu, PhD fellow, Leiden Law School, the Child Law Department In September I had the opportunity to meet the applicant in the Grand Chamber case Neulinger and Shuruk v Switzerland.[1] We had a lengthy 4 hours conversation about the ins and outs of her personal situation, the circumstances that led her to taking her […]
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 […]
November 05, 2018
By Marjan Claes (NANSEN), Charlotte Coenen (NANSEN), Ellen Desmet (UGent), Sylvie Saroléa (UCL) On 13 September 2018, the European Court of Human Rights struck the application of Basra v. Belgium out of its list. Mr. Basra argued not having benefited from an effective remedy in the sense of article 13 ECHR, with respect to his […]
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 25, 2018
By Kanstantsin Dzehtsiarou (University of Liverpool) In spring 2014, shocking news came from Azerbaijan. Leading human rights defenders including Mr Intigam Aliyev were arrested and charged with various financial crimes. It was clear that these charges were just a cover-up for the silencing of vocal critics of the government and for the destruction of an […]
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 19, 2018
By Pieter Cannoot, PhD Researcher at the Human Rights Centre of Ghent University On 11 October 2018, the European Court of Human Rights found a violation of Article 8 ECHR in a case involving a transsexual woman called S.V. The application concerned the Italian authorities’ refusal to authorise S.V. officially changing her first name on […]
October 12, 2018
By Judith Vermeulen (PhD Candidate, Law & Technology Research Group, Ghent University) On 13 September 2018, more than five years after Edward Snowden revealed the existence of electronic (mass) surveillance programmes run by the intelligence services of the United States of America and the United Kingdom, the European Court of Human Rights (‘ECtHR’) found two […]
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, […]