February 18, 2025
by Philip Leach Introduction With the ominous prospect of further political prosecutions in some parts of Europe, it is welcome that the European Court of Human Rights (‘the Court’, ‘ECtHR’) has taken a significant step to ensure greater accountability. It has done so by developing its case law under Article 18 of the European Convention […]
February 11, 2025
By Lien Aerts The case of Ferrero Quintana v Spain concerns an age limit applied in a recruitment procedure for police officers. The same recruitment procedure has been assessed by the CJEU, where another candidate also challenged the existence of the age limit (Salaberria Sorondo). Having exhausted all domestic remedies, Mr Ferrero Quintana turned to […]
January 28, 2025
by Charlotte de Meeûs Introduction On 12 November 2024, the European Court of Human Rights (‘ECtHR’) handed down its judgment in the case Associated Newspapers Limited v. the United Kingdom. The ECtHR assessed the compatibility of the recoverability of legal costs including success fees arising from conditional fee arrangements (‘CFAs’) and after-the-event (‘ATE’) insurance premiums […]
January 24, 2025
Eva Brems It is our first meeting of the New Year, and we are happy to be ‘at it’ again, in the late afternoon, a few hours before the first snow of winter will make our journey home an arduous one. Six of us in the room, and five on the screen have been discussing […]
January 10, 2025
by Ufuk Yeşil The European Court of Human Rights (hereinafter ‘the Court’) declared the case of Çamurşen v. Türkiye inadmissible on the grounds of non-exhaustion of domestic remedies. In this case, the applicant alleged a violation of the right to respect for private life, arguing that internet traffic data had been retained beyond the prescribed […]
December 20, 2024
by Vladislava Stoyanova Introduction Validity Foundation on behalf of T.J. v Hungary raises some important questions about the standard of causation in the human rights law reasoning. This blog post does not aim to challenge the conclusion in the judgment that in fact appears very reasonable. This post is rather a continuation of my reflections […]
December 17, 2024
By Marie-Hélène Ludwig and Arpi Avetisyan Y.T. v. Bulgaria is among the rare cases where the ECtHR has adjudicated on the revision of a judgment under Rule 80 of the Rules of the Court. In its original judgment of 9 July 2020, the ECtHR found a violation of ECHR Article 8 as domestic courts refused to grant legal gender […]
December 13, 2024
by Florian Van Tichelt Introduction On the 6th of June 2024, the European Court of Human Rights (hereinafter: ‘the Court’) delivered a judgment in the case of Bersheda and Rybolovlev v. Monaco. In this case, the Court had to decide on a Monegasque criminal investigation in which a lawyer’s phone was perused by virtue of […]
December 06, 2024
By Sarah Ganty and Eva Brems[1] Earlier this fall, the Human Rights Centre of Ghent University submitted a third-party intervention in the communicated cases of Obaidi and Others v. Belgium and Al Farj and Others v. Belgium, relating to the ‘post-Camara’ context. In these cases, the Court is faced with similar questions as in the […]
December 03, 2024
by Timothy Roes It was supposed to be a welcome clarification on religious neutrality in public spaces. Instead, the application by two Muslim women banned from wearing full body swimwear in a public swimming pool was declared inadmissible, calling into question longstanding wisdom and causing considerable uncertainty. Departing from well-established case law on Article 35 […]
November 29, 2024
By Kerem Altiparmak and Rumeysa Budak Introduction On 27 August 2024, the Second Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR/the Court) ruled that the principle of no crime and punishment without law (Article 7 ECHR) was not violated for the applicant Şaban Yasak, who was prosecuted and sentenced to imprisonment for membership of […]
November 22, 2024
By Louise Reyntjens and Ruben Vilain On August 27, in the B.D. v. Belgium judgment, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) once again found the Belgian government at fault for its treatment of interned persons in prisons. Under Belgian law, ‘internment’ is classified as a safety measure aimed at protecting society from ‘dangerous’ individuals, […]
November 12, 2024
By Alina Tryfonidou The rise of homophobic and transphobic crime is a deeply troubling and pervasive issue in modern day Europe (see the FRA LGBTIQ Survey (2024), pp. 54-76). A key factor behind this is the growing wave of right-wing populism, which has contributed to an increasingly hostile social and political climate, where divisive rhetoric often targets […]
November 08, 2024
by Zoë Grossi and Pauline Charlotte Janssens Introduction On 23 April 2024, the European Court of Human Rights delivered a judgment in the case of Zăicescu and Fălticineanu v. Romania. The Court unanimously held that Romania violated Article 8 juncto Article 14 of the Convention by acquitting two high-ranking military officials previously convicted of war […]
October 31, 2024
By Cathérine Van de Graaf, Eva Brems and Stéphanie Hennette-Vauchez The Human Rights Centre[i] of Ghent University, joined by prof. Stéphanie Hennette-Vauchez (Université Paris Nanterre) submitted a third party intervention to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR or the Court) in the communicated case of F.D. and I.M. and three others v. France (38506/23, […]
October 29, 2024
By Sarah Ganty In Dian, the Court flushes the promise of the Lăcătuş judgment that ‘begging, as a form of the right to call on another person to obtain his or her assistance, must evidently be regarded as a basic freedom’ (§59) down the drain. The Court adopts a skewed vision of poverty, finding in […]
October 25, 2024
by Dr. iur. Yasir Gökce The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) pronounced recently an interesting judgment in the Yasak case, which appears to negate many of its conclusions in the landmark Yalcinkaya ruling. In the latter judgment, the Court characterised the practice of the Turkish judiciary to equate the alleged download or use of […]
October 18, 2024
Deekshitha Ganesan and Richard Köhler On 11 July 2024, the European Court of Human Rights (the Court) delivered an important decision in the case of W.W. v. Poland, finding that Polish prison authorities’ denial of access to hormone replacement therapy to a trans woman who was imprisoned violated Article 8 of the European Convention on […]
September 06, 2024
Maja Lysienia For over three years now, crisis at the Belarusian border has been testing national authorities’ commitment to human rights. Since July 2021, Belarus has allowed for, facilitated or forced the irregular entry of third-country nationals to the EU. This new state conduct was quickly labelled as an “instrumentalization of migration”. Poland, Lithuania and […]
August 27, 2024
by Dirk Voorhoof 1. – Introduction In its judgment of the 4th June 2024 in the case of Sokolovskiy v. Russia the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) dealt with the issue of religious hate speech as a criminal offence interfering with the right to freedom of expression and information under Article 10 ECHR (see […]