Alapjogi jogesetek – a strasbourgi Emberi Jogok Európai Bírósága

Absztrakt

In the recent period, several judgments adopted by the European Court of Human Rights in respect to Hungary bore significance beyond the context of the particular case at issue. Notably, the Court delivered a Chamber judgment which is important in that it applied – but also tempered, eventually arriving at a different conclusion – the principles laid down in a recent Grand Chamber judgment concerning the Internet service providers’ liability for user-generated comments. Important issues were also raised by other cases concerning, respectively, secret intelligence gathering by the Anti-Terrorism Task Force, the suspension of pension disbursement during civil-service employment, and the power of the President of the National Judicial Office to reassign cases to courts other than the territorially competent ones. The Court also examined the 2002 blockade of the Erzsébet bridge in Budapest, a restriction on attending religious ceremonies during house arrest, as well as the right to a court when the claim falls within the ambit of ecclesiastical law.

As regards important cases against other countries, they concerned, as a matter of example, a refinement of the principles applicable whenever a criminal conviction is based on a witness statement which could not be directly examined by the trial court, as well as secret surveillance measures, allegedly forced labour required from prisoners of pensionable age and implications of the right to free elections for parties representing national minorities.