Strasbourg Observers

View posts from: Prohibition of Discrimination

  • Dr Elif Askin

Guidance for Assessing Discrimination under Article 14 ECHR: Advisory Opinion on the Difference in Treatment between Landowners’ Associations “having a recognised Existence on the Date of the Creation of an approved Municipal Hunters’ Association” and Landowners’ Associations set up after that Date

January 31, 2023

By Dr Elif Askin The prohibition of discrimination in Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) has been criticised for being a ‘parasitic’ right of marginal impact and ‘a kind of a Cinderella provision that has not been given an opportunity to shine’. Over the past decade, however, the European Court of […]

  • Dr Alice Margaria

Freeing fatherhood from breadwinning – Are we ready for (formal) equality? Beeler v. Switzerland

January 24, 2023

By Dr Alice Margaria What is the role of and what is expected of a (legal) father? From a legal perspective, this question that goes well beyond the scope of family law, and the recent judgment in Beeler v Switzerland, decided by the Grand Chamber on 11 October 2022, is a case in point. In […]

  • Balázs Majtényi

The right answer without a reasonable argument? The shortcomings of Bakirdzi and E.C. v. Hungary

January 19, 2023

by Balázs Majtényi On 10 November 2022, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) published its decision in the case of Bakirdzi and E.C. v. Hungary. According to the judgment, the representation of national minorities in the Hungarian Parliament violates the right to free elections (Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention) in […]

  • Péter Kállai

Preferential non-representation? Case of Bakirdzi and E.C. v Hungary

December 20, 2022

by Péter Kállai On 10 November 2022, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) decided that the shortcomings of the minority voting system in Hungary constitute a violation of the right to vote under Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 in conjunction with the right to non-discrimination under Article 14 of the European Convention on […]

  • Mathias Möschel

Basu v. Germany and Muhammad v. Spain: Room for improvement in the Court’s first judgments on racial profiling

November 08, 2022

by Mathias Möschel On 18 October 2022, the Third Section of the Strasbourg Court, decided two cases dealing for the first time with the question of whether and how far racial profiling by public authorities constitutes a violation of the Convention. The outcome is a mixed one. Whereas in Basu v. Germany the judges held […]

  • Charly Derave & Hania Ouhnaoui

C.E. & al. v. France: Legal recognition of intended parenthood from previous same-sex relationships (between women)

October 07, 2022

By Charly Derave & Hania Ouhnaoui In a judgment of 24 March 2022, the European Court of Human Rights, sitting in chamber, rules unanimously that the French authorities’ refusal to allow the establishment of a legal parent-child relationship between a child and a woman who is the former partner of their biological mother – also […]

  • Margarita S. Ilieva

Oganezova v. Armenia: Purposive homophobia in a deprived legal environment

August 12, 2022

By Margarita S. Ilieva. The author is an equality litigator and analyst focused on hate and stereotyping victims (see, for Strasbourg Observers, J.L. v. Italy: A survivor of trivictimisation and The Rights of Others in Cases of Othering: Anti-victim Bias in ECHR Case Law?). She litigated Oganezova as an EHRAC lawyer. On IDAHO 2022, the Court delivered […]

  • Sarah Ganty and Dimitry V. Kochenov

‘It’s their own fault’: the new non-discrimination standard in Savickis v. Latvia is about blaming minorities for their state-mandated statelessness

August 05, 2022

By Sarah Ganty and Dimitry V. Kochenov Savickis and others v. Latvia is about pension rights. The Grand Chamber found that direct difference in treatment on the grounds of nationality in pensions is lawful if someone decided not to naturalize in the country of residence, in casu in the Latvian Republic. The majority innovates on […]

  • Merel Vrancken

Breaking the ‘circle of marginalisation’ through desegregation measures: X and Others v. Albania

July 01, 2022

By Merel Vrancken In the recent case of X and Others v. Albania on the segregation of Roma and Egyptian pupils in education, the ECtHR speaks up strongly against the wrongs of segregation, fifteen years after the Grand Chamber had first done so in the case of D.H. and Others v. the Czech Republic. The […]

  • Cathérine Van de Graaf

Belgium reprimanded in Anderlecht Christian Assembly of Jehovah’s Witnesses and Others: the procedure for recognition of a religion lacks minimum guarantees of fairness

June 14, 2022

By Cathérine Van de Graaf Anderlecht Christian Assembly of Jehovah’s Witnesses and Others v. Belgium is one of these judgments where you are reading the reasoning of the European Court of Human Rights (hereinafter: Court or ECtHR) and you think you know the direction it is going, but it then takes a turn that nobody […]

  • Strasbourg Observers

Proving minority: the Human Rights Centre and CESSMIR submit a third party intervention regarding age assessment of unaccompanied minors

May 23, 2022

By Mathilde Brackx and Laura Cools The Human Rights Centre of Ghent University (Belgium) and the Centre for the Social Study of Migration and Refugees (CESSMIR) recently submitted a third-party intervention (TPI) before the European Court of Human Rights in the communicated case of Fatoumata Diaraye BARRY v. Belgium. The case concerns a decision of […]

  • Frederick De Cock

Discrimination based on trade union membership: Zakharova and others v. Russia

May 12, 2022

By Frederick De Cock In the case of Zakharova and others v. Russia, the ECtHR ruled against Russia on its failure to fulfil its positive obligations to ensure effective and clear judicial protection against discrimination on grounds of trade union membership. Despite the fact that the applicants demonstrated a prima facie case of discrimination, the […]

  • Naomi Blomme

N. v. Romania (No. 2): ‘To be or not to be?’- applying Article 8 or Article 14 ECHR in mental-health cases

April 25, 2022

By Naomi Blomme In the case of N. v. Romania No. 2 the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR or the Court) found Romania to be in breach of its obligations under the Convention in respect of N. for the second time. Both cases relate to the treatment of mentally disabled persons. The first case […]

  • Pieter Cannoot

Y. v. Poland: ECtHR case law on gender recognition remains embedded in cisnormativity

April 07, 2022

By Pieter Cannoot On 17 February 2022, the European Court of Human Rights delivered its judgment in the case of Y. v. Poland. The Court unanimously found no violation of Article 8 of the Convention (ECHR), and no violation of Article 14 taken together with Article 8. The case concerned a trans man who had […]

  • Dr. Cathérine Van de Graaf & Yannick Schoog

Too Old to Deserve State Support? – Šaltinytė v. Lithuania: Age Discrimination in Socio-Economic Policy

December 22, 2021

By Dr. Cathérine Van de Graaf and Yannick Schoog Introduction On the 26th of October 2021, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR; the Court) answered the question of whether or not a fixed age limit to qualify for a housing subsidy for ‘young families’ was discriminatory in the negative. The case of Šaltinytė v. […]

  • Kyriaki Patsianta

X v. Poland: A victory, yet not a triumph for homosexual parents in Strasbourg

November 30, 2021

By Dr Kyriaki Patsianta In the case of X v. Poland, the ECtHR found that there had been a violation of articles 14 and 8 of the Convention in respect of a homosexual mother, who alleged that the removal of her youngest child from her custody, after her former husband obtained a change in the […]

  • Dr. Pieter Cannoot and Dr. Ingrida Milkaite

A.M. and Others v. Russia: ECtHR stands up for trans parents

November 09, 2021

By dr. Pieter Cannoot and dr. Ingrida Milkaite On 6 July 2021 the European Court of Human Rights rendered its highly anticipated judgment in the case of A.M. and Others v. Russia, in which the Human Rights Centre submitted a third party intervention (earlier blogpost summarising our main arguments can be accessed here). The Court […]

  • Alicia Hendricks

Gruba and Others v. Russia: the ECtHR repeats its Konstantin Markin v. Russia jurisprudence but (again) misses a child-oriented perspective

October 01, 2021

By Alicia Hendricks The case of Gruba and Others v. Russia concerns the difference in entitlement to parental leave between policemen and policewomen. The European Court of Human Rights (the Court) ruled in favour of the male defendants by stating that this difference in treatment amounted to sex discrimination contrary to Article 14 (prohibition of […]

  • Merel Vrancken

Disenfranchisement of woman with a disability (yet again) reveals ECtHR’s struggle with CRPD in Caamaño Valle v. Spain

June 23, 2021

By Merel Vrancken, PhD student and assistant in constitutional law at UHasselt. In the case of Caamaño Valle v. Spain, the ECtHR held that the disenfranchisement of a woman with a mental disability did not amount to a violation of her right to vote under art. 3 of Protocol No. 1, nor did it amount […]

  • Guest Blogger

Medical “normalisation” of intersex persons: third-party intervention to the ECtHR in the case of M. v. France

April 07, 2021

By Charly Derave, PhD Researcher at the Perelman Centre for legal philosophy (ULB), and Hania Ouhnaoui, coordinator of the Equality Law Clinic (ULB). On 24 February 2021, the Equality Law Clinic (ELC) of the Université Libre de Bruxelles[1] and the Human Rights Centre (HRC) of Ghent University[2] submitted a third-party intervention to the European Court […]

1 2 3 6