December 28, 2021
By Sjoerd Lopik Today marks the second anniversary of the Urgenda climate ruling of the Supreme Court (Hoge Raad) of the Netherlands (a translation of the ruling can be accessed here). With its ruling, the Supreme Court finalised the first case in which a national court issued a specific order to a government to reduce […]
December 22, 2021
By Dr. Cathérine Van de Graaf and Yannick Schoog Introduction On the 26th of October 2021, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR; the Court) answered the question of whether or not a fixed age limit to qualify for a housing subsidy for ‘young families’ was discriminatory in the negative. The case of Šaltinytė v. […]
December 17, 2021
Introduction Bartolo Parnis and Others v. Malta (Bartolo Parnis) is the last in a series of judgments in which Maltese landlords have been contesting before the ECtHR the remedy afforded to them by the domestic Constitutional Court, after concluding that strict rent controls were in breach of their property rights. The finding of such a […]
December 14, 2021
By Naoual El Yattouti In the case Polat v. Austria, the mother of a deceased child complained that the carrying out of a post-mortem despite her and her husband’s objections based on religious reasons, violated her rights under Articles 8, 9 and 13 of the European Convention on Human Rights (hereafter: the Convention). The European […]
December 08, 2021
By Tobias Mortier Art. 18 is a peculiar provision in the rights catalogue of the European Convention on Human Rights (‘the Convention’). Only rarely is it invoked before the European Court of Human Rights (‘the Court’) – and a violation of it is even rarer. Up until now, the Court had only found violations of […]
December 03, 2021
by Jenny Sandvig, Hannah Cecilie Brænden and Peter Dawson In one of the first climate cases to be decided by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), the European Network of National Human Rights Institutions (ENNHRI) has submitted a joint third-party intervention. The intervention, a first by national human rights institutions (NHRIs) in an international […]
November 30, 2021
By Dr Kyriaki Patsianta In the case of X v. Poland, the ECtHR found that there had been a violation of articles 14 and 8 of the Convention in respect of a homosexual mother, who alleged that the removal of her youngest child from her custody, after her former husband obtained a change in the […]
November 23, 2021
By Dr Roxanna Dehaghani Who satisfies the definition of a ‘vulnerable accused’ and does a failure to provide reasonable adjustments undermine Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights? These questions were central to the judgment in Hasáliková v Slovakia. This comment focuses on A’s claim regarding vulnerability and the absence of adjustments, in […]
October 29, 2021
By Tobias Mortier A little political tension in an electoral context is not uncommon. However, the Armenian presidential elections in 2008 were nothing short of riotous. The Court has already dealt with numerous cases in which the events surrounding these elections were contested. For instance, in the case of Mushegh Saghatelyan v. Armenia, the Court […]
October 26, 2021
By Anna Mechlinska On July 22, 2021, the European Court of Human Rights (“the Court”) in Strasbourg unanimously found Poland in violation of Article 6, the right to a fair trial, of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“ECHR”) in the case of Reczkowicz v. Poland (application no. 43447/19). The Court ruled […]
October 22, 2021
By Nele Schuldt The case of Klimaseniorinnen v. Switzerland has attracted much attention since it was lodged before the European Court of Human Rights (European Court, Strasbourg Court) in late November 2020. The applicants, an organization of elderly women, alongside four individual elderly women, alleged that the Swiss government had, firstly, on account of inadequate […]
October 08, 2021
By Dr Cornelia Klocker Does the finding of an ineffective investigation and a violation of the duty to cooperate compensate for a non-engagement with the substantive limb of Article 2 ECHR? Natalia Estemirova was one of the most prominent human rights defenders in Chechnya, investigating and documenting cases of enforced disappearances, abductions, torture and extrajudicial […]
October 01, 2021
By Alicia Hendricks The case of Gruba and Others v. Russia concerns the difference in entitlement to parental leave between policemen and policewomen. The European Court of Human Rights (the Court) ruled in favour of the male defendants by stating that this difference in treatment amounted to sex discrimination contrary to Article 14 (prohibition of […]
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. […]
September 06, 2021
By Margarita S. Ilieva, a strategic equality/human rights litigator with extensive experience in negative stereotyping. The violent misogyny case of J.L. c. Italie (27.05.2021) is one of few in which the Court expressly addressed revictimisation (neglectful/actively injurious treatment of a survivor by those expected to address the original harm). Prior cases whereby this concept was […]
September 01, 2021
Cathérine Van de Graaf is a research fellow at the Academy for European Human Rights Protection (University of Cologne) and affiliated researcher at the Human Rights Centre (Ghent University). The Human Rights Centre of Ghent University (Belgium) submitted a joint third party intervention (TPI) before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR or the Court) […]
August 18, 2021
By Lisa Maria Weinberger* On 15 June 2021, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) rendered its judgment on the domestic violence case Kurt v Austria. This case concerned a woman in Austria who experienced domestic violence at the hands of her husband, which resulted in his murdering their son. Based […]
August 11, 2021
By Maria Kotsoni, PhD researcher at the Department of Law of the European University Institute Just a few months after the inadmissibility judgement of Le Mailloux v. France, another inadmissibility decision was adopted in a case related to states’ socio-economic management of the COVID-19 crisis. Only this time it was the European Committee of Social […]
August 09, 2021
By Xavier Farré Fabregat, research assistant at IPERG (Universitat de Barcelona) Introduction The political articulation of minorities in a centrist and hierarchical State can challenge pre-designed institutional responses, (over)stretching the limits of rights and duties held by citizens and the State. In the present case, the display of two minority flags by former politician Lázló […]
June 30, 2021
By Dr Marianna Iliadou, Teaching Fellow in Medical Law and Ethics at Durham University, UK. On 18 May 2021, the Third Section of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR or the Court) delivered a judgment on the contested issue of non-recognition of the parent-child relationship for a child born through cross-border surrogacy. Surrogacy is […]