July 07, 2011
Immigration was a challenge in the past, is still a challenge now and will probably remain a challenge in the future for policy makers as well as for judges. Especially when it comes to public services for individuals staying irregularly in a country, this issue becomes more difficult. Can the regular or irregular stay of […]
July 05, 2011
Last week, the European Court ruled against France in a case concerning a tax demand claimed from the Jehovah’s Witnesses. The amount: over 57.5 million Euros. In Association Les Témoins de Jéhovah c. France, the Court focuses on the impact of the taxation on the association’s main source of funding – and on its subsequent […]
June 22, 2011
This guest post was written by Ingrid Leijten who works as a Ph.D. fellow and teaching assistant at the Leiden University Faculty of Law, Department of Constitutional and Administrative Law. Her main research interest lies in the development of the ECHR and the practice of the ECtHR in relation to the Member States’ policymaking. […]
June 20, 2011
In the case of Khodorkovskiy v. Russia the Court reaffirmed that placing a person in a cage during a trial if the person is not predisposed to violence or there are no serious security threats, is degrading and violates Article 3. The Court noted that the practice of placing a criminal defendant in a sort […]
June 08, 2011
Together with Lourdes and Stijn, I’ve just attended the Grand Chamber hearing in the case of Konstantin Markin v. Russia. We’ve blogged about this case here and here. Just to refresh your memory: the case concerns a military serviceman, Konstantin Markin, who was divorced from his wife and who had custody of their three young […]
June 02, 2011
By Laurens Lavrysen* As Alexandra correctly noted in her post, R.R. v. Poland is a very interesting judgment. The focus of this post will lie on the general health rights implications of this judgment, which exceed the specific context of reproductive health. In the case of Tysiąc v. Poland (ECtHR 20 March 2007) the Court […]
May 31, 2011
The Court has released an important judgment in the area of reproductive health, R.R. v. Poland. It is also a very interesting judgment, as it raises a complex set of issues connected to different fields of law. Our team had a lively debate about this case yesterday. It became clear that there are various ways […]
May 19, 2011
The Council of Europe recently released a report on diversity in Europe, entitled “Living together: Combining diversity and freedom in 21st-century Europe”, drawn up by the ‘Group of Eminent Persons of the Council of Europe’. The report aims to negotiate “the challenges arising from the resurgence of intolerance and discrimination in Europe”. It “assesses the […]
May 11, 2011
Guest post by Rónán Ó Fathaigh, PhD candidate at Ghent University. For more information on Rónán, find him here. This week the Fourth Section of the European Court delivered its much anticipated judgment in Mosley v. the United Kingdom, which unanimously held that the absence of a prior-notification requirement on newspapers to give advance notice […]
May 09, 2011
It has been claimed[1] and it is also my understanding that human rights protect important aspects of a human life. The views on what are the important aspects may vary. The drafters of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights put in their views; inspired by the rights in the Declaration, the European Convention was composed, […]
May 04, 2011
In its decisions in the cases of Holub v. the Czech Republic and Bratři Zátkové, a.s. v. the Czech Republic the Court has unanimously declared the applications inadmissible. The Court used the new admissibility criterion to determine that.
May 02, 2011
As part of our research project I have written a paper on the conflict between freedom of expression and the right to reputation in the defamation case law of the European Court of Human Rights. The paper, based on an analysis of over 120 judgments and entitled “Freedom of Expression and the Right to Reputation: Human […]
April 28, 2011
Today, the Belgian Chamber of Representatives voted a ‘burqa ban’. It did the same thing a year ago, but the unexpected fall of the government prevented the law from entering into force then, as the bill had been evoked by the Senate. This time, it is for real. The text introduces in the criminal code […]
April 26, 2011
Dear blog visitor, This month, it is a year ago that the blog gave birth to its first posts. 102 posts later, here we are! When we started this blog, we could only dream of the current results. 32,407 views in 2010 and already 22,504 for the first part of 2011. While in 2010 we […]
April 19, 2011
The famous American feminist legal theorist Catherine MacKinnon argued that pornography is an act of subordination. In Only Words, she notes: “Social inequality is substantially created and enforced – that is, done – through words and images. . . Elevation and denigration are all accomplished through meaningful symbols and communicative acts in which saying it […]
April 15, 2011
By Laurens Lavrysen* In the recent case of Rahimi v. Greece, the European Court of Human Rights had to rule over the detention and the lack of care of a 15 year old Afghan unaccompanied minor. At arrival in Greece, he was placed in detention for two days, after which he was abandoned to live […]
March 31, 2011
What are the implications of the recent landmark judgment in Lautsi for minority religious symbols in state school classrooms? At first sight, the Court seems to adopt a more open approach towards the presence of religious symbols in the school environment. On closer examination, however, this may not necessarily be the case. This post briefly […]
March 22, 2011
Lautsi v. Italy was destined to achieve legendary status in the ECtHR’s case law. In fact, it became the stuff of legends long before the Grand Chamber’s judgment came out. Rarely has a judgment of a supranational court put such a spell on people. Rarely has it inspired such passionate comments and speculation even before […]
March 21, 2011
Recently, the Court came down with a judgment that strongly condemns the stigmatization of people living with HIV. Kiyutin v. Russia is, as far as I was able to ascertain, the first case in which the Court rules on the merits of a claim of discrimination on the ground of a person’s HIV-positive status. Straight […]
March 17, 2011
Today’s guest post was written by Hannes Cannie, PhD candidate at the Human Rights Centre of Ghent University. Further information on Hannes, including a list of his publications, can be found here. In Aydin v. Germany (27 January 2011) the Fifth Section of the Strasbourg Court held with six votes to one that the applicant’s […]