October 05, 2020
By Maria Kotsoni, a PhD Researcher at the Department of Law of the European University Institute Recently, the European Committee of Social Rights (ECSR) adopted a series of decisions on equal pay and equality of opportunity between women and men in the workplace. This is the first time the ECSR reviewed states’ compliance on these […]
October 01, 2020
By Merel Vrancken (UHasselt) In G.L. v. Italy, the first section of the European Court of Human Rights decides on yet another case regarding the principle of inclusive education and the right to reasonable accommodations for persons with disabilities. The two most recent cases on inclusive education (Dupin v. France and Stoian v. Romania, decided […]
September 21, 2020
By Vandita Khanna and Natasa Mavronicola In Dikaiou and Others v Greece, the First Section of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) was called upon to determine, inter alia, whether the separate detention of six female prisoners living with HIV/AIDS amounted to ‘ghettoisation and stigmatisation’ in violation of the prohibition of discrimination (Article 14 […]
September 18, 2020
By Mark Klaassen (assistant professor of immigration law at the Europa Institute of Leiden University) To what extent can irregular migrants rely on the protection of Article 8 ECHR to regularize their irregular residence? The European Court of Human Rights (the Court) has dealt with this issue before, in different cases with various factual backgrounds. […]
August 11, 2020
By Ronan Ó Fathaigh and Dirk Voorhoof On 28 July 2020, the European Court of Human Rights held in Monica Macovei v. Romania that defamation proceedings against a sitting Member of the European Parliament violated the politician’s right to freedom of expression, under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Court reiterated […]
August 06, 2020
By Mathieu Leloup Post-election disputes and the type of body that should handle them is a topic that comes up before the Court every now and again. In 2010, in the case of Grosaru v. Romania, the Court had indicated that a parliamentary body could not be seen as sufficiently impartial when it had to […]
August 04, 2020
By Monica Pirvulescu On 17 September 2014, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (“ECtHR”) delivered its final judgment in the Case of Mocanu and Others v. Romania (“the Case of Mocanu”). The ECtHR found a breach of the procedural aspects of Article 2 (right to life) and Article 3 (prohibition of […]
July 13, 2020
Iain Cameron is professor in public international law at Uppsala University Introduction For European states, an important factor pushing towards better regulation of security agencies generally has been the ECHR. The work of “signals intelligence” agencies (collecting metadata and the content of electronic mail and voice communications) came to prominence following the allegations of “mass […]
July 03, 2020
By Dr Vladislava Stoyanova (Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, Lund University) With S.M. v Croatia, issued on 25 June 2020, the Grand Chamber delivered its first judgment under Article 4 (the right not to be held in slavery or servitude or to be required to perform forced or compulsory labour) concerning inter-personal harm, i.e. circumstances […]
July 01, 2020
Earlier this week, we received the sad news that Paula Marckx passed away at the age of 94. Having lived a remarkable life as, amongst others, a journalist, model, pilot and entrepreneur, she will be remembered, first and foremost, for the case that bears her name in Strasbourg. Her death, little over a year after […]
June 29, 2020
By Cedric Ryngaert and Kushtrim Istrefi On 26 May 2020, the European Court of Human Rights rendered a chamber judgment in Makuchyan and Minasyan v. Azerbaijan and Hungary. The case concerns a soldier from Azerbaijan, R.S., who killed an Armenian soldier and attempted to kill another one while on a NATO training in Budapest. R.S. […]
June 26, 2020
By Giulio Fedele (University of Rome “La Sapienza”, giulio.fedele@uniroma1.it) Hate-speech against sexual minorities has become a pressing issue for the ECHR. Online media and social platforms boosted the possibilities one has to express both personal opinions and hateful comments, thus making it harder for the Strasbourg Court to draw the line of the protection afforded […]
June 16, 2020
By Dragoș Călin In the recent judgment in the case Kövesi v. Romania (application no. 3594/19) the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been a violation of Article 6 § 1 (right to a fair trial) and Article 10 (right to freedom of expression) of the European Convention on Human Rights […]
June 11, 2020
By Alice Margaria (Research Fellow, Department of ‘Law & Anthropology’, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology) Fathers who want to be or remain involved in their children’s lives have become frequent applicants before the ECtHR. Underlying many of their complaints are national measures reflecting a ‘conventional’ understanding of fatherhood, where paternal care is attached scant […]
May 20, 2020
By Jurij Toplak The ECHR’s Article 8 guarantees a right to have data related to criminal procedures reviewed and, after some time and in most cases, removed. In this blog post, I will first summarise the case law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR or “the Court”) on the retention, review, and removal of […]
May 07, 2020
By Moritz Baumgärtel M.N. and others v. Belgium confronted the ECtHR with the question whether Article 3 of the ECHR places an obligation on State Parties to provide short-term humanitarian visas in their foreign embassies and consulates to potential asylum seekers. The Court, assembled in its Grand Chamber, found the case to be outside the […]
May 06, 2020
By Francesco Luigi Gatta, Research Fellow, UCLouvain, member of EDEM (Equipe droits européens et migrations) On 24 March 2020, the ECtHR delivered its judgment in Asady and Others v. Slovakia, which concerned the expulsion to Ukraine of a group of Afghan nationals. With a controversial ruling (passed by a slight majority of 4 votes to […]
April 30, 2020
In February, not long before we all went in lockdown, I attended an event with civil society organisations in Brussels concerning litigation and advocacy strategies. One of the organizers approached me as she recognized my name from the Strasbourg Observers blog and she explained how the series we published on the case of S.A.S. v. […]
April 27, 2020
By Ronan Ó Fathaigh and Dirk Voorhoof On 26 March 2020, the European Court of Human Rights unanimously found that a refusal by the Ukrainian authorities to give a non-governmental organisation (NGO) access to information about the education and work history of top politicians as contained in their official CVs, filed as candidates for Parliament, […]
April 23, 2020
By Marie-Bénédicte Dembour Have the Strasbourg Observers really been running only for ten years? On receiving the invitation to celebrate this anniversary, my mind travelled back to the time before your emergence, and I felt rather isolated in my critical approach to the study of the European Court of Human Rights. Long before I joined […]