President and Vice-President participate in international conference in Montenegro
On 2 October 2026, the President of the Court, Mattias Guyomar, and the Vice-President of the Court and judge elected in respect of Montenegro, Ivana Jelić, participated in the international conference On the Constitution, State, and Democracy, held in Tivat, Montenegro.
In his keynote address to participants, including presidents and judges from constitutional courts across Europe and representatives of the two European courts, President Guyomar focused on the common, universal values at the heart of the two European projects: the Council of Europe and the European Union.
“Both put the human being at the heart of the system of protection – by enshrining individual rights, by obliging States to uphold them, and by subjecting them to collective enforcement. And both look towards a shared and ‘peaceful future’ based on fundamental rights and freedoms which are ‘the foundation of justice and peace in the world’. This is more important than ever with an active war within Europe’s borders. A war that is getting ever closer,” said the Court President.
President Guyomar also highlighted that these two European projects are developed hand in hand with national apex courts.
“Together with domestic judiciaries and in full respect of the principles of subsidiarity and shared responsibility, the Strasbourg Court continues to ensure, as ‘a Court for all’, the effective protection of the human rights of hundreds of millions of individuals across Europe.”
Following the opening remarks, three panel discussions took place. Vice-President Jelić moderated a panel on “Amendments to the Constitution in the Function of European Integration: Legal Implications and Challenges of the Transfer of Sovereignty to the European Union”, while President Guyomar moderated a panel on “The Use of AI Tools in Constitutional Adjudication: Support or Threat to Constitutional Court Independence – Perspectives, Risks, and Ethical Dilemmas”.
Chamber News
Seriously deficient investigation into conscript’s death while on duty
In the case of Margaryan v. Armenia the Court held that there had been violations of the right to life/investigation and of the right to an effective remedy.
The case concerned the death of a conscript while on duty. He had been found in a trench near to his sentry post, with a gunshot injury to his chest.
The ECHR found that the investigation had not provided a plausible explanation for the conscript’s death. The authorities’ conclusion that he had taken his own life had mainly been based on a posthumous psychiatric report referring to witness statements about his “strange behaviour”, despite that being in contradiction with his military superiors’ assessments of him while he had been alive. The authorities had therefore closed the investigation on the basis of what could be described as hastily reached conclusions, without having seriously examined any other possible scenario.
The Court also found that the conscript’s father, the applicant in this case, had had no legal avenue in Armenia to establish State liability for the death of his son, nor claim compensation.
The Court held that Armenia was to pay the applicant 50,000 euros in respect of nonpecuniary damage.
Failure to protect vulnerable man with schizophrenia from unnecessary use of force or to effectively investigate his complaints
In the case of Strashunskyy v. Ukraine the ECHR held that there had been two violations of the prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment/investigation.
The case concerned a complaint by the applicant, a vulnerable individual diagnosed with schizophrenia, about injuries he had sustained when being transferred from a Staterun boarding house to a psychiatric hospital.
The Court found that the investigation into the applicant’s complaint had not been effective. In particular, an expert medical assessment to determine how his injuries had been sustained had not been obtained. Nor had the authorities clarified whether the staff members responsible for his transfer had been trained to deal with vulnerable individuals.
The Court also found that the authorities had failed to demonstrate that the force used against the applicant had been strictly necessary or that he had been sufficiently protected by those responsible for looking after him. He had sustained multiple injuries in circumstances which had not been shown to have either been unavoidable or managed in a manner consistent with the State’s obligation to protect his physical integrity and dignity.
The Court held that Ukraine was to pay the applicant 7,000 euros in respect of nonpecuniary damage and EUR 5,000 in respect of costs and expenses.
- Press release
- Press release (in Ukrainian)
No violation of the Convention in refusing residence permits for children born from polygamy
In the case of A.A. v. the Netherlands the Court held that there had been no violation of the right to respect for private and family life.
The case concerned the Dutch authorities’ refusal of the applicant’s request for residence permits for five of his minor children, born of his polygamous marriages in Yemen.
The Court found that the assessment of the Dutch authorities had struck a fair balance between the interests of the applicant and those of the State. It underlined the close connection between immigration policy and considerations of public order and reiterated that, in establishing an immigration policy taking into consideration family ties, a State cannot be required to give recognition to polygamous marriages which are in conflict with their own legal order.
No shortcomings in Latvian authorities’ response to allegations of forced labour and servitude
In the case of A.S. v. Latvia the Court held that there had been no violation of the prohibition of slavery and forced labour.
The case concerned the applicant’s allegations that she had been subjected to servitude or, alternatively, to forced or compulsory labour while working on a dairy farm. The operator of the farm was acquitted of charges of human trafficking.
The Court found that the applicant’s complaint had been taken seriously by the national authorities. It had been thoroughly investigated and examined at three levels of jurisdiction. The authorities had taken a significant number of investigative steps to secure the relevant evidence, and they had not failed to pursue any obvious line of inquiry. The investigation had been prompt and thorough and the applicant had been legally represented throughout. The Court did not find any significant flaws capable of undermining the proceedings’ ability to establish the circumstances of the case or the identity of those responsible.
Grand Chamber News
Deadline of 1 December 2026 for requests to intervene as a third party
The President of the Court fixed 1 December 2026 as the deadline for requests to intervene as third parties in the case of Miladze v. Georgia.
The case concerns the applicant’s administrative conviction for a video he had posted on TikTok in 2022, criticising the new transport policies in Tbilisi and alleging misconduct by public officials. The video went viral.
Forthcoming delivery of advisory opinion in response to a request from the Supreme court of Ukraine
The ECHR will deliver an advisory opinion at a public hearing on Tuesday 29 September 2026.
The delivery will be broadcast live on the European Court’s YouTube channel.
The request concerns proceedings pending before the Supreme Court of Ukraine concerning a challenge by a company to a tax fine.
Hearings
Chamber hearing on Ukrainian children from Crimean childcare institutions officially unaccounted for since 2014
The Court held a Chamber hearing in the case of Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union on behalf of ten Ukrainian children v. Russia.
The case concerns ten Ukrainian children who were living in childcare institutions in Crimea in 2014 when Russia asserted jurisdiction over the peninsula. According to the association (UHHRU) acting on their behalf, Russian nationality was imposed on the children and they were put up for adoption and may have been adopted. There has been no information on their whereabouts since 2014, despite the Ukrainian authorities’ repeated requests. UHHRU allege that this effectively amounts to the children’s enforced disappearance.
Decisions
Complaints about fairness of criminal trial brought by brothers charged with murder of Maltese journalist inadmissible
The Court has declared inadmissible the application in the case of Degiorgio v. Malta.
The case concerned the applicants’ complaints about the fairness of the criminal proceedings against them. The applicant brothers had been charged with, among other things, the wilful homicide of the journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. After committal proceedings, but before the trial by jury took place, their lawyer renounced his mandate. As the brothers were unable to find another lawyer to represent them, the Criminal Court appointed legal aid lawyers for that purpose. The brothers agreed to a plea bargain and pleaded guilty to the charges against them. They complained before the ECHR that their trial had been unfair because they did not have legal assistance of their choosing, nor adequate time to prepare their defence.
The Court found that the appointment of legal aid lawyers had been reasonable in the circumstances. The interests of the expediency of the case and that of third parties, constituted relevant and sufficient grounds in the interests of justice for overriding the brothers’ wishes to continue looking for a lawyer of choice. The Court also found that the brothers’ guilty pleas had been entered into voluntarily and could not be said to have resulted from any duress.
The ECHR has declared the application in the case of Mouelhi v. Belgium inadmissible.
The case concerned an applicant for international protection who complained that he had not been provided with accommodation or material assistance in Belgium, as required by law, despite the final judgment of the Brussels French-Language Employment Tribunal.
The Court found that the applicant’s conduct amounted to abuse of the right of individual application. It noted that the applicant had deliberately attempted to mislead it by submitting false information in support of his request for an interim measure, in which he had stated that he was reduced to living on the streets in Belgium, when it could be seen from the documents submitted later by the respondent Government that he had been accommodated as an applicant for international protection in the Netherlands for nearly five months. Moreover, he had not corrected this information in the application form submitted after requesting the interim measure nor when he had updated his file at the Court’s request. On the contrary, he had expressly reiterated that he was still having to sleep on the streets.
The Court has declared the application in the case of Vendrame and Others v. Italy inadmissible.
The application concerned the imposition of land-use restrictions on private plots of land belonging to two of the applicants due to the incorporation of the land into a newly instituted nature reserve. The land was being used by the other applicant, an agricultural company, for poplar harvesting. In October 2011, a request by the company for authorisation from the municipality of Codroipo to replant a poplar grove on the land was refused for incompatibility with the land-use restrictions.
The applicants lodged proceedings challenging the incorporation of the land in the nature reserve, arguing, amongst other things, that that they had not been provided with compensation for such restrictions. The domestic courts dismissed their action, noting that the restrictions did not give rise to a right to compensation, as they had not been imposed with a view to expropriating the land. However, other allowances were available instead.
Paying particular regard to the State’s leeway in the context of environmental protection policies, the Court considered that a fair balance had been struck between the general interest and the applicants’ right to decide how to use their land.
The ECHR has declared inadmissible the application in the case of Macovei v. Romania.
The case concerned proceedings brought by the applicant, a politician, to challenge sanctions imposed on her for having violated the rules on election financing during her 2014 presidential campaign.
The Court held that the applicant’s actions and the sanctions imposed on her related to electoral misconduct. The actions were not classified as “criminal” under Romanian law since the domestic authorities did not consider them to be criminal offences, but only minor offences. Also, they were not criminal in nature.
- Press release
- Press release (in Romanian)
The Court has declared inadmissible the application in the case of Fliegenschnee and Others v. Austria.
The case concerned the Austrian Federal Minister for Economic and Digital Affairs’ refusal to ban the sale of fossil fuels to mitigate the impact of climate change as she was not competent in that regard.
The Court found that the three individual applicants who had brought the case had not provided evidence to show that they had been personally affected by climate change, either because of their age or health issues or owing to crop shortfalls caused by drought. They could not therefore claim to be victims of a violation of the right to respect for private and family life or the protection of property and those complaints were inadmissible.
As concerned the remaining applicant, Umweltschutzorganisation Global 2000, the Court considered that it was not necessary to decide whether it had standing to bring its complaints under Article 8 of the Convention because they were inadmissible as manifestly ill-founded. In particular Article 8 did not guarantee the right to a specific measure, namely a ban on the sale of fossil fuels under the Austrian Trade Act.
The Court has declared inadmissible the application in the case of Văscăuţanu v. Romania.
The case concerned the effectiveness of a preventive remedy, namely an application to a post-sentencing judge. The purpose of the remedy was to put an end to situations breaching rights to prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment where prisoners had alleged poor conditions of detention while serving their prison terms.
The Court noted that an application to a post-sentencing judge was an effective preventive remedy to be used, from 6 April 2023 onwards, by anyone complaining of poor conditions of detention. That remedy was complementary to the compensatory remedy available to people who alleged that they had been detained in conditions breaching the European Convention but were no longer in that situation at the time they brought their action. The applicant, however, had failed to make use of either of those effective remedies – both of which had been available to him and had offered reasonable prospects of success – at any time during his detention in various prisons.
- Press release
- Press release (in Romanian)
The Court has declared inadmissible the application in the case of Fillon and Others v. France.
The application essentially concerned the fairness of the trial of the three applicants who had all been convicted of embezzlement of public funds, handling of those funds or complicity in the offence.
The Court noted, first, that the applicants’ allegation of a lack of independence and impartiality in the preliminary investigation stage of the proceedings against them was not manifestly ill-founded and that it was not its task to intervene in the national debate concerning reform of the public prosecution service in France. It then held that the criminal proceedings in question, taken as a whole, had been fair within the meaning of the Convention.
Other News
The Minister of Justice of Slovenia, Mihael Zupančič, visited the Court on 1 October 2026 where he met with its President, Mattias Guyomar. The judge elected in respect of Slovenia, Vasilka Sancin, and the Registrar of the Court, Marialena Tsirli, also attended the meeting. The discussions focused on questions of the Court's independence and autonomy, Slovenia's implementation of the Court's judgments, and the country's support for the Court and the Convention system.
On 1 October 2026, the Vice-President of the Court, Arnfinn Bårdsen, welcomed Sweden’s Chancellor of Justice, Thomas Bull, and a delegation from his Office, who were on a study visit to the Council of Europe and the Court.
The Vice-President recalled the importance of dialogue between the Court and key domestic institutions and authorities such as the Swedish Chancellor of Justice. In this respect, he emphasised the crucial role played by strong and independent counterparts within the Member States, underlining that joint efforts in pursuing the shared European vision of democracy, the rule of law, and the effective protection of fundamental rights are true means of maintaining stability and prosperity. Vice-President Bårdsen also reflected upon the particular contributions of the Nordic countries to the Convention system and its values.
During the study visit, the delegation also had the opportunity to exchange views with the judge elected in respect of Sweden, Erik Wennerström.