23 February 2023
New Wine in Old Bottles
On February 14, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights released its judgment on the Raphael Halet case. In a context of both increasing attacks against financial transparency, and failure of states to properly implement the EU directive on the protection of whistleblowers, the judgment by the Grand Chamber was a much awaited one. This case gave the Strasbourg Court an opportunity to reaffirm the importance of whistleblower protection as a human right, and amend the threshold for protection. Yet, the Strasbourg Court still falls short from providing whistleblowers a safe way of expressing concerns publicly. Continue reading >>
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27 January 2023
No New Rights in Fedotova
In Fedotova and others v Russia issued on 17 January 2023, the ECtHR held that Russia had breached its positive obligation to secure the applicants’ right to respect for their private and family life under Article 8 of the Convention by failing to provide any form of legal recognition and protection for same sex couples. The ground-breaking aspect of the judgment is the clear rejection by the Court of the justifications advanced by the Contracting State. Continue reading >>
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24 January 2023
The many troubles of the Fedotova judgment
On 17 January 2023, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights ruled in Fedotova v Russia that the absence of any legal recognition and protection for same-sex couples amounts to a violation of Art. 8 of the Convention. For 30 Member States of the Council of Europe (CoE), this judgment changes nothing since their legal orders already allow same-sex couples to enter into marriage or into other forms of legally recognised relationships. For the remaining countries, however, the Fedotova judgment amounts to an external judicial pressure to change their legal landscape in a politically very sensitive area of LGBT+ rights. Fedotova is probably the most political judgment of all times. Continue reading >>
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16 December 2022
The Slippery Slope of a Snooping Strasbourg
Last week, the ECtHR ruled in Spasov, for the first time, that there was a 'denial of justice' and thus a violation of Article 6(1) ECHR due to a manifest error of law by a national court regarding the interpretation and application of EU law. A Romanian court had convicted Mr Spasov, the owner and captain of a Bulgarian-flagged vessel, of illegal fishing inside Romania’s exclusive economic zone. Spasov is an important principled judgment that further intertwines the EU and ECHR legal systems. Continue reading >>12 December 2022
Moving On in Strasbourg
Russia’s justified expulsion from the Council of Europe after the beginning of the full-scale military invasion in Ukraine continues to pose problems for the European Court of Human Rights and the European Convention machinery in general. Even though Russia remained bound by the Convention until 16 September 2022, a number of decisions in Moscow, but also in Strasbourg, made matters complicated. Especially processing the outstanding 17,000 cases and enforcing those judgments now require innovative solutions. Continue reading >>
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05 December 2022
Putting an End to Minority Voter Disenfranchising in Hungary
On 11 November, the European Court of Human Rights published its decision in a case initiated eight years ago, which found that the Hungarian parliamentary electoral system's regulations on the representation of national minorities in parliament violates the right to free elections (Article 3 of the 1st Protocol to the ECHR, Bakirdzi and E.C. v. Hungary). The plaintiffs claimed that the Electoral Act of 2011 was unlawful on three points: the secrecy of the vote, the real election and the preferential quota for minority representation. In its judgment, the Court found in favour of the applicants on all three points and ordered the Hungarian State to pay damages, putting an end to a decade-long violation of voting right. The following analysis is not primarily intended to provide a detailed description of the judgment itself, but to review the unlawful situation and the necessary actions resulting from the judgment. Continue reading >>
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17 November 2022
Extradition and the Regrettable Influence of Politics upon Law
Amongst the ECtHR jurisprudence giving rise to political disgruntlement in the United Kingdom have been judgments on extradition and deportation. Attempts to remove individuals from the UK through one of these avenues have occasionally been frustrated on human rights grounds. In the context of the UK government’s ill-disguised hostility to human rights the Grand Chamber on 3 November issued Sanchez-Sanchez v. UK (App.no. 22854/20). The case considered the application of article 3 of the ECHR prohibiting torture and inhuman and degrading treatment and punishment where an accused drug trafficker was sought by way of extradition by the United States where he faced the possibility of an irreducible life sentence of imprisonment. Continue reading >>
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11 November 2022
The Penultimate Chapter in the Case of Julian Assange
After almost four years under unchanged detention conditions in the high-security prison Belmarsh, Julian Assange is facing yet another challenge. The upcoming decision of the High Court of England and Wales might ultimately determine whether Julian Assange can be extradited to the United States where he would face up to 175 years in prison if convicted on all 18 charges. If the High Court concludes that the first-instance proceedings should not be reopened, legal recourse in the United Kingdom would be exhausted. Many voices are therefore pinning their hopes on the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). Continue reading >>
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26 October 2022
Fighting for a Cause
On 18 October 2022, the European Court of Human Rights handed down its judgement in the case of Mørck Jensen v. Denmark, upholding the applicant’s conviction under Danish law of breaching the prohibition on entry into and stay in a conflict zone in order to participate in armed hostilities on the side of one party to an ongoing armed conflict. In its judgment, the Court consciously opted to take an objective or neutral stance towards the question of whether there may exist ‘right’ reasons to travel to a hot conflict zone in order to actively participate in armed activities. Continue reading >>
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01 October 2022
Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger
Human rights courts can rarely avoid confrontation with backlashing states. This is particularly true for the two oldest and most prominent regional human rights courts, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR). Yet, by close observation, we can witness that for both courts, backlash has triggered important institutional developments which will guide the work of human rights bodies in an increasingly polarized 21st century. Continue reading >>
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