Forthcoming Grand Chamber hearing
The Court will be holding a Grand Chamber hearing in the case of Danileţ v. Romania on 18 December 2024.
The case concerns a disciplinary sanction imposed on a judge by the National Judicial and Legal Service Commission for posting two messages on his Facebook account.
Chamber News
In the case of Espírito Santo Silva Salgado v. Portugal the Court held that there had been no violation of the right to a fair trial / presumption of innocence.
The case concerned an application lodged by the former chair of the board of directors of the Banco Espírito Santo (“BES”), one of the most important private banks in Portugal, the collapse of which had been the subject of resolution action and had attracted considerable media attention. In the present case, the applicant complained about the administrative proceedings that had been brought against him by the Bank of Portugal, alleging that various public statements made by the governor of that bank at the relevant time had impaired his right to an independent and impartial tribunal and his right to be presumed innocent.
As to the Bank of Portugal’s alleged lack of impartiality, the Court took the view that the relevant question was whether the decision taken by that administrative authority had been reviewed by a judicial body with full jurisdiction. In that regard, it found that the applicant had been afforded the benefit of judicial scrutiny of sufficient scope for the purposes of the Convention. It further found that the statements made by the governor of the Bank of Portugal had not impaired the applicant’s right to be presumed innocent.
In the case of M.Ș.D. v. Romania the Court held that there had been a violation of the right to respect for private and family life.
The case concerned events following the breakup of a relationship, when the applicant was 18 years of age. Her ex-boyfriend, V.C.A., among other allegations, sent intimate pictures of her to family members and others, and posted the pictures, along with her personal details, on escort websites. The applicant promptly complained to the authorities about V.C.A.’s actions, but the criminal investigation and the related court proceedings remained pending for a long time, until even the statute of limitations for criminal liability expired. Most of the charges against V.C.A. were ultimately dropped.
The Court found that the legal framework had been inadequate – failing to protect the applicant from online violence – and that the investigation into her allegations had been ineffective, owing to excessive delays, the conduct of the authorities who have assigned part of the blame to the applicant thus contributing to her ”revictimisation”, as well as the express refusal of the prosecutor’s office to comply with the court’s orders.
- Press release
- Press release (in Romanian)
In the case of Svrtan v. Croatia the Court held that there had been a violation of the right to life.
The case concerned the death of a Croatian couple’s 12-year-old son in a shooting incident. The man responsible, S.K., had a history of alcohol abuse, violent behaviour and suspected unlawful possession of firearms.
The Court concluded that the authorities had not done everything within their power to safeguard public safety and, ultimately, the life of the applicants’ son. The police had searched S.K.’s house several weeks before the tragic incident after the local police stopped him carrying a gas pistol. They had however only searched the house for half an hour, failing to find and confiscate the automatic rifle used in the subsequent shooting. Indeed, the authorities had not questioned S.K., his family members or neighbours, or taken any other measures, despite the police having been ordered just a few days after the search to make further enquiries, and specifically having been told that S.K. had had unlicensed weapons in his attic.
In the case of Souroullas Kay and Zannettos v. Cyprus the Court held that there had been no violation of the right to a fair trial and no violation of the right to adequate time and facilities for preparation of defence.
The case concerned the first applicant’s conviction for money laundering and the second applicant’s for extortion in connection with a land deal. A key part of the evidence had been the testimony of N.L., a property entrepreneur and owner of ALKI Larnaca, a football club. N.L. had been given immunity from prosecution after he had given statements implicating, among others, the applicants.
The Court found that the trial had not been compromised by the inclusion of N.L.’s evidence as the national courts had been cautious in treating that evidence, and there had been other corroboration available too.
In the case of Kotov v. Russia the Court held that there had been several violations of the Convention.
The case concerned the convictions under administrative and criminal law of the applicant for public protests and for encouraging others online to attend such events, for which he had received a prison sentence.
The Court found that the punishment under criminal law given to the applicant had been entirely disproportionate, and that he had been punished for actions, such as chanting anti- Government slogans, which were protected under the Convention.
In the case of Ferrero Quintana v. Spain the Court held that there had been no violation of the general prohibition of discrimination.
The case concerned the imposition of a maximum age of 35 for a public competition to fill several police-officer positions in the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country (Ertzaintza). The applicant, who had been provisionally authorised to take part in the various competition tests – where he ranked 49th out of 60 – was ultimately not recruited on the grounds that he was over the age-limit.
The Court found that it was established that restricting admission to positions for police officers of the lowest rank in the Ertzaintza by establishing a maximum age of 35, at the relevant time, had been necessary to ensure and maintain the functional capacity of that autonomous police force.
Grand Chamber News
The Court has accepted the referral to the Grand Chamber of the case Tsaava and Others v. Georgia.
The case concerns the dispersal of a protest in 2019 from the front of the Parliament building in Tbilisi. The applicants were either participants in the demonstration, or journalists reporting on the protests. They allege, in particular, excessive use of force by the authorities resulting in their injury.
The Court has also decided to reject a request to refer twelve other cases.
In the case of Fabbri and Others v. San Marino the Court held that there had been no violation of the right of access to court as concerned one of the applicants and declared inadmissible the complaints brought by the remaining two applicants.
The case concerned three individuals who participated in criminal proceedings as victims of alleged offences. They complained that they could not have their civil claims adjudicated in those proceedings because delays in the investigations had led to the alleged offences becoming time-barred in 2020.
The Court found no violation of the right of access to court as concerned one of the three applicants who had requested to join the proceedings as a civil party, but had not pursued his claim diligently and had other avenues open to him. It rejected as inadmissible the remaining two applicants’ complaints because they had not lodged a formal request via a signed declaration to obtain the status of “civil party”, as was required under San Marino law.
Hearings
The Court held a Grand Chamber hearing in the case of Kovačević v. Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The case concerns the applicant’s voting rights in legislative and presidential elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Due to a combination of the territorial and ethnic requirements applicable to elections for the House of Peoples of the Parliamentary Assembly and for the Presidency, he was unable to vote for the candidates of his choice in those elections in 2022.
Decisions
The Court has declared inadmissible the applications in the cases of Dudek and Lazur v. Poland and I.G. v. Poland and in 19 other applications.
The cases concerned proceedings involving the applicants decided by formations of the Polish Supreme Court, which they alleged had not been “independent and impartial tribunal[s] established by law”. The applications came in the context of the reorganisation of the judicial system in Poland in what had been described by many observers as a “rule-of-law crisis”.
The Court declared inadmissible the applications in the case of A.L. and E.J. v. France.
Both applications concerned the remote retrieval of user data from the encrypted telecommunications tool EncroChat and their sharing with the United Kingdom law-enforcement authorities. EncroChat was an encrypted mobile-phone telecommunications tool, for which more than 66,000 handsets had been distributed covertly in 122 countries.
The Court noted that that the EncroChat user data had been collected at the French authorities’ initiative by means of a data retrieval measure that had been ordered in the context of criminal proceedings opened by the specialised inter-regional division of the Lille criminal court. The data relating to EncroChat users located in the UK had been transferred, as evidence already in the French authorities’ possession, for use in other criminal cases pursuant to a European Investigation Order (EIO) issued by the UK Crown Prosecution Service. Remotely retrieved data had thus been included as prosecution evidence in proceedings against both applicants in the UK.
The Court concluded that there had been a remedy available to the applicants in France by which they might have effectively challenged the data transfer measure taken pursuant to the EIO issued by the UK authorities, together with the data retrieval measure.
Communication of cases
The Court has communicated to the Government of Türkiye five cases covering 1,000 other applications.
The applications concern convictions for membership of an armed terrorist organisation, based on the alleged use of the encrypted messaging application called ByLock.
The core issues raised by the applicants have already been judged in the Court’s Grand Chamber case Yüksel Yalçınkaya v. Türkiye. In that judgment the Court highlighted that there were over 8,000 applications on the Court’s docket involving similar complaints. These 1,000 apparently comparable applications are the fourth batch to be notified to the Turkish Government. Against that background, the Court decided not to put any questions to the parties or to require any observations on the applications.
Other News
On 29 November 2024, delegations of the Constitutional and Supreme Courts of Portugal, headed by their respective Presidents, Judges José João Abrantes and João Cura Mariano, paid a working visit to the Court and were received by the President of the Court, Marko Bošnjak. During the visit the delegations took part in roundtable discussions with judges of the ECHR and members of the Registry.
On 28 November 2024, the President of the Court, Marko Bošnjak, attended a conference organised by the Swiss Federal Office of Justice, in Bern, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Switzerland’s accession to the European Convention on Human Rights. He was accompanied by Andreas Zünd, Judge elected in respect of Switzerland. President Bošnjak and Judge Zünd both delivered an address on that occasion.
Faculty-of-law students from Club Lannung from Copenhagen (Denmark) have been declared the winners of the 2024 Trans-European Moot Court competition for human rights law students after beating their rivals from Club Henrik Steska from Ljubljana (Slovenia).
The 11th edition of this competition, which brings together the winners of the Regional Moot Court Competition for Southeast Europe (involving law students from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia) and the winners of the Nordic Moot Court competition (involving law students from Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland and Iceland) took place in Strasbourg before judges of the European Court of Human Rights on 22 November 2024.