In the case of Kangers v. Latvia the Court found a violation of the right to be presumed innocent.

The applicant complained of being found guilty of a repeat offence of driving while disqualified, when his appeal against an initial conviction for the same offence was still pending.

Press release

In the case of Guðmundur Andri Ástráðsson v. Iceland the Court held that there had been a violation of the Convention. 

The Court found that the process by which a judge was appointed to the Court of Appeal had amounted to a flagrant breach of the applicable rules at the material time. It had been to the detriment of the confidence that the judiciary in a democratic society must inspire in the public and had contravened the very essence of the principle that a tribunal must be established by law.

Press release

In the case of Drėlingas v. Lithuania the Court held that there had been no violation of the Convention.

The case concerned the applicant’s conviction for genocide for taking part in a 1956 operation to arrest two partisans who had resisted Soviet rule.

The Court concluded that the applicant had to have been aware in the 1950s that he could be prosecuted for genocide and his conviction had been foreseeable.

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In the case of Petukhov v. Ukraine (no. 2) the Court found a violation of the prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment on the grounds that the applicant had been given a whole-life prison sentence without any prospect of release or any possibility of review of his sentence. It also found a violation of Article 3 of the Convention because the applicant had not been provided with adequate medical care for his tuberculosis.

The Court reiterated that, for a life sentence to be compatible with the Convention, there had to be both a prospect of release and a possibility of review. It held that Ukraine should reform its system of reviewing whole-life sentences.

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On 18 March 2019 a panel of 5 judges will examine 15 Grand Chamber referral requests.

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The Chamber to which the case of Muhammad and Muhammad v. Romania had been allocated has relinquished jurisdiction in favour of the Grand Chamber.

The case concerns a procedure to remove two Pakistani nationals from Romania after they had been declared undesirable.

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Cases pending before the Grand Chamber

The Court has declared inadmissible the application in the case of Campion v. France.

The applicant, a French national and a fairground-attraction owner by profession, complained of his conviction for making defamatory comments to the weekly magazine VSD against the economist and politician Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

The Court found that the applicant had not had a sufficient factual basis for asserting publicly that Mr Strauss-Kahn had committed acts capable of constituting bribery or trading in influence.

Press release

Three new language versions of the film presenting the Court have been produced recently, in Armenian, Macedonian and Japanese.

The film, which explains the workings of the Court, describes the challenges faced by it and shows the scope of its activity through examples from the case-law, is now available in 37 languages.

All languages

From 7 to 8 March 2019, President Guido Raimondi paid an official visit to Romania on the invitation of Cristina Tarcea, Chief Justice of the High Court of Cassation and Justice, and Augustin Lazăr, General Prosecutor. On that occasion, he was received by Vasilica-Viorica Dăncilă, Prime Minister. During this visit, he also met Judges of the High Court of Cassation and Justice with their Chief Justice, Cristina Tarcea, the President of the Constitutional Court, Valer Dorneanu, and Senior Public Prosecutors in the presence of the General Prosecutor, Augustin Lazăr. President Raimondi was accompanied by Iulia Antoanella Motoc, judge elected in respect of Romania, and Roderick Liddell, Registrar.