Strasbourg Observers

View posts from: Right to a Fair Trial

  • Guest Blogger

Unravelling Salduz and the EU: Grand Chamber judgment of Beuze v. Belgium on the right of access to a lawyer

December 11, 2018

This guest blog post was written by Cedric Serneels, Teaching Assistant & Researcher at Institute for European Law, KU Leuven On 9 November 2018, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights delivered its long-awaited judgment in the case of Beuze v. Belgium. In the present case, the Court was confronted with the […]

  • Guest Blogger

Mutu and Pechstein v. Switzerland: Strasbourg’s Assessment of the Right to a Fair Hearing in Sports Arbitration

November 30, 2018

This guest post was written by Cathérine Van de Graaf, a PhD student at Ghent University. In Mutu and Pechstein v. Switzerland, the European Court of Human Rights considered the lawfulness of proceedings at the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS) in Lausanne. In its analysis, the Court focussed on three elements: the free acceptance of […]

  • Guest Blogger

Correia de Matos v. Portugal: Fragmented protection of the right to defend oneself in person

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 […]

  • Guest Blogger

Tariq v United Kingdom: Closed Material Procedures Green-Lit by European Court

May 08, 2018

Lewis Graham, PhD Student at Pembroke College, Cambridge. The First Section Committee recently handed down its Decision in Gulamhussein and Tariq v the United Kingdom (Application Nos. 46538/11 and 3960/12) (hereafter “Tariq v UK”). It acts as a de facto appeal from a UK Supreme Court decision handed down seven years ago, and sees the […]

  • Guest Blogger

Regner v. Czech Republic: has the European Court of Human Rights forgotten the fair trial rights when national security is at stake?

October 23, 2017

By Andrea Preziosi, University of Birmingham On 19 September 2017, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights delivered a controversial judgment concerning the extent of fair trial rights in relation to the withholding of information on grounds of national security. Facts The case began with an application lodged by Mr Regner, a […]

  • Guest Blogger

Zherdev v. Ukraine: Article 3 of the ECHR and Children’s Rights at the Stage of Police Interrogation

June 29, 2017

By Prof. Dr. Ton Liefaard, Professor of Children’s Rights / UNICEF Chair in Children’s Rights, Leiden Law School, Leiden University, The Netherlands[1] The Zherdev v. Ukraine judgement of 27 April 2017 by the European Court of Human Rights (hereinafter: the Court) further augments the Court’s line of recognising the vulnerable position of children in police […]

  • Guest Blogger

Van Wesenbeeck v. Belgium: Balancing defence rights with law enforcements’ possibilities to apply observation and infiltration methods

June 22, 2017

By Sofie Depauw, PhD Researcher at Ghent University, Institute for International Research on Criminal Policy (IRCP). With its judgment in the case of Van Wesenbeeck v. Belgium, the Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights has taken a stance with regard to the scope of defence rights in case of observation and infiltration methods. […]

  • Guest Blogger

Crossing the Very Fine Line between Justice and Vengeance: Massive Purges in the Aftermath of the Attempted Coup in Turkey

October 18, 2016

Guest post by Duygu Çiçek – LL.M. in Human Rights from the University of Edinburgh (2015-2016) Turkey’s recent attempted coup of the 15th of July exposed various discussions and conspiracy theories about the reasons behind the coup as well as future concerns regarding political dynamics at the domestic and international level. This contribution, however, will […]

  • Guest Blogger

Al-Dulimi and Montana Management Inc. v. Switzerland: Norm conflict between UNSC Resolution and ECHR?

September 05, 2016

Guest post by Cedric De Koker, Phd Researcher, IRCP, Ghent University. On 21 June 2016, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) rendered its judgment in the case of Al-Dulimi and Montana Management Inc. v. Switzerland (no. 5809/08). At issue was a potential norm conflict between the obligations stemming from a […]

  • Guest Blogger

Baka v. Hungary: judicial independence at risk in Hungary’s new constitutional reality

July 12, 2016

By Pieter Cannoot, academic assistant and doctoral researcher of constitutional law (Ghent University) On 23 June 2016 the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights held that Hungary violated the right of access to a court (article 6, §1 ECHR) and the freedom of expression (article 10 ECHR) of András Baka, the former […]

  • Guest Blogger

Neighbourly Murders* , Forced Forgetting and European Justice – Marguš v Croatia

June 30, 2014

This guest post was written by Carole Lyons, Law School, RGU, Scotland On 27 May 2014, a Grand Chamber of the ECtHR, in Margus v Croatia, pronounced upon the contentious issue of the use of amnesties in post-conflict settings. The case concerned a Croatian army commander who had been convicted of several murders of civilians […]

  • Guest Blogger

Lawyer-client confidentiality at risk following Strasbourg’s decision in Öcalan v. Turkey

April 24, 2014

This guest post was written by Daniel Machover, Charles Kuhn and Christopher Honnery, respectively Head of the Civil Litigation Department, In-house Criminal and Regulatory Barrister, and Legal Researcher at Hickman and Rose.   The European Court of Human Rights’ (“ECtHR”) Chamber judgment in the case of Öcalan v. Turkey (No. 2) does nothing to further […]

  • Strasbourg Observers

El Haski v. Belgium: Continued Debate on the (In)admissibility of Evidence Obtained through Ill-treatment

September 27, 2012

Earlier this week, the European Court of Human Rights released its judgment in El Haski v. Belgium, a case on the admissibility at a criminal trial of evidence potentially obtained through ill-treatment of third persons in a third State (Morocco). The ECtHR ruled that the Belgian authorities should have excluded the evidence from the trial. […]

  • Maris Burbergs

The ‘significant disadvantage’ in a ‘20 million case’

May 18, 2012

In a recent case the Court used the ‘significant disadvantage’ criterion to declare a complaint inadmissible. In Liga Portuguesa de Futebol Profissional v. Portugal the Court made a clear distinction between the human rights issue at stake and the case at large (which concerned 20 million euros).

  • Laurens Lavrysen

No Access to Court: on Prison Leave, Social Reintegration and Legal Formalism

April 25, 2012

In the recent judgment of Boulois v. Luxembourg, the Grand Chamber denied a prisoner his right of access to court (Art. 6, § 1 ECHR) in a case concerning the refusal to grant him prison leave. The Grand Chamber’s reasoning is tainted by legal formalism and fails to do justice to the importance of social […]

  • Maris Burbergs

How significant is the ‘significant disadvantage’ of the new admissibility criterion (Part I)?

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.

  • Maris Burbergs

A flight without passengers – new pilot judgment issued

September 08, 2010

The Court issued a pilot judgment last week in the case of Rumpf v. Germany. After reading the judgment it seems important to remind ourselves once more about the nature and objective of the pilot judgment procedure (PJP). It is described by Erik Fribergh, Registrar of the Court: “Rather than deal with these cases in […]

  • Eva Brems

Admitting a wrong to avoid having to repair it? (That’s not how it works, says the Court in Hakimi v. Belgium)

August 13, 2010

Obviously, all governments hate it  when an important criminal who after a long investigation and trial has been convicted, finds a violation of his article 6 rights that necessitates a retrial. The Belgian government thought they had found a way around this, but it didn’t work.

  • Alexandra Timmer

Gäfgen v. Germany: threat of torture to save a life?

July 06, 2010

In Gäfgen v. Germany , the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights was confronted with a difficult issue: can police officers threaten to torture a suspect if they believe this may save the life of an innocent child? The Court clearly answered that they cannot. However, it did leave what could at […]

  • Saïla Ouald Chaib

A courtroom is not a zoo! The use of metal cages in criminal trials.

June 30, 2010

Can you keep an accused person in a metal cage during a public hearing? This practice is clearly humiliating as the Court judged in the case of Ashot Harutyunian v. Armenia but is it also at odds with the presumption of innocence? According to the European Court of Human Rights it is not.

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