Islandness and the European Court of Human Rights:Marooning Rights on Islands?

Some 80 million people live on European islands. It thus comes as no surprise that a number of cases brought before the European Court of Human Rights developed on and/or pertain to islands. What is surprising, though, is that this jurisprudential corpus has not been explored with a view to assessing whether islandness has or should have a role in the implementation of the European Convention on Human Rights on islands. The present paper contemplates the strengths of an islandness-based approach in the implementation of human rights through the mapping of the weaknesses, the potentials and the lost opportunities in the case law of the Court with respect to such an approach. In this context, findings from the field of Island Studies are also considered. By focusing on the ECHR habitat, the present paper exemplifies, in particular, the untapped potential of an islandness-based approach in the development of international human rights law in general

Article 18 ECHR as a New Pillar of Judicial Independence and Separation of Powers

The case-law of the European Court of Human Rights on Article 18 of the European Convention on Human Rights has been significantly evolving the past years. In light, of this jurisprudential evolution, the present paper explores the connection between Article 18 violations and the principles of judicial independence and separation of powers. It explores, in particular, the extent to which such violations operate as ‘barometer’ and, in some cases, as ‘verdict’ even on the sanity of judicial independence and separation of powers within a State

Islandness and the European Court of Human Rights:Marooning Rights on Islands?

Some 80 million people live on European islands. It thus comes as no surprise that a number of cases brought before the European Court of Human Rights developed on and/or pertain to islands. What is surprising, though, is that this jurisprudential corpus has not been explored with a view to assessing whether islandness has or should have a role in the implementation of the European Convention on Human Rights on islands. The present paper contemplates the strengths of an islandness-based approach in the implementation of human rights through the mapping of the weaknesses, the potentials and the lost opportunities in the case law of the Court with respect to such an approach. In this context, findings from the field of Island Studies are also considered. By focusing on the ECHR habitat, the present paper exemplifies, in particular, the untapped potential of an islandness-based approach in the development of international human rights law in general

In Flagrante Delicto and Procedural Safeguards for Judges: How Far Does the European Court of Human Rights Go with the Separation of Powers? (obs. ECtHR, 16 April 2019, Alparslan Altan v Turkey, N° 12778/17)

This article explores the reasoning of the European Court of Human Rights in the case of Alparslan Altan v Turkey, which concerns the procedural safeguards applicable to the removal of judges from judicial office. In the aftermath of the declaration of a state of emergency in Turkey in 2016, M. Altan, who presided on the Turkish Constitutional Court was arrested and taken into police custody without prior lifting of the immunity afforded to judges under domestic law. In finding a violation of Article 5 (1) of the European Convention on Human Rights, the Court emphasised, with explicit reference to the separation of powers in democratic societies, the need to maintain, even during a state of emergency, the procedural safeguards afforded to judges in order to ensure they effectively carry out their judicial duties. Alparslan Altan adds to the evolution of the Court’s case law both on the separation of powers in general and on the separation between the executive and the judiciary in Turkey