Cases

Dutch Supreme Court confirms: Articles 2 and 8 ECHR require a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions of 25% by 2020

Guest Blogger Climate change, Urgenda

By Dr. Ingrid Leijten, Assistant Professor at the Department of Constitutional and Administrative Law at Leiden University

On December 20th of last year, the Dutch Supreme Court ruled in the case of Urgenda v. de Staat der Nederlanden, confirming the finding of the Court of Appeal that the State violates articles 2 and 8 ECHR if it does not reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25% in 2020. Seconds after the live-streamed presentation of the summary of the judgment, online media in the Netherlands and beyond reported about this groundbreaking judgment: for the first time, worldwide, a court in a final judgment held a State accountable for not reaching certain climate goals – on the basis of human rights. The judgments of the District Court (2015) and the Court of Appeal (2018) had also received ample attention; their conclusions and argumentation have been both celebrated and criticized, and I will not try to summarize these discussions here. Neither will I provide a thorough analysis of the Supreme Court judgment in light of the case law of the ECtHR. The reason for this is that the ‘general interest character’ of Urgenda obstructs a straightforward comparison. Instead, I want to highlight what is interesting – as well as convincing – about the way the Supreme Court addresses the issue as a matter of human rights. I argue that the judgment provides a promising route, at least for some other climate cases, although it also raises questions about the role of human rights and the effectiveness of rights based climate litigation. Continue reading →

Abdyusheva and Others v. Russia: a Sadly Missed Opportunity

Guest Blogger Abdyusheva and Others v. Russia, drug replacement therapy, Prohibition of Inhuman Treatment, Right to Private Life

By Valérie Junod and Olivier Simon

On November 26. 2019, the ECtHR issued a 6 to 1 judgment finding that Russia had not breached the right of the complainants when it denied them access to methadone and buprenorphine (these two medicines are hereafter abbreviated to M/B) for treating their duly diagnosed opioid dependence syndrome (ODS).

Out of the three applicants, only the complaint of Mrs. Abdyusheva was analyzed in full. Since the other two were no longer consuming opioids and were no longer in active treatment; the Court declared their complaint inadmissible, disregarding their risk to relapse in the future.[1] Continue reading →

The Grand Chamber Judgment in Ilias and Ahmed v Hungary: Immigration Detention and how the Ground beneath our Feet Continues to Erode

Guest Blogger Ilias and Ahmed v Hungary, Migration, Right to Liberty and Security

By Dr. Vladislava Stoyanova (Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, Lund University)

The ECtHR has been for a long time criticized for its approach to immigration detention that diverts from the generally applicable principles to deprivation of liberty in other contexts. As Cathryn Costello has observed in her article Immigration Detention: The Ground beneath our Feet, a major weakness in the Court’s approach has been the failure to scrutinize the necessity of immigration detention under Article 5(1)(f) of the ECHR. The Grand Chamber judgment in Ilias and Ahmed v Hungary delivered on 21 November 2019 has further eroded the protection extended to asylum-seekers under the Convention to the point that restrictions imposed upon asylum-seekers might not even be qualified as deprivation of liberty worthy of the protection of Article 5. The Grand Chamber overruled on this point the unanimously adopted Chamber judgment that found that the holding of asylum-seekers in the ‘transit zone’ between Hungary and Serbia actually amounts to deprivation of liberty. Continue reading →

Journalist and editor’s conviction for incitement to religious hatred violated Article 10

Guest Blogger Freedom of Expression, Tagiyev and Huseynov v. Azerbaijan

By Ronan Ó Fathaigh and Dirk Voorhoof

In Tagiyev and Huseynov v. Azerbaijan, the European Court of Human Rights unanimously held that the conviction and imprisonment of Azerbaijani journalist Rafig Nazir oglu Tagiye, and editor Samir Sadagat oglu Huseynov, for incitement to religious hatred, violated their right to freedom of expression under Article 10 ECHR. Both had spent over a year in an Azerbaijan prison, and shockingly, following his release, Tagiyev was stabbed to death in an attack in Baku while his case was pending before the European Court. Tagiyev’s wife has continued the proceedings over her husband’s conviction and imprisonment, proceedings that took more than 11 years before the European Court. Mrs. Tagiyev also has a separate case pending over her husband’s killing, claiming that the Azerbaijani government failed to protect his right to life, and that he was targeted over his journalistic activities (here). Continue reading →

Spain: Does the Supreme Court judgment against Catalan leaders comply with human rights law?

Guest Blogger Catalan trial, Freedom of association, Freedom of Expression

By Massimo Frigo (Senior Legal Adviser of the International Commission of Jurists)

On 14 October, the Supreme Court (Tribunal Supremo) of Spain convicted 12 people in connection with their part in the organisation on 1 October 2017 of a referendum on Catalonian independence, that was conducted despite having been declared illegal by the Constitutional Court.

Nine of the twelve leaders on trial – including high-ranking Catalan government officials – were convicted, in addition to other offences of abuse of power and disobedience, of the more severe offence of sedition.

The verdict was much expected and was issued in a context charged with political tension and expectations in a country that has been polarized by very contrasting opinions on the claims of self-determination in Catalunya, the carrying out of the referendum on 1 October 2017 despite the Constitutional Court’s ruling about the lack of legitimacy of this consultation under the Constitution, and the fact that the voting process during the referendum was forcibly suppressed in many locations by the police, with credible reports of the use of unnecessary and disproportionate force in breach of Spain’s international law obligations. Continue reading →

Osman Kavala v. Turkey: unravelling the Matryoshka dolls

Guest Blogger Limitation on use of restrictions on rights, Osman Kavala v. Turkey, Right to Liberty and Security

By Emre Turkut (PhD Researcher at Ghent University and DAAD Visiting Fellow at the Hertie School in Berlin)

On 10 December 2019, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR or Court) delivered its much-awaited decision in the case of Osman Kavala v. Turkey, an application lodged by a human rights defender and philanthropist to challenge his arbitrary arrest and subsequent placement in pre-trial detention in relation to the Gezi Park events and the 15 July 2016 attempted coup. The application had been pending before Strasbourg since 8 June 2018. In line with its priority policy that has been previously implemented in the group of cases concerning detained journalists and academics in Turkey, the Court decided to grant priority to Osman Kavala’s case on 23 August 2018 and it was hence communicated to Turkey on 30 August 2018. In its judgment, the ECtHR found several violations (see below). Arguably, the finding of an Article 18 violation in conjunction with Article 5(1) (c), among other violations, is the most significant part of the judgment and yet comes as no surprise. Following the Court’s earlier ruling in Selahattin Demirtas v. Turkey, this makes it the second Article 18 case decided against Turkey, which adds to the steady evolution of the burgeoning case law (see, inter alia, the Grand Chamber’s Merabishvili v. Georgia). Continue reading →

Gender-based violence triggers differential treatment in housing benefit case

Guest Blogger J.D. and A. v. the United Kingdom, Prohibition of Discrimination, Social welfare

By Katarina Frostell, Project Manager and PhD Candidate, Institute for Human Rights, Åbo Akademi University, Finland

On 24 October 2019, the European Court of Human Rights delivered its judgment in J.D. and A. v. the United Kingdom, in the so-called bedroom tax case. In its judgment, the Court applied a discrimination analysis on the reduction of housing benefits involving two single mothers, whose housing benefits were reduced following a change in the national housing regulations. The applicants argued that they should be treated differently than the mainstream recipients of the benefit due to their special circumstances linked to disability and gender-based violence. In the second case involving gender discrimination, the Court found with five votes to two, a violation of Article 14 in conjunction with Article 1 of Protocol 1 on the right to property. The Court dismissed the claims of discrimination on the grounds of disability in the first case. Two judges submitted a partly dissenting opinion. Continue reading →