In the case of The Karibu Foundation v. Norway the Court held that there had been no violation of the protection of property.

The case concerned the authorities’ limiting of ground rents, in accordance with legislation that had been introduced to deal with previous violations of the Convention, on property in Oslo owned by The Karibu Foundation.

The Court found that the application of the “rent ceiling” by the authorities had been within their discretion and had involved a careful balancing of the competing interests of the lessors, lessees and society.

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In the case of I.M. and Others v. Italy the Court held that there had been a violation of the right to respect for private and family life.

The case concerned the allegation by the applicants (a mother and her two children) that the Italian State had failed in its duty to protect and assist them during contact sessions with the children’s father, a drug addict and alcoholic accused of ill-treatment and threatening behaviour during the sessions.

The Court found that the sessions had upset the children’s psychological and emotional balance, as they had been obliged to meet their father in an environment where their protection was not guaranteed. Their best interest in not being compelled to take part in sessions held in such conditions had thus been disregarded.

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Factsheet - Domestic violence

In the case of Bakirdzi and E.C. v. Hungary the Court held that there has been a violation of the right to free elections taken in conjunction with the prohibition of discrimination.

The case concerned the voting rights of the applicants, registered as national-minority voters for the parliamentary elections in Hungary. The Court found that the system that had been put in place to ensure the political representation of national minorities in Hungary had ended up limiting their political effectiveness and threatened to reduce, rather than enhance, diversity and the participation of minorities in political decision-making.

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Factsheet - Right to vote

In the case of Moraru v. Romania the Court held that there had been a violation of the prohibition of discrimination taken together with the right to education.

The case concerned an applicant’s allegation of discrimination in the admission process to become a military doctor. The authorities had refused to allow the applicant to sit the entrance examination for military medical school because of her size.

The Court found that the reasons for the applicant having been treated differently to other women – who had met the weight and height requirements – had not been “relevant and sufficient”. The domestic courts had accepted the Ministry of National Defence’s argument equating size with strength, without backing up their decisions with an assessment of the law or any research or statistics.

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In the case of Aygün v. Belgium the Court held that there had been a violation of the right to respect for private and family life and of the freedom of thought, conscience and religion.

In this case the applicants complained of the investigating judge’s refusal to allow them to transfer their sons’ bodies to Türkiye, their country of origin, while the investigation was ongoing.

The Court observed that the investigating judge’s decision amounted to interference with the applicants’ rights under the Convention. Even if the Court did not doubt the necessity of the initial decision by the investigating judge from the perspective of Articles 8 and 9 of the Convention, it noted however that the applicants in the present case had not had any remedy by which to request that the necessity of the initial refusal by the investigating judge be reassessed in the light of the progress of the investigation. 

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Factsheet: Parental Rights

In the case of Saure v. Germany the Court held that there had been no violation of the freedom of expression.

The case concerned the refusal to allow the applicant, a journalist, to have physical access to the files held by the German Foreign Intelligence Service (Bundesnachrichtendienst) on a former Prime Minister of the Land of Schleswig-Holstein. The applicant was interested in the Service’s findings and investigations regarding the circumstances of the former PM’s death and rumours that he had collaborated with the intelligence service of an Eastern European country. However, he was refused access to the files in person and had received information on the files’ contents from the Foreign Intelligence Service via another procedure.

The Court found that as the applicant had not made a clear case before the domestic authorities as to why he had needed physical access to the documents, the domestic authorities could not be reproached for having failed to engage in a balancing his and the public’s needs to access information with the Foreign Intelligence Service’s in keeping it secret.

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In the case of Văleanu and Others v. Romania the Court held that there had been a violation of the protection of property.

The case concerned restitution of property, which had been nationalised by the communist regime. The Court found that even though it had validated the law in question in its Preda and Others judgment, the restitution mechanism had nevertheless fallen short of being comprehensively effective and convincingly consistent and had thus placed an excessive individual burden on the applicants.

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The ECHR has accepted a request for an advisory opinion submitted by the Supreme Court of Finland on the procedural rights of a biological mother in proceedings concerning the adoption of her adult child.

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Advisory opinions

On 14 November 2022 a panel of 5 judges will examine ten Grand Chamber referral requests.

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The Court has declared inadmissible the application in the case of Mas Gavarró v. Spain.

The case concerned the publication of a number of articles in the daily newspaper El Mundo which according to the applicant had damaged his reputation.

The Court found that the applicant could have brought an action for the publication of a correction in the newspaper within three days, or could have initiated the special procedure for the protection of the right to one’s honour in order to obtain redress for the alleged damage to his reputation. By choosing only to use the criminal-law avenue, the applicant had deprived himself of the possibility of securing redress for the alleged infringement of his rights through the civil procedure. He had thus limited the scope of the examination by the domestic courts, which had been able only to rule on the lack of gravity of the alleged damage for the purposes of the criminal law. The applicant had thus failed to show that the State had offered him insufficient protection and that there had been an infringement of his right to respect for his reputation.

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Factsheet - Protection of reputation