May 20, 2025
By Hanim Schnabel In P v. Poland, the ECtHR ruled by 4 votes to 3 that the dismissal of a homosexual secondary school teacher for, inter alia, writing a blog for adults with some sexually explicit content violated Article 10 of the Convention. Without taking a stance on whether the dismissal actually pursued a legitimate […]
May 16, 2025
By Lorenza Grossi The ECtHR examines the compatibility between special prison regimes and Article 3 ECHR. More precisely, under scrutiny is Article 41-bis of Law No. 354 of 26 July 1975 (the Italian Prison Law), also known as ‘hard prison.’ This provision allows the suspension of ordinary prison conditions – such as outdoor time and […]
May 09, 2025
By Ellen Desmet, Ilse Derluyn and Sara Lembrechts F.B. v. Belgium concerns the decision of the Belgian Guardianship Service to terminate the support of an unaccompanied minor following an age assessment. While the ECtHR found a violation of Article 8 ECHR due to a lack of sufficient safeguards, it did not substantively engage with the […]
May 02, 2025
by dr. Mathieu Leloup Introduction Parliamentary immunity is a staple of domestic constitutional law, designed to protect free speech in Parliament. It is present in some form or another in every country of the Council of Europe. Broadly defined, it is a legal instrument which inhibits legal action, measures of investigation, or measures of law […]
April 25, 2025
By Reza Khabook On 3 December 2024, the ECtHR issued a Chamber judgment in El Aroud and Soughir v. Belgium. This case concerns the applicants’ citizenship revocation[1] following their terrorism-related convictions in Belgium. The Court concluded that Article 8 had not been violated and excluded the case from the scope of Article 2 of Protocol […]
April 22, 2025
By Catherine Van de Heyning As society digitalised, so did gender-based violence. Technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV) has become an unfortunate byproduct of digitalisation. The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) already recognised that cyberviolence may amount to a violation of the right to privacy and, in some instances, even to degrading and inhuman treatment. In […]
April 04, 2025
By Sophie Bols On 16 January 2025, the European Court of Human Rights issued another judgment, A.C. v. France, on age assessment procedures for unaccompanied minors and held that there was a violation of Article 8 ECHR. The Court emphasises the importance of procedural safeguards, reaffirming some of the findings established in Darboe and Camara […]
March 25, 2025
By Merel Vrancken In Salay v. Slovakia the European Court of Human Rights held that the overrepresentation of Roma pupils in special education in Slovakia constituted discrimination. The ECtHR’s ruling in Salay v. Slovakia is very similar to that of the Grand Chamber in D.H. and Others v. the Czech Republic in 2007. Nonetheless, Salay […]
March 21, 2025
by Lize R. Glas On 6 February 2025, the Court delivered the judgment Caldarar and Others v. Poland, concerning the demolition of a Roma encampment. The Polish Nomada Association for Multicultural Integration (‘Nomada’) welcomed the judgment as a ‘landmark ruling from Strasbourg’. The European Roma Rights Centre (‘ERRC’) issued a press release entitled ‘European Court […]
February 28, 2025
By Louis Triaille In its Clipea and Grosu v. the Republic of Moldova judgment, handed down on November 19, 2024, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) clarifies States’ positive obligations to protect in-patients with mental disabilities from ill-treatment in psychiatric institutions. The judgment illustrates an increasingly strict scrutiny by the ECtHR on institutional psychiatry, […]
February 25, 2025
By Alan Greene It is now almost cliché to suggest that the European Court of Human Rights ‘missed an opportunity’ when handing down a judgment. Often, these laments highlight that the Court decided the case under a given Article of the Convention, and having done so, then declined to review any further allegation. This phenomenon […]
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 […]