May 09, 2023
Harriet Ní Chinnéide In L.B. v Hungary, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (the Court) applied the general measures doctrine developed in Animal Defenders International v. UK to find that the Hungarian legislative policy of publishing the personal data of taxpayers who were in debt violated Article 8 of the European […]
April 04, 2023
By Sjoerd Lopik The past decade has seen a significant rise in interest in climate obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). There is an almost unanimous opinion in literature that climate change can lead to far-reaching violations of human rights. Mary Robinson, former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, even deems […]
March 24, 2023
Dmitry Kurnosov Russia’s expulsion from the Council of Europe (‘CoE’) and, consequently, from the European Convention system has left almost 17 thousand cases pending before the European Court of Human Rights (‘ECtHR’, ‘the Court’). That number will rise further as the Court has declared that it will accept applications concerning acts and omissions under Russian […]
March 21, 2023
By Titouan Berhaut-Streel & Charly Derave On 8 September 2022, the European Court of Human Rights delivered its judgement in Drelon v. France. The case concerns Mr Drelon’s denied applications to donate blood because he refused to answer whether he had ever had sex with other men and therefore to disclose his alleged sexual orientation. […]
March 17, 2023
Christopher Roberts Machalikashvili and Others v. Georgia concerned the killing of T.M. by members of the Counter-Terrorism Department of the State Security Service (‘SSS’) of Georgia on 26 December 2017. The precise circumstances in which this killing took place, as well as the integrity and comprehensiveness of the investigation subsequently conducted into the killing, were […]
March 07, 2023
By Nadia Rusinova The recent judgment in Veres v. Spain once more revolves around the time factor in proceedings related to child abduction. It concerns the violation of the father’s right to respect for his family life under Article 8 of the ECHR (hereinafter: the Convention). It demonstrates the detrimental effect of judicial delays especially […]
March 03, 2023
Jonathan McCully The European Court of Human Rights (‘the Court’) has acknowledged on a number of occasions that ‘racial discrimination is a particularly egregious kind of discrimination and, in view of its perilous consequences, requires from the authorities special vigilance and a vigorous reaction’ (Sejdić and Finci v. Bosnia and Herzegovina, para. 43). Nonetheless, over […]
February 14, 2023
By Charly Derave and Hania Ouhnaoui On 19 May 2022, the European Court of Human Rights communicated its admissibility decision in the case of M. v. France, which deals with “normalising” medical treatments of intersex persons (i.e. those who are born with sex characteristics that do not fit the typical definition of the female and […]
February 10, 2023
By Marie-Hélène Peter-Spiess[1] In its recent judgment A.L. v. France, the European Court of Human Rights (the “ECtHR” or the “Court”) looked into the issue of domestic surrogacy and legal fatherhood in a situation where two paternal figures are on the line. More specifically, the case featured a surrogacy-born child that the surrogate entrusted to […]
January 13, 2023
By Tobias Mortier The technique of retrospective legislative regularisation is a disputed one. While the technique takes on different forms in the Belgian legal system, it generally involves the legislator retrospectively regularising a legislative or executive act – and thereby (purposely) influencing pending legal proceedings. Due to its sensitivity in light of the rule of […]
November 23, 2022
By Joseph Finnerty[*] Introduction The rule of law crisis in Poland is not new, but the engagement of Article 18 ECHR with this context is. In Juszczyszyn v. Poland, the ECtHR delivered its first Article 18 violation judgment against Poland. The case concerned the legal reforms that the Polish political ruling party (PiS) has adopted […]
November 15, 2022
Introduction On October 11th 2022, the third section of the Strasbourg Court delivered an important judgment in the case of Pavlov and Others v Russia (Application no. 31612/09), concerning air pollution, which will hopefully prove to have great ramifications for pending and future environmental and climate cases. In short, the majority spelled out that the […]
October 28, 2022
By Cathérine Van de Graaf On the 12th of September, the Human Rights Centre[1] (HRC) of Ghent University (Belgium) submitted a third party intervention (TPI) before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR or the Court) in the communicated case of Missaoui and Akhandaf v. Belgium, after being granted leave to intervene by the President […]
October 07, 2022
By Charly Derave & Hania Ouhnaoui In a judgment of 24 March 2022, the European Court of Human Rights, sitting in chamber, rules unanimously that the French authorities’ refusal to allow the establishment of a legal parent-child relationship between a child and a woman who is the former partner of their biological mother – also […]
September 14, 2022
By Sofia Balzaretti Introduction In the case Patrício Monteiro Telo de Abreu v. Portugal, the Strasbourg Court held that the judicial domestic authorities had not taken sufficient account of the context in which Patricio Monteiro Telo de Abreu, the applicant, had published satire cartoons depicting sexist stereotypes on his blog and that they had thus […]
August 23, 2022
By Anna Pivaty On 22 April 2022 the European Court of Human Rights (hereafter ‘ECtHR’ or ‘the Court’) (Chamber) has issued two judgments – Wang v. France and Dubois v. France – on the rights of persons interviewed by the police ‘voluntarily’, meaning: upon invitation by police without placing them under arrest. The Court’s press […]
June 09, 2022
By Nona De Dier In Sabani v. Belgium, the Court assessed whether an intrusion into the home of an undocumented immigrant with the aim of removing her from the national territory constitutes a violation of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). In Sabani’s case, the lack of an appropriate legal basis […]
May 30, 2022
By Vera Wriedt The closure of the Greek-Macedonian border on 8 March 2016 entailed systematic pushbacks. The largest operation occurred on 14-15 March 2016, when more than 1500 refugees were summarily returned from North Macedonia to Greece. The complaint of AA and others v North Macedonia addressed this large-scale pushback operation. However, instead of condemning […]
May 26, 2022
By Cecilia Rizcallah and Elisabeth David On 15 March 2022, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (hereafter “the Court”) found Poland in violation of Article 6(1) (right to a fair trial) of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“ECHR”) in the case of Grzęda v. Poland. There have […]
April 28, 2022
By Jessica Gavron The traumatic saga of the liquidation of International Memorial and Memorial Human Rights Centre (MHRC), has been subsumed by the even more shocking events that have followed. However, the liquidation of these two renowned and revered human rights institutions was a momentous event for civil society in Russia. For many, the elimination […]