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The European Convention on Human Rights is an international convention to protect human rights and political freedoms in Europe. Drafted in 1950 by the then newly formed Council of Europe, the convention entered into force on 3 September 1953. All Council of Europe member states are party to the convention and new members are expected to ratify the convention at the earliest opportunity.
The European Court of Human Rights, also known as the Strasbourg Court, is an international court of the Council of Europe which interprets the European Convention on Human Rights. The court hears applications alleging that a contracting state has breached one or more of the human rights enumerated in the convention or its optional protocols to which a member state is a party. The European Convention on Human Rights is also referred to by the initials "ECHR". The court is based in Strasbourg, France.
Reproductive rights are legal rights and freedoms relating to reproduction and reproductive health that vary amongst countries around the world. The World Health Organization defines reproductive rights as follows:
Reproductive rights rest on the recognition of the basic right of all couples and individuals to decide freely and responsibly the number, spacing and timing of their children and to have the information and means to do so, and the right to attain the highest standard of sexual and reproductive health. They also include the right of all to make decisions concerning reproduction free of discrimination, coercion and violence.
Compulsory sterilization, also known as forced or coerced sterilization, is a government-mandated program to involuntarily sterilize a specific group of people. Sterilization removes a person's capacity to reproduce, and is usually done through surgical procedures. Several countries implemented sterilization programs in the early 20th century. Although such programs have been made illegal in most countries of the world, instances of forced or coerced sterilizations persist.
X. v. the United Kingdom was a 1978 case before the European Court of Human Rights, challenging the Sexual Offences Act 1967 in the United Kingdom. The case addressed privacy protections and age of consent laws for homosexuals.
Security of the person is a basic entitlement guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations in 1948. It is also a human right explicitly defined and guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights, the Constitution of Canada, the Constitution of South Africa and other laws around the world.
Barbora Bukovská is a Czech-Slovak human rights attorney and activist, known for her work on racial discrimination of Romani people in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Before anti-discrimination laws were adopted, she initiated the first Czech strategic litigation cases concerning discrimination against Romani people in access to public services, housing, employment and within the criminal justice system, and used the courts to bring a change in the law.
Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights provides that everyone has the right to liberty and security of person. Liberty and security of the person are taken as a "compound" concept - security of the person has not been subject to separate interpretation by the Court.
Article 5 – Right to liberty and security
Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights is a provision of the European Convention which protects the right to a fair trial. In criminal law cases and cases to determine civil rights it protects the right to a public hearing before an independent and impartial tribunal within reasonable time, the presumption of innocence, right to silence and other minimum rights for those charged in a criminal case.
According to the last census from 2021, there were 67,179 persons counted as Romani people in Slovakia, or 1.23% of the population. However, the number of Roma is usually underreported, with estimates placing the Roma population at 7-11% of the population. Thus the actual number of Roma may be over half a million.
K.H. and Others vs. Slovakia is the first in a series of cases before the European Court for Human Rights dealing with the subject of forced sterilisation of Romani people or Gypsy women from Slovakia. The case did not deal with sterilization directly but it concerned access to medical records of forcibly sterilized Romani women for the purpose of litigation of their rights.
V.C. vs Slovakia was the first case in which the European Court for Human Rights ruled in favor of a Romani woman who was a victim of forced sterilization in the state hospital in Slovakia. It is one of many cases of forced sterilization of Roma women brought to the Court by the Slovak feminist group Center for Civil and Human Rights from Košice.
N.B. vs Slovakia is the second case concerning forced sterilization of Romani people or Gypsy women from Slovakia decided by the European Court of Human Rights. The decision came only few months after the release of the judgment in the similar case V. C. vs. Slovakia. Once again, the Court unanimously found that the Romani woman had been sterilized without informed consent in contravention of Articles 3 and 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
X and Others v. Austria, Application No. 19010/07, was a human rights case that was decided in 2013 by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). The case concerned whether the Government of Austria had discriminated against Austrian citizens who were in same-sex relationships because the wording of the Austrian Civil Code did not permit unmarried same-sex couples access to legally granted second-parent adoptions, whereas it was available to unmarried heterosexual couples.
Sterilization law is the area of law, within reproductive rights, that gives a person the right to choose or refuse reproductive sterilization and governs when the government may limit this fundamental right. Sterilization law includes federal and state constitutional law, statutory law, administrative law, and common law. This article primarily focuses on laws concerning compulsory sterilization that have not been repealed or abrogated and are still good laws, in whole or in part, in each jurisdiction.
Intersex people are born with sex characteristics, such as chromosomes, gonads, hormones, or genitals that, according to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, "do not fit the typical definitions for male or female bodies". Such variations may involve genital ambiguity, and combinations of chromosomal genotype and sexual phenotype other than XY-male and XX-female.
Assanidze v. Georgia is a decision of the European Court of Human Rights concerning the illegal incarceration of a Georgia national by the Ajarian authorities in violation of the European Convention on Human Rights. In 2004 the Court found in favour of Assanidze, recognising breaches to his right to liberty and right to a fair hearing under European Convention on Human Rights. As a result, the Court ordered that Assanidze be released "at the earliest possible date" and awarded €150,000 in damages. It was the first case against Georgia ruled upon by the European Court of Human Rights.
Toplak and Mrak v. Slovenia of 26 October 2021, is the European Court of Human Rights judgment in which the court held that voters' rights were violated when they had no legal right to ask for accessible polling places in advance to achieve accessibility before the election day. The ruling is also significant because the court for the first time extended its jurisdiction to referendums.
Sargsyan v. Azerbaijan was an international human rights case regarding the rights of Armenian refugees displaced from former Soviet Azerbaijan because of the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh. The judgment of the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights on the case originated in an application against the Republic of Azerbaijan lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms by Minas Sargsyan on 11 August 2006. He was forced to flee his home in the village of Gulistan in Shahumyan region of former Soviet Azerbaijan, together with his family, because of the Azerbaijani bombardments of the village and was not allowed to return and unable to get any compensation from the Azerbaijani authorities. Even though the applicant passed away in 2009, as did his widow, Lena Sargsyan, in 2014, his children, Vladimir and Tsovinar Sargsyan, represented him in court to continue the proceedings.