Strasbourg Observers

View posts from: rule of law

  • Mathieu Leloup

Wałęsa v Poland: a forceful culmination of the Court’s rule-of-law case law

December 08, 2023

By Mathieu Leloup Polish rule of law cases are by no means still a novelty at the European Court of Human Rights. Over the course of the last couple of years, the Court has ruled on a wide variety of aspects concerning the Polish legal “reforms” of its judiciary, going from the composition of the […]

  • Anaïs Brucher

Domestic enforcement of the right to housing of applicants for international protection: a (small) victory in Camara v. Belgium

September 01, 2023

By Anaïs Brucher Camara v. Belgium is the first of what could be a long series of cases on the enforcement of the right to housing and material assistance of applicants for international protection in Belgium. On 18 July 2023, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruled on the case of Mr Camara, who […]

  • Jean-Baptiste Farcy

The Belgian reception crisis before the ECtHR: the Court orders Belgium to respect the rule of law

December 02, 2022

By Jean-Baptiste Farcy The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ordered interim measures against Belgium for failing to offer material receptions conditions to 149 asylum-seekers. In the past year, the Belgian government has failed to provide shelter to asylum-seekers due to an alleged lack of reception facilities. Thousands of domestic judgments have also been disregarded […]

  • Joseph Finnerty

Juszczyszyn v. Poland: Article 18 ECHR’s Conservative Contribution to the Polish Rule of Law Crisis

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 […]

  • Cecilia Rizcallah and Elisabeth David

The Polish Judicial Reforms under the Grand Chamber’s Scrutiny: Much Fog About Nothing? A comment of Grzęda v. Poland

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 […]

  • Tobias Mortier

Miroslava Todorova v. Bulgaria: Bulgaria joins list of serious rule of law offenders

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 […]

  • Anna Mechlinska

When is a tribunal not a tribunal? Poland loses again as the European Court of Human Rights declares the Disciplinary Chamber not to be a tribunal established by law in Reczkowicz v. Poland.

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 […]

  • Guest Blogger

Strasbourg Court entered the rule of law battlefield – Xero Flor v Poland

September 15, 2021

Barbara Grabowska-Moroz – postdoctoral research fellow at CEU Democracy Institute (Budapest) Introduction More than five years after the rule of law crisis started in Poland, the international court ruled for the very first time that the composition of the Constitutional Tribunal (CT) in Poland is illegal. After numerous rulings of the Court of Justice of […]