November 06, 2014
This guest post was written by Isabelle Van Hiel, PhD Researcher and Teaching Assistant at the social law section of the Department of Criminology, Criminal Law and Social Law of the Law Faculty of Ghent University. In two recent cases of 2 October 2014 the ECtHR had to decide on the freedom of association of […]
November 04, 2014
Co-authored by Yousra Benfquih* and Saïla Ouald Chaib** As in many other countries in Europe, the wearing of religious signs has been the topic of heated debate in Belgium. This has been the case for public servants, teachers, employees in private firms and the wearing of religious signs by pupils in school. It is the […]
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 […]
October 23, 2014
Valeska David is a PhD Researcher at the Human Rights Centre of Ghent University and a member of the Research Network “The Global Challenge of Human Rights Integration: Towards a Users’ Perspective.” We have all heard about the so-called paradigm shift brought about by the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). The social […]
October 17, 2014
This guest post was written by Helena De Vylder, Ph.D. researcher at the Human Rights Centre of Ghent University. Her research focuses on admissibility criteria in regional human rights systems. Mocanu and others v Romania fits in a series of cases in which the Strasbourg Court needed to deal with grave and large-scale human rights […]
October 14, 2014
This guest post was written by Cedric De Koker, Phd Researcher, Institute for International Research on Criminal Policy (IRCP), Ghent University. On the 16th September 2014, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) rendered its judgment in the landmark case of Hassan v. United Kingdom. The case concerned the deprivation of […]
October 10, 2014
This guest post was written by Yousra Benfquih, FWO aspirant, PhD Fellow Research Foundation Flanders at the University of Antwerp. In the case of Mansur Yalçın v. Turkey, 14 Turkish nationals living in Istanbul who are adherents of the Alevi faith, complained before the Court that the way in which the religion and ethics class […]
October 02, 2014
This guest blog post was written by Frederic Bernard, Lecturer at the University of Geneva, Global Studies Institute, and Attorney-at-law admitted to the Geneva Bar. The fragmentation of international law has been for some time the subject of in-depth academic and expert studies, as exemplified, for instance, by the report dedicated to this topic on […]
September 25, 2014
We are happy to announce the publication of a new book entitled “The Experiences of Face Veil Wearers in Europe and the Law” edited by prof. Eva Brems and published by Cambridge University Press. This book, unique in its kind, unites empirical research on women wearing face veils in Europe and commentary of scholars of […]
September 12, 2014
The Trabelsi case is noteworthy for two reasons. Firstly, because of the blatant disregard by Belgium of the interim measure issued by the European Court of Human Rights. Secondly, because of the application of the reasoning from Vinter v. UK – in which the Court found that life without parole is incompatible with Article 3 […]
September 10, 2014
This guest post was written by Amrit Singh. Amrit Singh is Senior Legal Officer for National Security and Counterterrorism at the Open Society Justice Initiative and acted as counsel in al Nashiri v. Poland. In the woods, about 160 kilometres north of Warsaw, in a village called Stare Kiejkuty, sits a Polish intelligence base that […]
September 08, 2014
This guest blog post was written by Elena Sychenko, Ph.D. student at the University of Catania, Law Faculty, Labour Law Department. On 24 July, the European Court of Human Rights announced its judgment in Brincat and Others v. Malta (the Brincat case).[1] This case was the result of 21 applications of former workers of the […]
September 02, 2014
The Strasbourg Observers are back from a summer break with an exciting announcement: the Human Rights Centre of Ghent University organizes a seminar entitled “Law’s Imagining of Religion: A Debate across Disciplines.” The seminar will bring together religion and legal scholars from Canada, Europe and the United States, including Winnifred Fallers Sullivan, Cecile Laborde, Helge Arsheim, Malcolm Evans, […]
August 04, 2014
This guest post was written by Laura Van den Eynde, Doctoral Researcher at Université libre de Bruxelles. (*) On 17 and 24 July 2014, the European Court of Human Rights decided three cases, one against Romania concerning the death of a mentally disabled and HIV-positive young Roma and two other cases against Poland concerning the […]
July 28, 2014
This guest post is written by Sander Steendam. In M.E. v. Sweden, the fifth section of the Strasbourg Court has ruled that requiring aliens to temporarily return to their home country and hide their sexual orientation pending family reunion is not a violation of article 3 of the Convention (prohibition of torture, inhuman and […]
July 16, 2014
This guest post was written by Liesbet Pluym, PhD candidate at Ghent University. Surrogate motherhood is a complex phenomenon which can lead to many different human right questions: would the absolute prohibition of surrogacy in domestic laws be in accordance with the right to respect for private and family life (art. 8 ECHR)? If it […]
July 14, 2014
The applicant in AK v Latvia is unhappy with the fact that she gave birth to a daughter with Down’s syndrome. She claims that the she was denied access to important medical information in the form of an antenatal screening test owing to negligence of her gynaecologist, in violation of article 8 ECHR.
July 09, 2014
As this blog already features an excellent post on SAS v France, this is a brief contribution, with a specific focus, namely SAS v France as a problematic precedent beyond the issue of the face veil and even beyond religious freedom cases. I shall focus on two problematic aspects of the judgment: its acceptance of […]
July 07, 2014
This guest post was written by Dr Elena Katselli, Senior Lecturer in Law at Newcastle Law School Thirteen years have elapsed since the European Court of Human Rights’ (ECtHR) judgment in Cyprus v Turkey in which the Court found Turkey responsible for 14 violations of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and its Protocols. […]
July 03, 2014
By Saïla Ouald Chaib and Lourdes Peroni This week, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights published its long-expected judgment in S.A.S. v. France. The case concerns a ban on the wearing of face veils in the public space. Although the outcome of such highly debated cases is always unpredictable, we hoped […]