scholarly journals Makuchyan and Minasyan v. Azerbaijan and Hungary

2021 ◽  
Vol 115 (2) ◽  
pp. 294-301
Author(s):  
Marko Milanović ◽  
Tatjana Papić
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
English Language ◽  
Legal Issues ◽  
High Ranking ◽  
Army Officer ◽  
European Court ◽  
Life Sentence

The judgment of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR or Court) in Makuchyan and Minasyan v. Azerbaijan and Hungary is remarkable both on account of its facts and the peculiar legal issues it raised. In 2004, an ax-wielding Azerbaijani army officer (R.S.) beheaded one Armenian officer, and attempted to kill another, while attending a NATO-organized English language course in Budapest, Hungary. R.S. was prosecuted in Hungary and given a life sentence. Eight years later, R.S. was transferred to Azerbaijan to serve the remainder of his sentence. However, upon his arrival, R.S. received a hero's welcome. He was released, pardoned, promoted, and awarded salary arrears for the period spent in prison, as well as the use of a state apartment in the capital. Many high-ranking Azerbaijani officials expressed their approval of R.S.'s conduct and pardon. (The long-standing Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan of course looms in the background of this story.)

The Double-Edged ECtHR Lăcătuş Judgment on Criminalisation of Begging

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
Sarah Ganty
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Family Life ◽  
Legal Issues ◽  
European Court

Abstract Judgment: European Court of Human Rights, Lăcătuş v Switzerland 14065/15 (ECtHR, 19 January 2021), Judgment (Merits and Just Satisfaction) Section of the Court: Chamber (Third Section) Applicable Convention Rights: Article 8 echr (Right to respect for private and family life) – Violation Primary Legal Issues: Did Switzerland violate Article 8 echr by imposing a fine and subsequent imprisonment for five days for non-payment on a poor and vulnerable Roma woman for unintrusive begging? Link to Case: <http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-207377>

scholarly journals Makuchyan and Minasyan v Azerbaijan and Hungary: Novel Questions of State Responsibility, Presidential Pardon, and Due Diligence of Sentencing Transfer Meet in a Rare Case of the Right to Life

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Kushtrim Istrefi ◽  
Cedric Ryngaert
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Rare Case ◽  
Legal Issues ◽  
State Responsibility ◽  
Due Diligence ◽  
Prison Sentence ◽  
Right To Life ◽  
Fourth Section ◽  
European Court ◽  
The Right

Judgment: European Court of Human Rights, Makuchyan and Minasyan v Azerbaijan and Hungary 17247/13 (ECtHR, 26 May 2020) Judgment (Merits and Just Satisfaction). Section of the Court: Chamber (Fourth Section). Applicable Convention Rights: Article 2 echr – violation of procedural obligations by Azerbaijan, no violation of substantive obligations by Azerbaijan, and no violation of procedural obligations by Hungary. Article 14 echr and Article 2 echr – violation by Azerbaijan. Article 38 – no violation by Azerbaijan or Hungary. Primary Legal Issues: Did Azerbaijan acknowledge and adopt the conduct of R.S. in question as its own, and does that violate substantive obligations under Article 2 echr; Did Azerbaijan violate the procedural limb of Article 2 by pardoning and releasing R.S. following his transfer from Hungary to Azerbaijan to serve the prison sentence; Did Hungary violate the procedural limb of Article 2 because of failing to secure specific diplomatic assurances that Azerbaijan will not release R.S. upon his transfer. Link to Case: <http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-202524>.

scholarly journals Life sentence penalty and extradition under article 3 of the ECHR: A leading case of the European Court of Human Rights

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dr.Sc. Mario Antinucci
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Severe Form ◽  
European Convention ◽  
Life Imprisonment ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
Criminal Justice Reform ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
European Court ◽  
Life Sentence ◽  
The Moment

Life sentence penalty covers a diverse range of practices, from the most severe form of life imprisonment without parole, in which a person is sentenced to die in prison so long as their sentence stands, to more indeterminate sentences in which at the time of sentencing it is not clear how long the sentenced person will spend in prison. Dealing with the question whether the extradition of a person to a foreign state where is accused of a crime for which a sentence of life imprisonment can be imposed can potentially violate article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights.What all these sentences have in common, however, is that at the time the sentence is passed, a person is liable to be detained for the rest of his or her natural life. We all know “The United Nations Standard Minimum Rules” and relevant international instruments on the rehabilitation of imprisonment, but at the moment more than 73 States in the world retain life imprisonment as a penalty for offences committed while under the age of 18. General perspective of criminal justice reform in Latin America should take into a right account the meaning of life - imprisonment penalty under article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

scholarly journals Deprivation of Liberty and Human Dignity in the Case-Law of the European Court of Human Rights

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Spano
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Case Law ◽  
European Convention ◽  
Penal Policy ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
European Court ◽  
Life Sentence

In its landmark 2013 judgment of Vinter and Others v. the United Kingdom, the European Court of Human Rights held that a life sentence which is not de jure and de facto reducible amounts to a breach of the prohibition of inhuman and degrading punishment, as enshrined in Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The author, a judge of the Strasbourg Court, analyses the Vinter judgment both as it stands alone as well as how it fits into and, now, influences the Court’s case-law on Article 3 and 5 of the Convention, before reviewing the procedural requirements laid down by the Court for a ‘Vinter review’ of life sentences. In doing so, the author examines the underlying tensions between the conception of penal policy as falling within the exclusive domain of domestic decision-making and the individualistic and dignitarian notion of human rights in which the Convention system is firmly grounded. The article is based on the 2016 Bergen Lecture on Criminal Law and Criminal Justice which the author gave on 26 October 2016 at the Faculty of Law, University of Bergen. 

Free Life after Life Imprisonment as a Human Right under the European Convention: European Court of Human Rights, Grand Chamber, Judgment of 9 July 2013, Vinter and Others v. The United Kingdom

2013 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 501-512 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marek Szydło
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
National Court ◽  
European Convention ◽  
Human Right ◽  
National Courts ◽  
European Court ◽  
Life Sentence ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Grand Chamber ◽  
Life Sentences

The recent judgment of the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (‘the ECtHR’ or ‘the Court’) in Vinter and Others reflects a very significant change in the Court's attitude to those actions of the states parties to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (‘the Convention’ or ‘the ECHR’) that consist in the imposition and further execution of whole life sentences. In this judgment, the Court concluded that Article 3 of the Convention – which prohibits torture, inhuman or degrading punishment – requires the reducibility of all whole life sentences as imposed by national courts, in the sense of a review mechanism which allows domestic authorities to conclude whether in the course of a life sentence the legitimate peno-logical grounds justifying the further incarceration of a life prisoner still exist. Moreover, such a mechanism or possibility for review of a whole life sentence must be provided for by a national law and, consequently, must be known to a life prisoner already at the moment of imposition of the whole life sentence. What is also important, a life prisoner, at the outset of his/her sentence, must know when (i.e. after how many years) and under what conditions a review of his/her sentence will take place or may be sought, and what he/she must do to be considered for release. Otherwise, the very imposition of a life sentence by a national court infringes Article 3 of the Convention.

WHOLE LIFE ORDERS: ARTICLE 3 COMPLIANT AFTER ALL

2017 ◽  
Vol 76 (2) ◽  
pp. 230-233
Author(s):  
Jonathan Bild
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Secretary Of State ◽  
European Court ◽  
Life Sentence ◽  
Domestic Courts ◽  
Family Home ◽  
Grand Chamber ◽  
Release From Prison

The exercise of the Secretary of State's power to release from prison a murderer sentenced to a whole life order would be controversial and politically fraught. The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights’ (“ECtHR”) succinct summary of the offending leading to the whole life order imposed on the applicant in Hutchinson v United Kingdom (57592/08), Judgment of 17 January 2017, demonstrates quite why a Secretary of State would find exercising their compassionate release powers so politically unpalatable: “In October 1983, the applicant broke into a family home, where he stabbed to death a man, his wife and their adult son. He then repeatedly raped their 18-year-old daughter, having first dragged her past her father's body” (at [10]). Yet the power to release life sentence prisoners on compassionate grounds under s. 30 of the Crime (Sentences) Act 1997 has become the fig leaf covering a more fundamental disagreement between the domestic courts and the ECtHR: whether it is possible to commit offences of such gravity that, for the purposes of retribution and deterrence, a person must forfeit their right to liberty for the duration of their life.

scholarly journals Medically assisted procreation and fast-moving developments in science and law: ethical and legal issues in heterologous procreation in Italy

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Paola Delbon ◽  
Adelaide Conti
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Fast Moving ◽  
Legal Issues ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Constitutional Court ◽  
Medically Assisted Procreation ◽  
European Court ◽  
Assisted Procreation ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Ethical And Legal Issues

In Italy, a law on Medically Assisted Procreation was passed in 2004. In 2014 the Constitutional Court declared section 4 para. 3 of this Law to be unconstitutional in the part where it prohibits couples from accessing heterologous medically assisted procreation techniques if a condition which causes complete, irreversible sterility or infertility has been diagnosed. The fast-moving developments in science and law, and the deep implications that the application of <em>new</em> techniques − which involve in the context of procreation a third person − can have in terms of protection of health and not only, makes it appropriate to keep under review this area, taking into account the pronouncements of the European Court of Human Rights and regulations in European countries.

Life Meaning Life: Is There Any Hope of Release for Prisoners Serving Whole Life Orders?

2011 ◽  
Vol 75 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seema Kandelia
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
European Convention ◽  
Life Meaning ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
European Court ◽  
Life Sentence ◽  
Domestic Courts ◽  
Degrading Treatment

This article reviews the system of whole life orders in England and Wales, looking in particular at whether such sentences constitute inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment contrary to Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. This issue came before the European Court of Human Rights in 2008 in the case of Kafkaris v Cyprus. The court held that a whole life tariff would not violate Article 3 as long as there was some possibility that a life sentence was de jure or de facto reducible. The possible grounds for the release of a prisoner serving a whole life sentence in England and Wales is, however, extremely limited. This article will assess to what extent the release procedures regarding whole lifers meet the criteria laid down by the European and domestic courts and whether there is any realistic hope of release for prisoners sentenced to whole life orders.

THE WHOLE-LIFE SENTENCE IN ENGLAND AND WALES

2015 ◽  
Vol 74 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-4
Author(s):  
Jonathan Bild
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
European Court ◽  
Life Sentence ◽  
Court Of Appeal

THERE can be little doubt that there is disagreement between the Court of Appeal and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) over the whole-life sentence in England and Wales. Despite evolving jurisprudence on the issue of life-long detention emanating from Strasbourg, the Court of Appeal has readily upheld the English whole-life sentence in recent years. It has been doing so by adopting a very wide interpretation of the Secretary of State's power to order the compassionate release of a life sentence prisoner.

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