Strasbourg Observers

View posts from: Right to a Fair Trial

  • Emre Turkut

‘Article 7’ Shockwaves, ByLock and Beyond: Unpacking the Grand Chamber’s Yalçınkaya Judgment

October 13, 2023

by Emre Turkut On 26 September 2023, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights delivered a highly anticipated decision in the case of Yalçınkaya v. Türkiye. The case concerns an application lodged on 17 March 2020 by a teacher who was dismissed from public service through a coercive state of emergency decree, […]

  • Anaïs Brucher

Domestic enforcement of the right to housing of applicants for international protection: a (small) victory in Camara v. Belgium

September 01, 2023

By Anaïs Brucher Camara v. Belgium is the first of what could be a long series of cases on the enforcement of the right to housing and material assistance of applicants for international protection in Belgium. On 18 July 2023, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruled on the case of Mr Camara, who […]

  • Veronica Botticelli

Does Public Entities’ Institutional Autonomy ‘Unlock’ an ECHR Rights-Holder Status by Default? National Broadcasters’ Locus Standi in the Croatian Radio-Television v. Croatia Case

April 14, 2023

by Veronica Botticelli On 2nd March 2023, the European Court of Human Rights (‘the Court’ or ‘the ECtHR’) delivered its judgment in the Croatian Radio-Television v. Croatia case, declaring – by a narrow majority – the application admissible under Article 34 of the European Convention on Human Rights (‘ECHR’), but unanimously holding that there has […]

  • Anna Pivaty

Does the Court really expand European fair trial rights standards in criminal proceedings with Wang v. France and Dubois v. France on ‘voluntary’ police interviews of suspects?

August 23, 2022

By Anna Pivaty On 22 April 2022 the European Court of Human Rights (hereafter ‘ECtHR’ or ‘the Court’) (Chamber) has issued two judgments – Wang v. France and Dubois v. France – on the rights of persons interviewed by the police ‘voluntarily’, meaning: upon invitation by police without placing them under arrest. The Court’s press […]

  • Ash Stanley-Ryan

J.C. and Others v. Belgium: the delicate balance of state immunity and human dignity

January 12, 2022

By Ash Stanley-Ryan International law walks a tightrope between the rights of sovereign States and the rights of those who comprise them. Tip too far to either side and the system breaks – sovereignty either becomes unbridled power, or becomes meaningless. This delicate balancing is most evident when sovereign power and human rights directly collide, […]

  • Aytekin Kaan Kurtul

Ekşioğlu and Mosturoğlu v Turkey or “the Fenerbahçe case”: Presumption of innocence and the disciplinary proceedings of sports governing bodies

September 17, 2021

Aytekin Kaan Kurtul is a PhD candidate in the field of law at Middlesex University, London. His research interests include freedom of political expression, children’s right to free speech, presumption of innocence, peoples’ right to economic self-determination and unilateral coercive measures. In the loving memory of my uncle, Orhan Kaçmaz (28. 02. 1957 – 16. […]

  • Ina Xhepa

Xhoxhaj v. Albania: The Aftermath of the Vetting Process in Albania

June 25, 2021

By Ina Xhepa, lawyer and Executive Director at the European Centre (Albania) Over the last decade, the Albanian judiciary was considered to be one of the weakest aspects of the functioning of the rule of law in the country. Field surveys revealed high levels of corruption and led to the loss of citizen’s trust towards […]

  • Guest Blogger

Another step enhancing the (procedural) protection for judges: Eminağaoğlu v Turkey and Bilgen v Turkey

April 01, 2021

Mathieu Leloup, PhD researcher in constitutional and administrative law at the University of Antwerp, Belgium, research group Government and Law The protection of domestic judges has become something of a leitmotif in the European case law over the last few years. Hardly a month goes by without a judgment in which the ECtHR or the […]

  • Guest Blogger

Pişkin v. Turkey: Observations on the failure of the Lawfulness Test and the Engel Criteria within the context of the Turkish Purge

March 29, 2021

By Hakan Kaplankaya, former Turkish diplomat, jurist, INSTITUDE member On 15 December 2020, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR/the Court) delivered its first judgment regarding the purge of a public employee as per the first of the notorious emergency legislative decrees adopted by the Turkish government in the aftermath of the controversial coup attempt […]

  • Guest Blogger

Prosecutors Behaving Badly: Revisiting the Operational Duty to Protect Trafficked Persons in V.C.L. and A.N. v. the United Kingdom

March 15, 2021

By John Trajer, PhD Researcher in Law at the European University Institute Introduction In V.C.L. and A.N. v. the United Kingdom, delivered on 16 February 2021, the European Court of Human Rights (‘the Court’ or ‘the ECtHR’) was called upon to consider whether the prosecution of potential victims of trafficking could engage state responsibility under […]

  • Guest Blogger

The Case of Gestur Jónsson and Ragnar Halldór Hall v Iceland: Between Two Paradigms of Punishment

February 19, 2021

By Agnė Andrijauskaitė, LL.M (PhD Researcher at German University of Administrative Sciences Speyer and Vilnius University) The year of 2020 ended with an epic battle over admissibility taking place in Strasbourg. More precisely, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has passed a judgment in the case of Gestur Jónsson and […]

  • Guest Blogger

Trivkanović v. Croatia: About rigidity, reopening and proof of forced disappearances

February 15, 2021

By Lize R. Glas, Assistant Professor of European law, Radboud University, the Netherlands.  Introduction The judgment in the case of Trivkanović v. Croatia (no. 2) (21 January 2021, nr. 54916/16) provides a good illustration of the European Court of Human Rights’ (ECtHR; Court) at times flexible approach towards the rules that it has created in its judgments. In […]

  • Guest Blogger

Guðmundur Andri Ástráðsson: the right to a tribunal established by law expanded to the appointment of judges

December 18, 2020

By Mathieu Leloup, PhD researcher in constitutional and administrative law at the University of Antwerp, Belgium, research group Government and Law Is a court that includes a judge who was appointed in violation of the relevant legal provisions still a “tribunal established by law” as required under Article 6 ECHR? Though the question may be […]

  • Guest Blogger

‘Appearance of impartiality’: how should the courts reason in the presence of external pressure?

November 30, 2020

Donatas Murauskas, Assistant Professor at Vilnius University Law Faculty Judges face a dilemma that is a core issue for the judiciary in a democracy: to react or not to react when confronted by media and politicians on pending cases? One option is to be explicit, take visible steps that support your unbiased approach. Another option […]

  • Guest Blogger

Inadmissibility of evidence obtained by private persons through the use of torture or inhuman or degrading treatment: the case of Ćwik v. Poland

November 27, 2020

Tobias Thienel, associated fellow at the Walther Schücking Institute of International Law at the University of Kiel, Germany, and lawyer with Weissleder Ewer* A classic staple of the cop show genre has the detective ‘roughing up’ a stubborn defendant in order to produce a confession. This somewhat hackneyed story line never had much to do […]

  • Guest Blogger

The Lithuanian saga of limiting evidence in trials – the genesis and new cases

August 14, 2020

By Donatas Murauskas, Assistant Professor at Vilnius University Law Faculty The European Court of Human Rights continues to deal with cases against Lithuania concerning equality of arms in trials. Earlier cases could be linked to the heritage of the Soviet rule and practices, recent cases are illustrations of increasing reliance on national security in (criminal) […]

  • Guest Blogger

The Recent ECtHR Judgment Kövesi v. Romania. Reactions of Romanian Authorities and Implications regarding the Rule of Law

June 16, 2020

By Dragoș Călin In the recent judgment in the case Kövesi v. Romania (application no. 3594/19) the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been a violation of Article 6 § 1 (right to a fair trial) and Article 10 (right to freedom of expression) of the European Convention on Human Rights […]

  • Guest Blogger

The Future of the Rule of Law in Sports Law: Ali Riza and Others v. Turkey

March 18, 2020

This blogpost was written by Jernej Letnar Černič who is Associate Professor of Human Rights and Constitutional Law at the Faculty of Government and European Studies of the New University (Ljubljana/Kranj, Slovenia). He is co-author of the forthcoming book on “The Impact of European Institutions on the Rule of Law and Democracy: Slovenia and Beyond” […]

  • Guest Blogger

Tell me more, tell me more: the obligation for national courts to reason their refusals to refer to the CJEU in Sanofi Pasteur.

February 20, 2020

By Jasper Krommendijk (Radboud University, the Netherlands) On 13 February 2020, the ECtHR found for the fourth time ever a violation of Article 6(1) ECHR for a failure of the highest national court to give proper reasons for its refusal to refer preliminary questions to the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) in Sanofi […]

  • Laurens Lavrysen

Murtazaliyeva v. Russia: on the examination of witnesses and the “corrosive expansion” of the overall fairness test

January 25, 2019

On 18 December, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights delivered its judgment in the case of Murtazaliyeva v. Russia, finding no violation of the right to a fair trial in a case concerning the conviction of a Chechen woman for terrorist offences.  The most significant aspect of the judgment concerns the […]

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