scholarly journals All You Need Is Time? Discrepancies between the European Court of Human Rights Case Law and Liberal Normative Theory on Long-Term Migrants

2017 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 447-497
Author(s):  
Başak Çalı

This article, departing from Gila Stopler's ‘Rights in Immigration: The Veil as a Test Case’, published in theIsraeli Law Reviewin 2010, reviews how the time spent by a long-term migrant, irrespective of legal status, normatively figures in liberal theories of migration and in the case law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). The article detects that in contemporary liberal theories, assigning an independent normative value to time spent by the migrant in the receiving country is a key move in balancing the competing interests of migrants and of the migrant-receiving country, where the right of the country to regulate migration is taken as given: the longer a migrant is present in a country, the stronger her interests become in receiving citizenship status or treatment akin to citizens. The article then surveys the case law of the ECtHR relating to long-term migrants. It finds that time is often one of multiple normative considerations in the balancing exercise, in conjunction with whether a migrant has achieved social integration in the migrant-receiving country and whether the right of the receiving community to regulate migration for reasons of affording citizenship, national security or distributive justice is paramount. The article argues that the lack of an independent normative weight afforded to time in the case law of the ECtHR is not merely a tension between the translation of liberal normative theory to legal policy. It also shows a deeper tension in liberal theories of migration between national liberalism and cosmopolitan liberalism.

Author(s):  
Başak Çalı ◽  
Stewart Cunningham

This chapter analyses the general interpretative outlook of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) on the rights of long-term migrants facing deportation. It shows that this outlook is strongly marked by recognising the primacy of state discretion in the field of migration policy, while at the same time ensuring that long-term migrants are given access to the protection of the Convention. The chapter then surveys the case law of the ECtHR related to the deportation of long-term migrants, identifying the factors that the Court employs in balancing its dual commitment to states and long-term migrants. The central argument of the chapter is that the Court’s approach to the right to stay of long-term migrants falls short of adequately recognising the unique position of long-term migrants and is unable to differentiate between those who have lived for lengthy periods in host states and any other category of alien in those states. The Court’s recent emphasis on principled deference to domestic courts in balancing the rights of long-term migrants and host states further undercuts any future progressive developments in the field of right to stay for long-term migrants.


Author(s):  
Eva Brems

A reflection on the human rights of migrants in Europe cannot avoid the issue of racism. Resistance to immigration in Europe is fuelled to a large extent by resistance to the ‘otherness’ of migrants. More specifically, the ‘otherness’ that is most central to today’s debates on migration and integration in Europe is Islam. Thus, racism is commonly expressed as Islamophobia, and Islamophobia is both expressed in, and fuelled by, rights-restrictive rules that specifically target Islamic practices. The focus of the analysis in this chapter is on the messages the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) is sending to national authorities regarding their approaches to multicultural conflicts over Islamic minority practices. This is situated in the framework of ‘positive subsidiarity’. It is argued that, even when the margin of appreciation is a wide one, the Court has a responsibility to offer guidance to states parties on three levels: substantive, procedural, and discursive. The chapter then explores the messages sent by the Court to states parties in the field of the restriction of Islamic minority practices. First it does so by comparing what is widely considered the Court’s ‘worst practice’ in this field—the face veil cases—with its ‘best practice’ in a different, but comparable field—the ‘gay propaganda’ cases. After that, the chapter continues the analysis on the basis of a broader case law corpus that includes all cases regarding the accommodation of Islamic practice in countries in which Islam is a minority religion.


Author(s):  
Kristina Hatas

This case list offers a guide to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) case law pertaining to migration. While the case list does not cite every ECtHR decision related to migration, it offers a comprehensive overview of important instances of case law indicative of the ECtHR’s jurisprudence on migration. These are, for example, Grand Chamber decisions, or cases cited by the Court in its more recent case law. In addition to including key cases cited in the preceding chapters of this book, this list also includes cases identified in thematic case law guides of the ECHR and recent jurisprudence in the area of migration, notified by the ECHR in monthly updates. The cases are organised in thematic blocks, which in turn appear in the order in which they pertain to the different temporal stages of migration, from entering the destination country to the right to remain and the cultural and religious rights of long-term migrants.


Author(s):  
R. Havrik

In the scientific article the author conducted a scientific study of the protection of family rights of persons who are married or other family unions in the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, in particular such family unions as de facto marriage, separation, civil partnership, we come to the following conclusions. This legal status is recognized by the European Court of Human Rights as conferring the right to protection against interference with family life, ie it is a family, similar to how a family arises as a result of a registered marriage. In this case, according to the court, the concept of "family" includes the actual family relationship, when the parties live together outside of marriage. A child born as a result of such a relationship is a member of the family from birth and due to the fact of birth. There is a connection between a child and his or her parents that is equivalent to family life, even if at the time of his or her birth the parents no longer lived together or their relationship has ended. Cohabitation is usually a prerequisite for family life, but in exceptional cases, other factors may indicate that specific relationships are stable enough to be considered as actual family ties. Another type of family union - marriage during the period of separate residence of the spouses, in the case law of the European Court of Human Rights is somewhat weak and usually concerns the possibility to use the procedure of separation, but the court recognizes that the spouses have an inalienable right to initiating such a procedure. Until 2010, the European Court of Human Rights generally showed a rather restrained attitude towards this type of relationship as same-sex, not recognizing them as family, but after 2010, given the rapid liberalization of the prevailing public morality regarding same-sex relations in Europe, the European Court on human rights could not deny that the relationship of such couples is essentially "family life".


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuliya Samovich

The manual is devoted to making individual complaints to the European Court of human rights: peculiarities of realization of the right to appeal, conditions of admissibility and the judicial procedure of the European Court of Human Rights. The author analyses some “autonomous concepts” used in the court's case law and touches upon the possibility of limiting the right to judicial protection. The article deals with the formation and development of the individual's rights to international judicial protection, as well as the protection of human rights in universal quasi-judicial international bodies and regional judicial institutions of the European Union and the Organization of American States. This publication includes a material containing an analysis of recent changes in the legal regulation of the Institute of individual complaints. The manual is recommended for students of educational organizations of higher education, studying in the areas of bachelor's and master's degree “Jurisprudence”.


2014 ◽  
pp. 33-48
Author(s):  
Przemysław Florjanowicz-Błachut

The core function of the judiciary is the administration of justice through delivering judgments and other decisions. The crucial role for its acceptance and legitimization by not only lawyers, but also individulas (parties) and the hole society plays judicial reasoning. It should reflect on judge’s independence within the exercise of his office and show also judicial self-restraint or activism. The axiology and the standards of proper judicial reasoning are anchored both in constitutional and supranational law and case-law. Polish Constitutional Tribunal derives a duty to give reasoning from the right to a fair trial – right to be heard and bring own submissions before the court (Article 45 § 1 of the Constitution), the right to appeal against judgments and decisions made at first stage (Article 78), the rule of two stages of the court proceedings (Article 176) and rule of law clause (Article 2), that comprises inter alia right to due process of law and the rule of legitimate expactation / the protection of trust (Vertrauensschutz). European Court of Human Rights derives this duty to give reasons from the guarantees of the right to a fair trial enshrined in Article 6 § 1 of European Convention of Human Rights. In its case-law the ECtHR, taking into account the margin of appreciation concept, formulated a number of positive and negative requirements, that should be met in case of proper reasoning. The obligation for courts to give sufficient reasons for their decisions is also anchored in European Union law. European Court of Justice derives this duty from the right to fair trial enshrined in Articles 6 and 13 of the ECHR and Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. Standards of the courts reasoning developed by Polish constitutional court an the European courts (ECJ and ECtHR) are in fact convergent and coherent. National judges should take them into consideration in every case, to legitimize its outcome and enhance justice delivery.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Léon E Dijkman

Abstract Germany is one of few jurisdictions with a bifurcated patent system, under which infringement and validity of a patent are established in separate proceedings. Because validity proceedings normally take longer to conclude, it can occur that remedies for infringement are imposed before a decision on the patent’s validity is available. This phenomenon is colloquially known as the ‘injunction gap’ and has been the subject of increasing criticism over the past years. In this article, I examine the injunction gap from the perspective of the right to a fair trial enshrined in Art. 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights. I find that the case law of the European Court of Human Rights interpreting this provision supports criticism of the injunction gap, because imposing infringement remedies with potentially far-reaching consequences before the validity of a patent has been established by a court of law arguably violates defendants’ right to be heard. Such reliance on the patent office’s grant decision is no longer warranted in the light of contemporary invalidation rates. I conclude that the proliferation of the injunction gap should be curbed by an approach to a stay of proceedings which is in line with the test for stays as formulated by Germany’s Federal Supreme Court. Under this test, courts should stay infringement proceedings until the Federal Patent Court or the EPO’s Board of Appeal have ruled on the validity of a patent whenever it is more likely than not that it will be invalidated.


2009 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 353-375 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Hilson

Abstract The aim of this chapter is to provide an initial attempt at analysis of the place of risk within the case law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and, where appropriate, the Commission, focusing on the related issues of public concern and perception of risk and how the ECHR dispute bodies have addressed these. It will argue that, for quite some time, the Court has tended to adopt a particular, liberal conception of risk in which it stresses the right of applicants to be provided with information on risk to enable them to make effective choices. Historically, where public concerns in relation to particular risks are greater than those of scientific experts—nuclear radiation being the prime example in the case law—the Court has adopted a particularly restrictive approach, stressing the need for risk to be ‘imminent’ in order to engage the relevant Convention protections. However, more recently, there have been emerging but as yet still rather undeveloped signs of the Court adopting a more sensitive approach to risk. One possible explanation for this lies in the Court’s growing awareness of and reference to the Aarhus Convention. What we have yet to see—because there has not yet been a recent, post-Aarhus example involving such facts—is a case where no imminent risk is evident. Nevertheless, the chapter concludes that the Court’s old-style approach to public concern in such cases, in which it rode roughshod over rights to judicial review, is out of line with the third, access to justice limb of Aarhus.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 288-319
Author(s):  
Jamil Ddamulira Mujuzi

Although EU states use the European Arrest Warrant (EAW) for the purpose of surrendering a person who is accused of committing an offence or who has been convicted of an offence, they use extradition when dealing with countries outside the EU. However, they use surrender when dealing with the International Criminal Court (ICC). Thus, extradition is one of the ways in which African and European countries (especially EU members) are cooperating in the fight against crime. Case law from courts in some African and European countries and from the European Court of Human Rights, the Human Rights Committee and the Committee against Torture, shows that extraditions between African and European countries have been delayed or hampered by allegations of human rights violations in the requesting state. These allegations have focused on mainly two rights: the right to a fair trial and the right to freedom from torture. The European Court of Human Rights has held that the extradition of a person should not go ahead if his or her trial was or will amount to a flagrant denial of justice or where there is a real risk of being subjected to torture. Although African courts and international human rights bodies have also held that extradition should not go ahead where there is a real risk that the person will be subjected to torture or where his/her trial will be unfair, they have not adopted the ‘flagrant denial of justice’ test. The case law also shows that some people have challenged the legal basis for their extradition. This article highlights this case law and suggests ways in which some of the challenges associated with extradition could be overcome. The article demonstrates that courts in some African and European countries have considered the nature of extradition enquiries. In some countries, such as Kenya, courts have held that extradition enquiries are criminal proceedings. However, in the United Kingdom, courts have held that extradition enquiries are criminal proceedings of a special type. There is consensus that extradition enquiries are not civil proceedings.


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