Tag Archives: Topic: Council of Europe

PR Newswire (FRC): “In a decision involving challenges to Ireland’s abortion laws, the European Court of Human Rights today held that the European Convention on Human Rights does not contain a general right to abortion . . . In November, 2008, Family Research Council, the Alliance Defense Fund (FRC’s counsel), the European Centre for Law and Justice, and the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children filed an amicus brief supporting Ireland.”

FRC Blog: “Tomorrow, the Council of Europe, European Court of Human Rights will issue its opinion on a pivotal abortion case, ABC v. Ireland . . . In November, 2008, FRC joined with the Alliance Defense Fund and other pro-life, pro-family groups to provide written observations to the court.”

LifeNews: “Previously, [Roger Kiska], who is based in Europe and a legal counsel for the American pro-life legal group Alliance Defense Fund, told LifeNews.com the case could set an official policy on the issue for Europe.”

Independent Catholic News: “The European Court of Human Rights is issuing a ruling this week on whether Ireland’s restrictions on abortion violate women’s human rights. The ruling, which could have significant implications for Irish abortion law, is based on a case taken by three women in Ireland who say their health was put at risk by being forced to go abroad for abortions, according to a report in the Irish Times, issued by Lifezine today.”

“The decision means that the European Court of Human Rights will not force states to allow same-sex couples to marry, for now at least.”

LifeSiteNews: “Pro-life and pro-family advocates have scored two major political victories in the same month in two different international organizations. Following the defeat of the McCafferty Report – which attempted to abolish the rights of European doctors to refuse to commit abortions – at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, pro-life advocates are now declaring a victory over the International Planned Parenthood Federation at the UN.”

LifeSiteNews: “An attempt to erase the conscience rights of EU health care workers has been soundly defeated at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) this evening. In a vote of 56 to 51, the PACE rejected the proposal of Christine McCafferty, a British politician and abortion activist, to “regulate” conscientious objectors to abortion across Europe.”

Center for Reproductive Rights Press Release

“This Thursday the Council of Europe, a transnational body created in 1949 to promote democracy and human rights, will vote on a resolution and series of recommendations on conscience protection.”

Iona Institute: “The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) will vote next week on a report which could drastically weaken freedom of conscience for healthcare professionals across Europe. The report says that conscientious objection should be limited to doctors and nurses but not to medical institutions like hospitals, that doctors and nurses with an objection to a procedure such as abortion must refer the patient to someone who does not have such an objection, and that in ‘emergencies’ they must carry out the procedures themselves.”

Report: Women’s access to lawful medical care: the problem of unregulated use of conscientious objection

European Centre for Law and Justice Press Release

Andreas Follesdal, The Legitimacy of International Human Rights Review: The Case of the European Court of Human Rights (December 1, 2009). Journal of Social Philosophy, Vol. 40, No. 4, pp. 595-607, Winter 2009. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1652238

“The literature concerning judicial review reveals a long list of misgivings of such constraints on domestic democratic decision making. Of concern here are some of the principled objections against the practice of international judicial review of human rights, using the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) as a suitable case.”

Peter G. Danchin, Islam in the Secular Nomos of the European Court of Human Rights (September 1, 2010). University of Maryland Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2010-41. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1670671

“The Article argues that a complex historical and normative relationship between Christianity and secularism can be seen to continue to define the modern contours and shape of the public sphere and the right to religious liberty alike and that assertions of claims of right by Muslims have thus made visible both the historical contingency and cultural particularity of these norms and forms of legal ordering. An argument is advanced which views the Court’s reasoning under Article 9 as entangled with not one but two rival liberal traditions: one dialogic which defines the right to religious liberty in strongly value pluralist terms and the public sphere in terms of social peace; the second rationalist which defines the right more narrowly in terms of autonomy and rational choice and the public sphere in terms of a particular substantive theory of justice. The Article concludes by suggesting that a better understanding of how religious freedom emerged in early modern moral and political thought will show that the second pluralist strand is deeply encoded in the logic and normative structure of Article 9 and how this may open new pathways by which to re-imagine the current limits of the Court’s jurisprudence.”

Excerpt of Professor Joseph Weiler’s argument before the European Court of Human Rights in Lautsi v. Italy: “In today’s Europe countries have opened their gates to many new residents and citizens. We owe them all the guarantees of the Convention. We owe the decency and welcome and non discrimination. But the message of tolerance towards the Other should not be translated into a message of intolerance towards one’s own identity, and the legal imperative of the Convention should not extend the justified requirement that the State guarantee negative and positive religious freedom, to the unjustified and startling proposition that the State divest itself of part of its cultural identity simply because the artefacts of such identity may be religious or of religious origin.”

UPI: “Italian authorities said they expect a ‘positive result’ in their appeal of a court ruling that banned the display of crucifixes in schools.”

Associated Press: “A European ruling banning crucifixes in Italian schools should be overturned, nine European governments said in an appeal Wednesday. … The decisions of the court — an arm of the Council of Europe, the continent’s premier human rights watchdog — are binding on the council’s 47 member states and therefore have an impact far beyond Italy.”

Yemen News Agency: “The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), which regroups deputies from 47 European member countries, has declared Wednesday its opposition to ‘a general ban’ on the niqab or burqa as this would violate womens rights to wear such clothing, according to Kuwait News Agency (KUNA).”

Asia News: “In a unanimous decision, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg ruled that Turkey must return the former Greek Orphanage on Büyükada Island, the largest of the Princes’ Islands, back to Fener Greek Patriarchate. This concludes the long legal case between the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and Turkish authorities. The case had begun in 1997 when Turkey tried to use various legal means to take the building away from the Patriarchate in order to upgrade the area without compensation.”

Astrid Kjeldgaard-Pedersen, The Evolution of the Right of Individuals to Seise the European Court of Human Rights (June 1, 2010). Journal of the History of International Law, Forthcoming. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1624467

“Paradoxically, the main reason for both the Court’s success and its current crisis is the right of petition of individuals. The present article contains a detailed inquiry into the coming into existence of this central feature of the control machinery of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR, the Convention) that was labeled a breakthrough in the field of human rights as well as in general international law.”

European Center for Law and Justice: “For the first time in the record of the ECHR, ten member States are simultaneously intervening as ‘third party’ in one single case. The case at stake is the Lautsi case – also known as the ‘crucifix case’ – which will go before the Grand Chamber of the ECHR on June 30th. The Court has communicated to the ECLJ the list of the following Member States: Armenia; Bulgaria; Cyprus; Greece; Lithuania; Malta; Monaco; San-Marino; Romania; The Russian Federation.”

National Secular Society: “The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg will rule on 30 June on whether to overturn a seven-judge panel’s ruling that crucifixes may not be displayed in Italian classrooms.” | Lautsi v. Italy on Wikipedia.

ADF Attorney Roger Kiska writing in The Philadelphia Bulletin: “Crosses or no crosses, what we are again seeing is a monolithic European court overreaching into the sovereign affairs of a nation that simply wants to manage cultural issues according to its own laws. Americans should take notice. Groups here in the U.S. wouldn’t mind one wit if the U.S. Constitution became subject to the same sort of thing. And, in fact, some of our judges have seemed to indicate that they’d be open to that. That reason together with the considerable concerns over the protection of religious liberty from outside courts are why Italy’s case is so important and why its appeal, currently in motion, should prevail.” | ADF News Release

AFP: “A Vienna museum dealing with contraception and abortion received a special prize from a European body Thursday for raising public awareness of both issues.”

LifeSiteNews: “Pro-family advocates at the Council of Europe have scored a victory with substantial changes of language to protect religious freedom of expression in a resolution on ‘discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.’ On April 29, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) voted 51 to 25 to adopt Resolution 1728 (2010), which the European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ) had helped to delay until wording had been inserted to protect religious objections to homosexuality.”

C-FAM: “Two recent initiatives out of the Council of Europe (CoE) on sexual orientation and gender identity are seen as the first major step to codify the radical Yogyakarta Principles into the framework of international institutions. The Yogyakarta Principles (Principles) is a 2007 document adopted by a group of human rights ‘experts’ including several United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteurs and members of UN treaty monitoring bodies . . . Although neither CoE document is binding, Roger Kiska, legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, warned the Friday Fax, ‘These CoE documents in the future would be likely quoted by the ECHR and influence its interpretations.’”

Zenit: “The European Centre for Law and Justice has been authorized to become a third party in the court hearing regarding the legitimacy of displaying crucifixes in Italian schools. The center reported Wednesday that the European Court of Human Rights gave it authorization to become an amicus curiae to the ‘Lautsi vs. Italy’ case.”

Yemen News Agency: “The Council of Europe, one of the principal watchdogs for human rights on this continent, said Tuesday that its parliamentary Commission on Culture, Science and Education had adopted a text in Istanbul on Monday opposing a proposed ban in France on the wearing of the niqab or the burqa, according to Kuwait News Agency (KUNA).”

Alec Stone Sweet, On the Constitutionalisation of the Convention: The European Court of Human Rights as a Constitutional Court (March, 12 2010). Revue Trimestrielle des Droits de l’Homme, Vol. 80, pp. 923-44, 2009. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1569359

“In this essay, I seek to make the best argument for the claim that the European Court of Human Rights is a constitutional court. The scope of the Court’s authority is comparable to that of national constitutional and supreme courts; and it is, today well positioned to exercise decisive influence on the development of a rights-based, pan-European constitutionalism. Further, judges in Strasbourg confront the same kinds of problems that their counterparts on national constitutional courts do; and they use similar techniques and methodologies to address these problems. Finally, I will argue that the European Convention of Human Rights [ECHR] has been constitutionalised by the combined effects of the entry into force of Protocol No. 11, and the incorporation of the Convention into national legal orders. Today, the Court’s basic constitutional task – its existential problem – is to manage the complex system of constitutional pluralism that has emerged. At the same time, the constitutionalisation of the Convention exacerbates the pluralism that already exists in many national legal orders. Far from being an oxymoron, “constitutional pluralism” describes a normal state of affairs in Europe.”

JURIST: “The top rights official at the Council of Europe on Monday rejected the notion of banning Muslim burqa and niqab garments.”

The Moscow Times: “The Constitutional Court on Friday ordered the state to obey decisions by the Strasbourg Court of Human Rights and demanded further legislative action to ensure their smooth implementation. ‘Decisions by the European Court of Human Rights are binding for Russia,’ the court said in a ruling published on its web site.”

Hurriyet Daily News: “The Council of Europe has amended an article of its declaration on children’s rights after Turkey objected to a specific article alluding to gay marriage . . . The council considered Turkey’s objection and amended the relevant article. Originally, the article stated, ‘Currently, the family [is a concept] composed of different lifestyles and children in Europe grow up in family forms that can change during the life of children.’”

Mattias C. Kettemann writing in the Harvard Law Record: “While the details, as mentioned before, will still need to be worked out and the days before the Interlaken conference are sure to be filled with intensive intra-European human rights diplomacy, one conclusion of President Costa is certainly true: Reforms must bear in mind the ‘principle of a better sharing of responsibility between the Court and the States.’ Truly, ensuring human rights protection is not a matter that states can leave to a court alone, especially one as swamped with cases as the European Court of Human Rights. It is a common responsibility.”

Pride Source: “Anti-gay MPs delayed a plan at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe to pass two important pro-LGBT measures Jan. 27. One measure contains recommendations to the 47 member nations of the Council of Europe on combating discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The other would submit LGBT-related proposals to the CoE’s Committee of Ministers, which represents the governments of the 47 countries.”

C-FAM: “Italian pro-life politician Luca Volontè captured the chairmanship of the European People’s Party (EPP) in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) last week, besting second-place finisher Jean-Claude Mignon of France, whom socially-liberal members had rallied around after their favored candidates faded.”

International Law Observer: “The Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has just published conclusions on the future of the Strasbourg Court and enforcement of ECHR standards . . . One subject of particular significance, discussed at the hearing, was the need to enhance the authority and direct application of the Strasbourg Court’s findings in domestic law.”

Shannon K. Calt, A., B. & C. v. Ireland: ‘Europe’s Roe v. Wade‘? (January 22, 2010). Lewis & Clark Law Review, Forthcoming. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1540344

“The European Court of Human Rights has never determined whether the Convention protects a right to life of the unborn or conversely any right to an abortion.The case at hand squarely presents an opportunity for the Court to take a position.”

Pat Buckley, European Life Network, writes at his blog: The council of Europe is scheduled to debate an anti life and an anti family measure in Strasbourg the week after next. The first report and resolution ‘Discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity’ prepared by Andreas Gross a member of the Socialist Group will be debated on Wednesday January 27th. The second issue the Mc Cafferty report ‘Fifteen Years Since the International Conference on Population and Development Programme of Action’ will be debated on Friday January 29th”

C-FAM: “A battle over leadership of the European People’s Party (EPP), the Christian Democratic grouping in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), is pitting an Italian pro-life stalwart against socially-liberal counterparts from Holland and Sweden. The leading social conservative candidate is Luca Volontè, currently the chairman of the Italian Christian Democratic caucus within the Italian national parliament. He is a long-time associate of Europe’s best-known Catholic politician, Rocco Buttiglione, sharing similar political positions and collaborating in the promotion of academic workshops on Catholic social thought.”

Irish Times: “Up to 683 women developed complications during pregnancy in 2008 which may have required a lawful abortion, according to Government estimates. However, authorities do not have any precise figures to show how many lawful terminations of pregnancies took place in Ireland. The details are contained in State documents lodged with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) last month as part of its defence to a challenge to Ireland’s abortion laws.”

European Voice: “The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that provisions in the constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina reserving certain offices of state for members of Bosnia’s three ‘constituent peoples’ are discriminatory and unlawful . . . Bosnia’s constitution . . . established a three-member presidency with one representative for each of Bosnia’s ‘constituent peoples’ – Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims), Serbs and Croats. The upper house of parliament is also made up of representatives of the three communities. Members of other communities and those who do not claim any particular ethnic affiliation are excluded from holding such positions of power.”

EuropeNews: “In a decision many hope will lead to greater religious freedom in Turkey, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) found that a Turkish court ruling barring a church from starting a foundation violated the congregation’s right to freedom of association.”

Taiwan News (C-FAM): “According to Roger Kiska, European legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, Lautsi is flawed on a number of grounds, including overreach – the ECHR is not a constitutional court – and its disregard for ‘the cultural sovereignty of each Member State.’ The Constitutional Court decision – which deals with civil service matters entirely unrelated to the crucifix case – signals that Italy may be prepared to break with the ECHR if it were to lose its appeal.”

LifeSiteNews: “According to Roger Kiska, European legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, Lautsi is flawed on a number of grounds, including overreach – the ECHR is not a constitutional court – and its disregard for ‘the cultural sovereignty of each Member State.’ The Constitutional Court decision – which deals with civil service matters entirely unrelated to the crucifix case – signals that Italy may be prepared to break with the ECHR if it were to lose its appeal.”

“Sources close to the Italian judiciary told the Friday Fax that the decision was intended as a warning that activist rulings by the Strasbourg-based ECHR overstepping jurisdictional boundaries will not be given deference.”

Law Society Gazette: “Europe’s foremost human rights court is in ‘crisis’, with a backlog of more than 120,000 cases waiting up to seven years to be heard, lawyers have warned. Leading human rights barrister Lord Lester QC said last week that the influx of new states since the fall of communism in 1989 has plunged Strasbourg’s European Court of Human Rights into ‘crisis.’”

Interfax: “The European Court of Human Rights often does not properly consider the church’s rights, said Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia. ‘In our view, the court sometimes lopsidedly uses different interpretations of individual rights to the detriment of collective rights of traditional religious organizations rooted in the history and culture of European peoples,’ Patriarch Kirill said in a letter to Council of Europe Secretary General Thorbjorn Jagland whose text the patriarchal press service made public on Wednesday.”

“An appeal against last month’s decision by Swiss voters to ban minarets has been submitted to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.”

William Saunders, Senior Vice President of Legal Affairs at Americans United for Life, writing at The Catholic Thing: “While the Court should dismiss the case, there are signs this will not happen. For example, before the lower chamber reached a decision, the matter was referred to the Grand Chamber. This is a highly unusual development in the process of a case and a signal that the Court may be preparing to issue what it considers an ‘historic’ decision. After all, why gather all nineteen judges just to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction?”

The Slovak Spectator: “A ruling of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) regarding the placing of Christian crosses in Italian schools is in conflict with Europe’s cultural heritage and its Christian history, according to a declaration published by the Slovak Parliament on December 10, the TASR newswire reported.”

Belfast Telegraph: “‘The right to life of the unborn is based on profound moral values deeply embedded in the fabric of Irish society,’ he told the court, including Irish High Court Judge Mary Finlay Geoghegan . . . Mr Gallagher said that Ireland’s protection of the right to life of the unborn had been endorsed in three referenda and was explicitly recognised in a protocol attached to the Maastricht Treaty. Ireland had also secured a relevant legal guarantee as part of the re-run of the Lisbon Treaty.”

OneNewsNow: “‘Two of [the women] had claimed that they had illnesses that required them to receive an abortion because the pregnancy was a threat to their health,’ Kiska explains. ‘The third [woman] had said that she did not have the financial resources to obtain an abortion abroad — but none of the three women provided even a single document of evidence supporting any of their claims. They never saw one doctor, for example, to substantiate their claims.’”

Digital Journal: “However supporting the ban on abortion [in] Ireland are members of the anti-abortion movement in the U.S. and they have been permitted to present their arguments in favor of the ban to the European Court. It appears to be the Alliance Defense Fund that is organizing the effort in the U.S. to support the law as it currently stands in Ireland.”

Paul Belien writing at Hudson New York:

On the eve of the referendum, the Swiss Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf had already warned that the ban on constructing minarets might constitute a violation of the freedom of religion as expressed in the Council of Europe’s Convention on Human Rights. Widmer-Schlumpf said that under international law Switzerland is bound by the Convention. However, that is not entirely correct. Unlike the EU countries, Switzerland is not bound by Strasbourg’s interpretation of the COE’s Human Rights Convention.

The Council of Europe (COE) is one of the few international organizations which Switzerland has joined. The Council has the same flag and anthem as the European Union (EU), which for many years was housed on the same premises in Strasbourg, but it is a different organization. Based in Strasbourg, the COE observes whether human rights are respected in Europe. Apart from Belarus, all the European nations – including Russia, the Caucasian states and Turkey – are COE members. While the EU has 27 member states (all of them also COE members), the COE has 47. The COE’s main institution is its court, the European Court of Human Rights.

C-FAM: “Next week in Europe, a committee of human rights ‘experts’ will discuss a draft recommendation on measures to ‘combat discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity to ensure respect for human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons and to promote tolerance towards them.’”

Associated Press: “A new international convention is needed to prevent trafficking in kidneys and other organs and potentially life-saving tissues and cells, according to a joint study by the United Nations and the Council of Europe released Tuesday.”

C-FAM: “This week, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) will vote on a resolution that calls on European states to achieve ‘universal access to comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services’ including ‘safe abortion’ by 2015 . . .”

The source of the resolution is a report prepared by UK parliamentarian and longtime abortion rights advocate, Christine McCafferty: Fifteen Years Since the International Conference on Population and Development Program of Action (ICPD)

European Centre for Law and Justice response memo: Memorandum on the Draft Recommendation and Explanatory Memorandum: Fifteen Years Since the International Conference on Population and Development Programme of Action

Council of Europe