Grand Chamber judgment concerning Poland
15/03/2022
In the case of Grzęda v. Poland the Court held that there had been a violation of the right to a fair trial.
The case concerned a reform of the judiciary in Poland as a result of which the office of a Supreme Administrative Court judge elected to the National Council of the Judiciary was terminated before the end of his four-year term. There are currently 93 applications pending before the Court which raise issues relating to various aspects of the reform of the judicial system in Poland under laws that entered into force in 2017 and 2018.
Press release Delivery of the judgment Factsheet: Independence of the justice system
Webcast of the hearing (19/05/2021)
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.
Chamber
-
Judgment concerning Switzerland
15/03/2022In the case of Communauté genevoise d’action syndicale (CGAS) v. Switzerland the Court found a violation of the right to freedom of assembly and association.
The applicant association complained of being deprived of the right to organise and take part in public gatherings following measures taken by the Swiss Government to tackle COVID-19. While it did not disregard the threat posed by COVID-19 to society and public health, the Court held, in view of the blanket nature and lengthy duration of the ban on public events falling within the association’s sphere of activities, and of the nature and severity of the possible criminal sanctions, that the interference with the exercise of the rights guaranteed by the Convention had been disproportionate to the aims pursued.
... -
Judgment concerning Iceland
15/03/2022
In the case of Bjarki H. Diego v. Iceland the Court has found a violation of the right to be informed promptly of accusation / right to legal assistance of own choosing.
The case concerned the applicant’s trial for fraud by abuse of position following the 2008 financial crisis. Former Kaupþing bank official, the applicant had been questioned without being informed of his status as a suspect. The ECHR found that the Icelandic authorities had been negligent with regards to the investigation against the applicant who was interviewed by the prosecutor as a witness in the case, despite his effectively having been treated as a suspect at the time, his phone having been tapped as a result, and the transcript of that interview subsequently being introduced as evidence before court. The ECHR concluded that the Government had been unable to show that this had not undermined the fairness of the trial.
...
Official Visit
-
Official visit to Belgium
14/03/2022
On 10 and 11 March 2022 President Robert Spano paid an official visit to Belgium. He had meetings with Eliane Tillieux, President of the Chamber of Representatives, Stephanie D'Hose, President of the Senate, and Vincent Van Quickenborne, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Justice and the North Sea. He also took part in a conference at the University of KU Leuven on the theme Over-reaching or under-achieving? The trajectory of the case-law in the European Court of Human Rights. President Spano was accompanied by Frédéric Krenc, judge elected in respect of Belgium, and Johan Callewaert, Deputy Registrar of the Grand Chamber.
...
Decision
-
Inadmissibility decision
17/03/2022
The ECHR has declared inadmissible the applications in the cases of Voiculescu v. Romania and Voiculescu and Others v. Romania.
The cases concerned the trial of the applicant – a prominent businessman and former politician – for money laundering and the seizing of assets held to have been the proceeds of crime from his daughters and companies he owned.
...
Other Information
-
Examination of all applications against the Russian Federation suspended
16/03/2022Following the Resolution of the Committee of Ministers stating that the Russian Federation ceases to be a member of the Council of Europe as from 16 March 2022 (Resolution (CM/Res(2022)2), the Court has decided to suspend the examination of all applications against the Russian Federation pending its consideration of the legal consequences of this Resolution for the work of the Court.
Press release (in Russian)
...
Hearings
-
Grand Chamber hearing concerning Belgium
09/03/2022
The Court held a Grand Chamber hearing in the case of Hurbain v. Belgium.
The applicant in this case 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.
... -
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.
...
Delivered Judgments & Decisions
Forthcoming Judgments & Decisions
22-24/03/2022