April 19, 2011
The famous American feminist legal theorist Catherine MacKinnon argued that pornography is an act of subordination. In Only Words, she notes: “Social inequality is substantially created and enforced – that is, done – through words and images. . . Elevation and denigration are all accomplished through meaningful symbols and communicative acts in which saying it […]
March 31, 2011
What are the implications of the recent landmark judgment in Lautsi for minority religious symbols in state school classrooms? At first sight, the Court seems to adopt a more open approach towards the presence of religious symbols in the school environment. On closer examination, however, this may not necessarily be the case. This post briefly […]
March 22, 2011
Lautsi v. Italy was destined to achieve legendary status in the ECtHR’s case law. In fact, it became the stuff of legends long before the Grand Chamber’s judgment came out. Rarely has a judgment of a supranational court put such a spell on people. Rarely has it inspired such passionate comments and speculation even before […]
March 21, 2011
Recently, the Court came down with a judgment that strongly condemns the stigmatization of people living with HIV. Kiyutin v. Russia is, as far as I was able to ascertain, the first case in which the Court rules on the merits of a claim of discrimination on the ground of a person’s HIV-positive status. Straight […]
March 17, 2011
Today’s guest post was written by Hannes Cannie, PhD candidate at the Human Rights Centre of Ghent University. Further information on Hannes, including a list of his publications, can be found here. In Aydin v. Germany (27 January 2011) the Fifth Section of the Strasbourg Court held with six votes to one that the applicant’s […]
March 14, 2011
Mgn Limited v. the United Kingdom concerned several articles published in 2001 in the tabloid Mirror (now Daily Mirror), revealing that supermodel Naomi Campbell was attending Narcotics Anonymous (NA) meetings in an attempt to treat her drug addiction. The articles were accompanied by several photographs, including one in which Ms. Campbell was seen standing in […]
March 10, 2011
Guest post by Rónán Ó Fathaigh, PhD candidate at Ghent University. For more information on Rónán, find him here. The recent Article 10 judgment in Mouvement Raëlien Suisse v. Switzerland merits some close attention given the important questions of principle which are arguably involved. The First Section of the European Court found no violation of […]
February 22, 2011
This post is co-authored by Lourdes Peroni and Alexandra Timmer In an inadmissibility decision that might have gone unnoticed by many, the Court has recently ruled in an interesting case, Horie v UK. The case involves a “New Age Traveler” who complained of an impediment on her ability to pursue a nomadic way of life. […]
February 18, 2011
“The year 2010, which was the sixtieth anniversary of the European Convention on Human Rights, has been an important year for the European Court of Human Rights,” writes the president of the Court, Jean-Paul Costa, in the foreword to the 2010 report.[1] Indeed, Protocol 14 entered into force in June of last year, granting long-awaited […]
February 10, 2011
Any attempt to comment exhaustively on the recent landmark ruling of the Grand Chamber in M.S.S. v Belgium and Greece in one page would be bound to fail. It is an extraordinarily rich judgment. In this post, I therefore limit my comments to one single aspect I find particularly intriguing: the concept of group vulnerability. […]
January 27, 2011
The applicant in Haas v. Switzerland was a 57 years old male who suffered from a bipolar disorder since nearly 20 years. Wishing to commit suicide, Mr. Haas attempted to obtain a lethal substance (sodium pentobarbital) that was only available on medical prescription. To that end, he contacted several psychiatrists, but was not able to […]
January 25, 2011
Today’s guest post was written by Rónán Ó Fathaigh, one of our colleagues at the Human Rights Centre. More information on Rónán can be found on the website of the Center for Journalism Studies of Ghent University, here. Amid all the discussion regarding the A., B. and C. v. Ireland judgment, it is interesting […]
January 20, 2011
2010 was a turbulent year for the European Court of Human Rights. The Court has been under fire both for usurping too much power and for achieving too little. The first type of critique is made by conservatives who recycle the old idea that an international court has no legitimacy to judge the situation on […]
January 17, 2011
When is the duty to investigate possible racist motives triggered in cases of ill-treatment and death in police custody? In one of the latest 2010 judgments (Mižigárová v. Slovakia) dealing with police brutality against a member of an ethnic minority, the Court did not consider that “the authorities had before them information that was sufficient […]
January 13, 2011
In the end of last year the Court delivered a judgment in the case of Ternovszky v. Hungary. In this judgment the Court created a new right – the right to choose the circumstances of becoming a parent. I will not focus on the discussion about the safety of the mother and the child that […]
January 06, 2011
Before its holiday break, the European Court of Human Rights released two judgments in defamation cases, Novaya Gazeta V Voronezhe v. Russia and Sofranschi v. Moldova. Both cases concern allegations of abuse and irregularities. While both judgments contain good elements, in my opinion they also reveal faulty reasoning on the part of the Court. Most interestingly, […]
January 04, 2011
In the most recent round of judgments, squeezed in just before the festive season, are two interesting cases concerning the detention of persons with a disability: Jasinskis v. Latvia and Raffray Taddei v. France. These two cases are exemplary of many others, in which people with a disability are held in detention in appalling conditions. […]
December 17, 2010
A., B. and C. v. Ireland concerned three Irish applicants who, in their first trimester of pregnancy, had travelled to England to have an abortion because they believed they would not be allowed to have one in Ireland. The Irish Constitution, unlike the European Convention on Human Rights, explicitly extends the right to life to […]
December 08, 2010
By Saïla Ouald-Chaib and Lourdes Peroni In a previous post, I said I would give the European Court of Human Rights a standing ovation the day it adopted a more open stance in freedom of religion cases. The time has come for such ovation. And the opportunity has been provided by what may well be […]
December 01, 2010
This post has been written by Laurens Lavrysen, one of our colleagues at the Human Rights Centre. Traffic noise pollution – especially at night – is one of the biggest health risks of contemporary Europe. This kind of pollution causes inter alia sleep disturbance, cardiovascular diseases, aberrant social behavior and stress. Guidelines from the […]