Source: http://echrblog.blogspot.com/2010/
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 10:56:01+00:00

Document:
A field—new technologies and human rights or, more broadly, law and technology—is in the process of being framed. Should the European Court of Human Rights be seen as part of that process? To find out, we searched the Court's case law using HUDOC, a database on the Council of Europe website which contains both judgments and admissibility decisions. We entered 155 keywords, all in English, and in this article we report and analyse what we found. The overall conclusion is twofold: first, it is too early to attempt a complete characterisation of the Court's position on new technologies; and second, the Court is however ‘one to watch’.
The Court held as early as in 1979, in Marckx v. Belgium, that children born out of wedlock must not be discriminated. French law was similarly discriminatory. But the necessary changes were made only after France herself was condemned by the Court in the case of Mazurek v. France, in 2000! It was obvious, already back in 1979, what the Court’s position would be. Twenty years lost for the victims of such discrimination, and many years of unnecessary litigation before the Court in Strasbourg.
The speech is available online here. The speech is followed by a very informative compilation of background materials on the interpretative authority of the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights, with key extracts from relevant cases, but also a very elaborate overview of examples of national laws and domestic court cases which illustrate acceptance of res interpretata of the Strasbourg Court. Highly recommended!
Despite unquestionable achievements over the past 25 years, the Inter-American, European, African, and UN systems all face tremendous obstacles in translating their verdicts into change on the ground. In many cases, landmark decisions have not yet yielded meaningful reform.
From Judgment to Justice, a report launched this week by the Open Society Justice Initiative, reviews the implementation of judgments across the world's four human rights systems. Working from empirical data as well as interviews conducted with court personnel, human rights advocates, and academics, authors David C. Baluarte and Christian M. De Vos provide a comprehensive review of the dynamics involved in putting international commitments into practice. The report provides recommendations tailored to each system, while also pulling together common points of concern in its final chapter.
The president of Russia's Constitutional Court, Valery Zorkin, uttered very critical remarks at a forum in Saint Petersburg last Saturday. According to various press agencies (Itar Tass and Reuters) and newspapers (Kommersant) he indicated that Russia could withdraw from the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights. This follows statements by the Constitutional Court that it wants to introduce mechanisms to protect national sovereignty which would permit national authorities not to execute ECtHR judgments if they would be contrary to the Russian Court's judgments. All of this takes place after criticism in Russia of the Strasbourg Court's findings of human rights violations in a whole series of cases in the last few years and more specifically the recent judgment in Markin, a case in which the European Court found that Russia violated the ECHR by discriminating against male soldiers asking for parental leave, a case originally decided by Mr Zorkin's Constitutional Court. In addition, the judgment in the politically very sensitive Yukos / Khodorkovski / Lebedev case is forthcoming.
One may add, that anonymous sources within the Kremlin immediately played down Zorkin's remarks and qualified it as a "backwards step".
Yesterday, the Legal Affairs Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) adopted its newest (7th) report on the implementation of the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights, drafted by Mr Christos Pourgourides. The report fits in with the increasingly active role of PACE in the last few years to supplement the work of the Committee of Ministers, which formally supervises the implementation of the Court's judgments on a case-by-case basis. The Assembly rather focuses on large-scale issues and thus highlights in this report nine countries which show "extremely worrying delays in implementation": Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Moldova, Poland, Romania, the Russian Federation, Turkey and Ukraine. One may note, by the way, that these delays are all the more problematic since this list of countries includes all the countries from which most applications come to Strasbourg. A number of outher countries are also in the 'danger zone' and deserve attention: Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Georgia and Serbia.
* unlawful detention and excessive length of detention on remand (in Moldova, Poland, the Russian Federation, and Ukraine).
Less problematic, but also mentioned are Portugal and the United Kingdom, where the rapporteur sees some slow but positive developments. The very detailed report is an invaluable resource to see how implementation fares in some of the more problematic state parties to the ECHR.
In recent years there have been various interferences with individuals trying to bring their case to the European Court of Human Rights. Applicants in detention have been barred from contacting a lawyer, pressure has been put on applicants, or proceedings have even been started on the national level against applicants' legal representatives in order to hamper the application to Strasbourg. Apparently, this development has become so worrysome, that the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe felt the need to once again stress the duty of state parties to the ECHR to respect and protect the individual right of application in a resolution adopted last week. The Ministers note "with concern that there have been isolated, but nevertheless alarming, failures to respect and protect the right of individual application (such as obstructing the applicant’s communication with the Court, refusing to allow the applicant to contact his lawyer, bringing pressure to bear on witnesses or bringing inappropriate proceedings against the applicant’s representatives), as found in recent years by the Court." The Ministers call upon the states (read: themselves) to refrain from such pressure on applicants, to to protect them, to comply with the interim measures of the Court in this respect, and to investigate all cases of such alleged interferences. The Committee of Ministers indicates that it will examine with urgency such cases in which the Court found a violation of the right to individual application in this respect. Increased vigilance, in other words.
This paper critically examines the operation of European Union (EU) law and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in Ireland and the UK. Ireland has a colourful history in both the EU and ECHR. Since its accession in 1973, Ireland has provided the EU with both legal and constitutional challenges. Furthermore, while it only transposed the Convention into domestic law in 2003, Ireland offered the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) its first case, one of its few interstate cases, and the opportunity to offer its most recent thoughts on the relationship between EU law and the ECHR. The UK’s relationship with the EU has been fraught with acrimony. Similarly, despite the leading role played by Britain in the Council of Europe, the eventual implementation of the ECHR in British law in 1998 has been portrayed as European interference with the UK legal system. Nonetheless, the peculiar nature of the UK legal system and its interaction with both EU and ECHR law makes for an interesting case study. This report critically compares Irish and British implementation of European law. Section 2 examines the legal effects of EU membership in the two jurisdictions. Section 3 considers Irish and UK membership of the ECHR and implementation of the Convention in the domestic law of the two states. In section 4, judicial application of European law in the two jurisdictions is critically compared. Section 5 draws the various strands together to conclude that Irish and British implementation of both forms of European law remains idiosyncratic. While European law has undoubtedly affected the two legal systems, its influence continues to be filtered through the unique constitutional arrangements of the two states.
Articles 1 and 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, when read together, require a proper and adequate official investigation into deaths resulting from the actions of state agents, both from the use of lethal force, and also in situations arising from the negligence of agents that leads to a death. The article considers the extent of the obligation to carry out an effective investigation since its explicit recognition by the European Court of Human Rights in the case of McCann and Others v. United Kingdom. The article assesses the jurisprudence of the duty to investigate in order to determine whether the obligation is now placing too onerous a burden on member states in order to comply with their duties under the Convention, or whether the duty does indeed secure the right to life, as is intended. To assess the original proposition, the article considers the jurisprudence of the duty to investigate in relation to the following applications: early forays into the application of the duty; fatalities arising from non-lethal force; the influential quartet of cases arising out of the Northern Ireland troubles; recent judgments concerning cases arising out of the conflict in Chechnya; and finally through to a critical review of the effectiveness of the European Court.
This article offers a critical assessment of the interpretative positions adopted by the European Court of Human Rights as to the applicability of Convention rights and freedoms to the deportation of “aliens” resident in the territory of a Contracting State. The article considers inconsistencies in the Court's jurisprudence and argues that these inconsistencies are a result of the characterisation of deportation proceedings as administrative events. The authors also explore the nature of Contracting States' deportation procedures and examine key features of the procedural guarantees afforded to non-nationals under the Convention and its Protocols. In addition, the authors consider the extent to which Convention notions of due process and natural justice are deemed germane to deportation proceedings. The article contends that disparities in the procedural protections accorded to nationals when compared with resident non-nationals conflict with the purpose of the European Convention on Human Rights are an avertable consequence of the primacy of State sovereignty.
Once upon a time, not so very long ago (although it may seem ages ago to young people who have grown up with mobile telephones, pizza delivery services, music downloads and social networking web sites), there was an inhuman war. Of course, all wars are inhuman, but this one was really horrible, worse than anything anyone could remember.
According to critics in some of the Nordic countries the bodies that monitor and adjudicate international human rights courts are undermining their own legitimacy by adhering to undemocratic practices. The strongest normative case against the judicial review that such bodies perform could be directed at the European Court on Human Rights (ECtHR), which monitors many wellfunctioning democracies. Section 1 lists normative objections to judicial review in general. Section 2 sketches a normative defense this practice, and Section 3 presents some relevant aspects of the ECtHR. Section 4 returns to consider the various objections. The mandate, composition, institutional environment and mode of operation of the ECtHR renders it immune to several of these criticisms. The conclusion identifies some objections that merit further attention, both for empirical research and for normative analysis.
Secondly, the European Constitutional Law Review (vol. 6, No. 2, 2010) features an article on the Sejdic and Finci judgment of the Court, entitled 'The Strasbourg Court on the Dayton Constitution: judgment in the case of Sejdic and Finci v. Bosnia and Herzegovina', authored by S. Bardutzky.
One of the purposes of this book is remembrance. The European Court of Human Rights is a human institution, dedicated to the protection of human beings. The protection of human rights is a noble calling, and many have served it nobly at Strasbourg. This book looks back to the inception and growth of the Court, the people who composed it and who came before it, and the events and achievements that go to make up a fascinating institutional story. The book also looks ahead to what the future may hold. Some of the proposals made at various points in the past ten years are set out, up to and including the milestone conference at Interlaken in February 2010. Growth and adaptation are vital qualities in all living things. I hope that the contents of this book, which tell of an enduring commitment to the protection of fundamental human rights, will encourage and inspire the present generation to whom the future of the European Convention on Human Rights is entrusted. Beyond the institutional and legal dimensions, the Court’s history is also to be told through the personal recollections of those who were part of it for a time. Several contributors have shared some of their personal recollections of their time at Strasbourg. Through these, the reader will learn some of the lore that has built up in an institution that has reached the half-century mark.
A whole cartload of journal articles, if one may say so irreverently, for all readers to enjoy this fall. It certainly reflects that the European Convention of Human Rights still enjoys a growing interest among researchers.
* J. Barker and B. Brockman-Hawe, ‘ECHR: Bijelic v. Montenegro and Serbia, judgment of 11 June 2009’ (p. 845-867).
* J. Barker and E. Papastavridis, ‘ECHR: Medvedyev et al v. France, judgment of 29 March 2010’ (p. 867-882).
* A. Mowbray, ‘European Court of Human Rights: May 2009-April 2010’ (p. 495-522).
* O. Pedersen, ‘The ties that bind: the environment, the European Convention on Human Rights and the rule of law’ (p. 571-595).
* A. Seaman, ‘Permanent residency for human trafficking victims in Europe: the potential use of article 3 of the European Convention as a means of protection’ (p. 287-320).
* A. Hallo de Wolf and D. Wallace, ‘The overseas exchange of human rights jurisprudence: the U.S. Supreme Court in the European Court of Human Rights’ (p. 287-307).
* M. Marmo, ‘The execution of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights - a political battle’ (p. 235-276).

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