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In Chamber judgment in the case of Al Alo v. Slovakia (application no. 32084/19) the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been a violation of Article 6 §§ 1 and 3 (d) (right to a fair trial/right to obtain attendance and examination of witnesses) of the European Convention on Human Rights. 

By Efi Thoma, Lawyer LL.M. “Blind belief in authority is the greatest enemy of truth”, said Albert Einstein. In Huxley’s Brave New World, it was predicted the emergence of a “controlling oligarchy” who would conduct similar experiments on human beings to condition docility and minimize the potential for civil unrest. In Brave New World, the main “reward” used to condition subservience via positive reinforcement was a super-drug called Soma. “The World Controllers”, writes Huxley, “encouraged the systematic drugging of their own citizens for the benefit of the state.”

European Commission refers United Kingdom to Court of Justice of the European Union over a UK judgment allowing enforcement of an arbitral award granting illegal State aid. The Commission has decided to refer the United Kingdom to the Court of Justice of the European Union in relation to a judgment of its Supreme Court of 19 February 2020 allowing enforcement of an arbitral award ordering Romania to pay compensation to investors, despite a 2015 Commission decision having found that the compensation infringed EU State aid rules.  According to the UK Supreme Court, on the basis of  Article351 TFEU , the UK's EU law obligations at the time did not stand in the way of its alleged international obligation to recognise and enforce the arbitral award under the International Convention for the Settlement of Investment Disputes. When the UK Supreme Court delivered its judgment, proceedings concerning the validity of the Commission's 2015 decision were pending before the Union Courts.

A new report from the International Bar Association (IBA) has revealed that of 3,000 young lawyers – defined as aged 40 and under – surveyed around the world, a significant number of them are either leaving or considering leaving their current job in the next five years. Fifty-four per cent of survey respondents reported that they were ‘somewhat likely’ or ‘highly likely’ to move to a new workplace, 33 per cent wanted to switch to a different area of the legal profession and 20 per cent were thinking about leaving the profession entirely.  The IBA Young Lawyers’ Report is based on the results of an international survey carried out by the IBA’s Young Lawyers’ Committee (YLC) and Legal Policy & Research Unit (LPRU) in collaboration with market research company Acritas (part of Thomson Reuters). The research was undertaken to identify young lawyers’ priorities, interests, and concerns around their jobs and future career plans; whether any such concerns are being adequately addressed

The European Ombudsman has criticised how the Commission handled a request for public access to text messages between its President and the CEO of a pharmaceutical company. She has now asked it to do a more extensive search for the relevant messages. In response to the public access request by a journalist, the Commission said no record had been kept of such messages, which were related to the purchase of COVID-19 vaccines.  The Ombudsman inquiry revealed that the Commission did not explicitly ask the President’s personal office (cabinet) to look for text messages. Instead, it asked her cabinet to look for documents that fulfil the Commission’s internal criteria for recording - text messages are not currently considered to meet these criteria. The Ombudsman found that this amounted to maladministration. “The narrow way in which this public access request was treated meant that no attempt was made to identify if any text messages existed. This falls short of reasonable expec

The Committee of Ministers of the 47-nation Council of Europe has referred the  Kavala v. Turkey  case to the European Court of Human Rights to determine whether Turkey has failed to fulfil its obligation to implement the  Court’s judgment  in this case, in line with proceedings provided for under Article 46.4 of the European Convention on Human Rights. In an  Interim Resolution  adopted on 2.2.2022, the Committee found that, by failing to ensure Mr Kavala’s immediate release, Turkey is refusing to abide by the Court’s final judgment in his case. This view is disputed by the Turkish authorities. In December 2019, the European Court ruled that Mr Kavala’s detention took place in the absence of sufficient evidence that he had committed an offence. It found that his arrest and pre-trial detention pursued an ulterior purpose, namely to silence him and dissuade other human rights defenders, and that the time taken by the Turkish Constitutional Court to review his complaint was insuffici

On 3 January 2022, the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) notified Europol of an  order  to delete data concerning individuals with no established link to a criminal activity (Data Subject Categorisation). This Decision concludes the EDPS’ inquiry launched in 2019. In the context of its inquiry, the EDPS admonished Europol in September 2020 for the continued storage of large volumes of data with no Data Subject Categorisation, which poses a risk to individuals’ fundamental rights. While some measures have been put in place by Europol since then, Europol has not complied with the EDPS’ requests to define an appropriate data retention period to filter and to extract the personal data permitted for analysis under the Europol Regulation. This means that Europol was keeping this data for longer than necessary, contrary to the principles of data minimisation and storage limitation, enshrined in the Europol Regulation.   In light of the above, the EDPS has decided to use its corre

In Chamber's judgment in the case of Mehmet Çiftçi and Suat İncedere v. Turkey (applications nos. 21266/19 and 21774/19) the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been: a violation of Article 10 (freedom of expression) of the European Convention on Human Rights.  The case concerned the sanction of one month’s deprivation of means of communication imposed on the applicants by the prison management for singing anthems and reading out poems (in December 2016) in memory of the prisoners who had lost their lives during the “Return to life” operation conducted by the authorities in prisons in December 2000.  The Court found that the disciplinary sanction imposed on the applicants constituted interference with their right to freedom of expression. It held that, notwithstanding the mildness of the sanction imposed on the applicants, the Government had not demonstrated that the reasons cited by the national authorities as justification for the measure complained o

In its decision in the case of Lee v. the United Kingdom (application no. 18860/19) the European Court of Human Rights has, by a majority, declared the application inadmissible. The decision is final. The case concerned the refusal by a Christian-run bakery to make a cake with the words “Support Gay Marriage” and the QueerSpace logo on it which the applicant had ordered and the proceedings that had followed. The applicant, Gareth Lee, is a British national who was born in 1969 and lives in Belfast (United Kingdom). He is associated with QueerSpace, an organisation for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community in Northern Ireland. Although same-sex marriage had been enacted in the rest of the UK in 2014, it was made legal in Northern Ireland only in 2020.  In 2014, Mr Lee ordered a cake for a gay activist event set to take place not long after the Northern Irish Assembly had narrowly rejected legalising same-sex marriage for the third time. He ordered it from Asher’s bakery.

The EIB, the European Union's bank, is seeking to recruit for its Legal Directorate (JU) – Legal Department, Corporate (CORP) – Regulatory Matters Division (REG) at its headquarters in Luxembourg, a (Associate) Lawyer - Specialized in Regulatory and Governance Matters. This is a full - time position at grade 4/5. The term of this contract will be 4 years. Panel interviews are anticipated for end February 2022. The EIB offers fixed-term contracts of up to a maximum of 6 years, according to business needs, with a possibility to convert to a permanent contract, subject to organisational requirements and individual performance. The successful candidate will deliver the legal services required by the Bank in the area of EU and international banking and financial regulations and institutional law, including in relation to prudential and governance regulatory requirements and rules. Deadline for applications: 31st January 2022. More details and applications here (photo: freepik.com)

The Council of Europe’s European Commission for the efficiency of justice (CEPEJ) has adopted an  action plan on digitalisation for a better justice for 2022-2025 , aiming at reconciling the efficiency of new technologies and the respect of fundamental rights. This action plan sets the major orientations of the CEPEJ, whose main objective is always to place the user at the centre of the concerns, even in a digitised environment or in the course of digitalisation, by providing the user effective and quality public service of justice. These orientations are articulated around major axes aiming at ensuring that justice is always transparent, collaborative, human, people-centred and accessible, enlightened, and finally responsible and responsive. The CEPEJ has also adopted a  revised roadmap  for ensuring an appropriate follow-up of its  European Ethical Charter on the use of artificial intelligence in judicial systems and their environment . Finally, the CEPEJ has adopted guidelines o