Friday 27 May 2016

Court's Annual Overview Series

The European Court of Human Rights has now made available in print, through Wolf Legal Publishers, its new series 'Overview of the Case-Law of the European Court of Human Rights'. This yearly reflection of the Court's jurisprudence - a reprint from the Court’s Annual Report - highlights judgments and decisions which, in the view of the Court's Jurisconsult, raise new issues or important matters of general interest. Print editions of 2014 and 2015, in French and in English, are now available. This is the abstract:

'Every year, the European Court of Human Rights delivers a large number of judgments and an even greater number of decisions, thus adding to its already formidable body of case-law. This can make it difficult for people outside the Court to know which cases break new ground or address new issues. An increasingly important aspect of the Court’s work has thus become to identify such cases and to disseminate them in a convenient and accessible format.

This new annual Overview series, available in English and French, seeks to respond to that need by focusing on the most important cases the Court deals with each year. All the cases are selected by the Court’s Jurisconsult’s Directorate on the basis of their jurisprudential interest. In addition to the cases chosen for publication in the Court’s Reports of Judgments and Decisions, they include a number of other cases that raise issues of general interest, establish new principles, or develop or clarify the case-law. The approach has been to draw attention to the salient points, allowing the reader to appreciate the jurisprudential significance of a particular case.'

Monday 2 May 2016

The ECHR and the UK - The Tragedy in the Form of Comedy

In the past two weeks, with the United Kingdom's referendum on a potential Brexit approaching, the UK's Government has been speaking with an increasingly incoherent number of voices. Home Secretary Theresa May favours the UK remaining in the European Union but leaving the European Convention of Human Rights (see her speech in this report here), whereas Justice Secretary wants the UK to leave the EU, but remain in the ECHR, while ignoring the rulings of the Court. Some people have already described the Government's position as totally incoherent. In the fine British tradition of humour of Monty Python, a group of actors (Patrick Stewart, Adrian Scarborough and Sarah Solemani) have tackled the issue head-on in a marvellous short sketch called "What has the ECHR ever done for us?", now to be seen on the website of The Guardian. Well worth watching!