Measures taken in cases concerning Ukraine
02/03/2022
Against the background of the war in Ukraine and following a request received from the Ukrainian Government on 24 February 2022 to “suspend the examination of all applications against Ukraine until further notice”, the European Court of Human Rights has decided to take a number of measures which will now be applied in all cases concerning Ukraine until further notice. The President of the Court may allow exceptions to those measures where appropriate.
Press release Press release (in ukrainian)
Interim measures indicated concerning the Russian Federation
01/03/2022
The Court has decided to indicate to the Government of Russia to refrain from military attacks against civilians and civilian objects, including residential premises, emergency vehicles and other specially protected civilian objects such as schools and hospitals, and to ensure immediately the safety of the medical establishments, personnel and emergency vehicles within the territory under attack or siege by Russian troops.
Protocol No. 15 to the Convention reduces from 6 to 4 months the time-limit for lodging an application before the Court after the final domestic decision taken in the framework of the exhaustion of domestic remedies. This new four-month time-limit comes into force on 1 February 2022. However, it only applies to applications in which the final domestic decision in question was taken on or after 1 February 2022. This change of time-limit has been adopted by the 47 member States of the Council of Europe.
Other Information
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Question referred to the ECHR by the Committee of Ministers
23/02/2022
For the second time in its history, the ECHR has been asked by the Committee of Ministers, the Council of Europe’s executive body with responsibility for supervising the Court’s judgments, to give a ruling on the question whether Turkey has refused to abide by a final judgment.
The application of the infringement procedure concerns the 2019 Kavala v. Turkey judgment. The applicant in this case is currently in prison.
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Grand Chamber
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Referrals to the Grand Chamber
28/02/2022
On 28 February 2022, the Court rejected 15 requests for referral to the Grand Chamber.
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Public Hearing
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Hearings in March
28/02/2022
In March 2022, the Court will be holding two Grand Chamber hearings.
In the case of Hurbain v. Belgium, the applicant complained about a civil judgment against him, in his capacity as publisher of the daily newspaper Le Soir, ordering him to anonymise an article in its electronic archive which mentioned the full name of a driver who had been responsible for a deadly road accident in 1994. The driver, who had been rehabilitated after serving his sentence, had brought an action before the Belgian courts seeking the deletion or anonymisation of the article, which was easy to find via several search engines just by entering his name.
The case Macatė v. Lithuania concerns a book for nine-ten-year-olds written by an openly lesbian children’s author containing six stories based on traditional fairy tales but including characters from marginalised social groups and topics such as emigration and bullying. Two of the six fairy tales contain story lines of romantic relationships and marriages between persons of the same sex. Following a recommendation issued by the Inspectorate of Journalistic Ethics, the book was labelled by the publisher as possibly harmful to children under 14 years of age.
The applicant, author of the book, died but her mother is continuing the proceedings before the ECHR in her place.
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Grand Chamber hearing concerning the UK
23/02/2022
The Court held a Grand Chamber hearing in the case of Sanchez-Sanchez v. United Kingdom.
The case concerns the applicant’s extradition to the United States, where there is a possibility that he may, if convicted, be sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.
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Grand Chamber hearing concerning Italy
23/02/2022
The Court held a Grand Chamber hearing in the case of McCallum v. Italy.
The case concerns the extradition of the applicant to the USA, where she is sought as a suspect in her husband’s death and the burning of his corpse. The United States authorities have since guaranteed that if convicted, the applicant would have the possibility of parole when sentenced. The applicant, an American national, is currently in detention in Italy.
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Chamber
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Judgment concerning Malta
03/03/2022In case of Shorazova v. Malta, the Court has found a violation against Malta in how they handled a request from the Government of Kazakhstan to freeze the applicant’s property.
It its judgment it stated there were sufficient grounds to question the genuine nature of the actions undertaken by Kazakhstan and thus the general interest behind the measure. It furthermore found that in the procedure before the domestic courts by which the freezing order had been issued and repeatedly extended had deprived the applicant of relevant procedural safeguards against an arbitrary or disproportionate interference for nearly eight years.
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Judgment concerning Turkey
01/03/2022The Court found two violations in the case of Kozan v. Turkey.
The case concerned a disciplinary sanction (a reprimand) imposed on a judge for sharing a press article in a private Facebook group. The Court ruled that the article in question had been part of a debate of particular interest to members of the judicial profession because it had concerned the impartiality and independence of the judiciary vis-à-vis the executive. The disciplinary sanction imposed on the applicant had therefore not met any pressing social need and had not constituted a measure “necessary in a democratic society”.
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Judgment concerning Romania
01/03/2022The Court has found a violation in the case of I.V.Ț. v. Romania.
The case concerned the interview of a minor, without parental consent, about the death of a schoolmate on a school trip, and then the broadcast of that interview on television. She suffered harassment from the school community afterwards. It ruled that the domestic courts had only superficially examined her right to private life and had not taken into account her age when reaching their decisions.
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Judgment concerning Malta
01/03/2022In the case of Fenech v. Malta the Court has found a non-violation of Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment).
The case concerned the conditions of detention of the businessman detained since November 2019 on suspicion of involvement in the murder of Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia and whether the Maltese authorities took adequate measures to protect him from contracting Covid-19 there, in particular because of his vulnerable status (he has only one kidney).
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Delivered Judgments & Decisions
Forthcoming Judgments & Decisions
08-10/03/2022