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Following Russia’s exclusion from the Council of Europe on 16 March 2022, as a result of its aggression against Ukraine, the Russian Federation will cease to be a High Contracting Party to the European Convention on Human Rights on 16 September 2022. “Russia’s aggression against Ukraine continues to bring pain and suffering to millions of people in Ukraine and all over Europe. We once again urge the Russian leadership to immediately stop the war in Ukraine and to put an end to the ongoing repression of its own people,” said the  Secretary General  of the 46-state Council of Europe Marija Pejčinović Burić. “It is truly regrettable that, with its departure from the European Convention on Human Rights, Russia will further isolate itself from the democratic world and deprive more than 140 million Russian citizens of the protection offered by the Convention. “The Council of Europe will continue to support and engage with human rights defenders, democratic forces, free media and indepe

In Chamber judgment (8/9/2022) in the case of Drelon v. France (application no. 3153/16) the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been a violation of Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life) of the European Convention on Human Rights.  The applications concerned, first, the collection and retention, by the French blood donation service (EFS) of personal data reflecting the applicant’s presumed sexual orientation – together with the rejection of his criminal complaint for discrimination – and, second, the refusal of his offers to donate blood, together with the dismissal by the Conseil d’État of his judicial review application challenging an order of 5 April 2016 which amended the selection criteria for blood donors.  Addressing the first application, the Court found that the collection and retention of sensitive personal data constituted an interference with the applicant’s right to respect for his private life. That interference had a fores

According to the Judgment of the European Court of Justice in Case C-624/20 (Staatssecretaris van Justitie en Veiligheid), a third-country national who enjoys a right of residence as a family member of an EU citizen may acquire long-term resident status where he or she satisfies the conditions provided for by EU law. In 2013, E. K., a Ghanaian national, obtained a residence permit in the Netherlands as a family member of a Union citizen (Art. 20 TFEU), on account of the existence of a relationship of dependency between that citizen and her son, who holds Netherlands nationality. In 2019, she applied for a long-term resident’s EU residence permit on the basis of the national legislation transposing an EU directive.  (Council Directive 2003/109/EC of 25 November 2003 concerning the status of third-country nationals who are long-term residents (OJ 2004 L 16, p. 44). However, the Netherlands authorities refused her application, on the ground that the right of residence as a family member o

On 9 September 2022, the Kingdom of Sweden, invoking Article 63 of the Statute of the Court, filed in the Registry of the Court a declaration of intervention in the case concerning Allegations of Genocide under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Ukraine v. Russian Federation).  Pursuant to Article 63 of the Statute, whenever the construction of a convention to which States other than those concerned in the case are parties is in question, each of these States has the right to intervene in the proceedings.  In this case, the construction given by the judgment of the Court will be equally binding upon them. To avail itself of the right of intervention conferred by Article 63 of the Statute, Sweden relies on its status as a party to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (the “Genocide Convention”).  In its declaration of intervention, Sweden emphasizes that “the prohibition of genocide is a jus cogens norm in intern

The European Ombudsman inquiry into the Commission’s handling of a request for text messages between its President and the CEO of a pharmaceutical company is a wake-up call for all EU institutions about ensuring accountability in an era of instant messaging. One year after the initial request by a journalist, the Commission has still not clarified whether messages reported to concern major vaccine procurement deals exist and whether the public is entitled to see them. The Ombudsman had asked the Commission, in a finding of maladministration in January, to conduct a more thorough search for the text messages. The Commission’s recent response failed to say whether it had looked directly and correctly for the text messages and if not, why not. While the response recognised that work-related text messages can be EU documents, it reiterated that the Commission’s internal policy is, in effect, not to register text messages. The Ombudsman has closed  the inquiry  and upheld her find

by George Kazoleas, Lawyer LL.M. The majority of lawsuits against doctors allege medical errors that resulted in the death of patients or in other cases the deterioration of their health. A lawsuit filed a few years ago against a doctor in Germany involved an accusation against him of the opposite: That the doctor was responsible for prolonging the patient's life while he should have ended it. Facts of the case The patient, born in 1929, had been suffering from a dementia syndrome since 1997 and until his death in 2011 was under the supervision of an attorney, which included both his health and personal care. Since 2006 the patient has been living in a nursing home. During his stay in hospital in September 2006, he became ill due to malnutrition and with the consent of the lawyer, a catheter was inserted into him, through which he was artificially fed until his death. The defendant, a general doctor, began to care for the patient in the spring of 2007. The patient’s health deterior

The case of Paparrigopoulos v. Greece (application no. 61657/16) concerned proceedings for the judicial determination of paternity of the applicant’s daughter. The applicant complained in particular that domestic law had not afforded him the opportunity to acknowledge paternity voluntarily and that this had had the consequence of limiting his parental responsibility in respect of his daughter.  In Chamber's judgment dated 30.6.2022, the European Court of Human Rights unanimously found the following violations: 

In ECtHR judgment in the case of Simić v. Bosnia and Herzegovina (application no. 39764/20) 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 a joke that the applicant, a lawyer, told in court to illustrate his criticism of the proceedings in which he was representing a client. As a result, he was fined for contempt of court. The Court found in particular that the domestic courts had failed to give sufficient weight to the context in which the joke and critical remarks had been made and had not provided relevant and sufficient reasons to justify the interference with the applicant’s right to freedom of expression. In particular, the applicant’s joke, made only in the courtroom and not to the media, had been meant as a criticism of the way in which the rules of evidence had been applied in the case he was defending and had not been intended to insult

The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) and the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) published their  Joint Opinion  on the proposed Data Act. The EDPS and EDPB welcome the efforts made to ensure that the Data Act does not affect the current data protection framework. At the same time, since the Data Act would also apply to highly sensitive personal data, the EDPS and EDPB urge the co-legislators to ensure that data subjects’ rights are duly protected. The access, use and sharing of personal data by entities other than data subjects should occur in full compliance with all data protection principles and rules. Moreover, products should be designed in such a way that data subjects are offered the possibility to use devices anonymously or in the least privacy intrusive way possible.

Governments need to step up their efforts and coordination to combat money laundering and terrorist financing by adopting stricter regulation and supervision of the virtual assets sector and the specialised “gatekeeper” professions, such as lawyers, accountants and other services providers who often help launderers, according to the Council of Europe’s anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing body  MONEYVAL . In its  annual report for 2021 , MONEYVAL examines the action required to improve the combat against money laundering. It also assesses compliance with international standards and developments in the legal and institutional frameworks to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing in the 34 jurisdictions it monitors.