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, […]
October 05, 2018
This guest post was written by Cathérine Van de Graaf, a PhD student at Ghent University. In its recent judgment of Hovhannisyan v. Armenia, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the State authorities failed to conduct a proper investigation into a civil servant’s allegations of ill-treatment by her superiors during an argument over […]
September 27, 2018
By Lize R. Glas, assistant professor of European Law, Radboud University Slightly less than a year ago, I wrote a blog titled ‘The Assembly’s row with Russia and its repercussions for the Convention system’ on Strasbourg Observers. In that blog, I described that the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (Assembly) decided, in April 2014, to […]
September 11, 2018
By Dirk Voorhoof, Human Rights Centre, Ghent University and Legal Human Academy In its judgment of 17 July 2018 the ECtHR has found various violations of the rights of the members of the feminist punk band Pussy Riot. The ECtHR found violations under Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment), Article 5 § 3 […]
August 03, 2018
The Human Rights Centre of Ghent University[1] has recently submitted a third party intervention in the case of Minasyan and Others v. Armenia, which raises important issues concerning the protection of LGBTIQ+ persons against hate speech. In our third party intervention, we invite the Court to clarify Convention standards regarding the positive obligation for the […]
July 31, 2018
Dr. Alexandra Timmer was one of the co-founders of this blog in 2010. She is assistant professor human rights law at Utrecht University, and acting specialist coordinator gender equality of the European network of legal experts in gender equality and non-discrimination. Hülya Ebru Demirel v. Turkey is a case concerning sex discrimination in employment. A […]
July 27, 2018
By Lucy Moxham, Associate Senior Research Fellow at the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law In April 2018, the Committee of Ministers (the regional body responsible for supervising the execution of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights) published its 11th Annual Report. The Committee’s Annual Report 2017 is available in full here. […]
July 24, 2018
By Manon Beury, research assistant in Comparative Sexual Orientation Law, Leiden University Following the eagerly-awaited judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in Coman and Others v. Romania, the Romanian Constitutional Court decided on 18 July 2018 that same-sex married couples have the right to reside in the country if one […]
July 18, 2018
By Evelyn Merckx, teaching assistant and PhD-researcher at Ghent University King Solomon has proven to be a widely-used character in titles of papers regarding the placement of foster children and adoption. With the risk of becoming repetitive, the following analysis reveals why this case so strikingly reminds the reader of the biblical narrative. Though the […]
July 09, 2018
By Plixavra Vogiatzoglou, Legal Researcher, KU Leuven Centre for IT and IP Law (CiTiP) On 19th June 2018, the Third Section of the Court, in its judgment in the case Centrum för Rättvisa v. Sweden, ruled that the bulk interception of communications scheme of the Foreign Intelligence of Sweden meets the Convention standards. This ruling […]
June 20, 2018
By Laurens Lavrysen, postdoctoral researcher at the Human Rights Centre of Ghent University (Belgium) A number of years ago, Eva Brems and I wrote an article “‘Don’t Use a Sledgehammer to Crack a Nut’: Less Restrictive Means in the Case Law of the European Court of Human Rights”. Using a sledgehammer to crack a nut […]
June 15, 2018
By Kanstantsin Dzehtsiarou (University of Liverpool) Infringement proceedings: the question of legitimacy In 2010, when Protocol 14 entered into force, it amended Article 46 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECtHR). Section 4 was added to this Article. It empowered the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe to initiate infringement proceedings before […]
June 12, 2018
By Dirk Voorhoof, Human Rights Centre, Ghent University and Legal Human Academy In its recent judgment in Stomakhin v. Russia, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) launched the message to all domestic authorities to adopt a “cautious approach” in determining the scope of “hate speech” crimes and to avoid “excessive interference” with the right […]
June 05, 2018
By Christina Kosin, Ph.D. Candidate and Academic Assistant at the German Police University On 31 May 2018 the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruled in the cases of Al Nashiri v. Romania and Abu Zubaydah v. Lithuania that the Contracting States Romania and Lithuania violated multiple provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights […]
June 01, 2018
By Argyro Chatzinikolaou, (Doctoral Researcher), Law & Technology research group, Ghent University Recently, the Fourth Section of the Court held in its judgement in the case of Benedik v Slovenia that there had been a violation of Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life) with regard to the failure of the Slovenian […]
May 24, 2018
Dr. Dorothea Staes (affiliated researcher, The Perelman Center for Legal Philosophy, ULB, Belgium and trainee at the European Commission) In the Grand Chamber judgement Correia de Matos v. Portugal of 4 April 2018, the European Court of Human Rights (hereinafter: the Court) decided by a majority of nine votes to eight that the right to […]