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ECJ Official: Search Engines Must Balance Rights When Deleting Links
January 16, 2019
Court of Justice of the EU (ECJ) Advocate General Maciej Szpunar has advised the ECJ to rule that EU data-processing rules apply to search engines, such as Google, and that these platforms must perform a balancing test between the right to privacy and the right to freedom of expression when determining whether to take down content.
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EU Advances Ban on Broad Range of Plastic Items
January 11, 2019
Politico reports that negotiators from the European Parliament and European Council have reached an agreement to advance a “single-use plastics directive,” which will ban, beginning in 2021, broad categories of plastic items, including straws, plates, cutlery, and drinking cups made from a certain type of plastic, from circulation in the EU.
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ECtHR Approves Mandatory School Attendance Rules in Germany
January 11, 2019
The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has held that the removal of children from their parents’ home in Germany to receive temporary, government-approved education due to the parents’ refusal to send their children to state-run schools complied with European human rights law on the protection of private and family life.
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ECtHR: Latvian Prison Policies Discriminate on Basis of Sex
January 11, 2019
The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has held that Latvian authorities had violated the rights of a male prisoner to respect for his private life and against discrimination by failing to consider relevant factors in deciding whether to grant him leave to attend his father’s funeral, finding that the authorities treat female prisoners in a less restrictive manner.
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Lawyer: “No-Deal” Brexit Risks Right to Life in UK
January 09, 2019
The Independent reports that UK human rights lawyer Jonathan Cooper has asserted that the withdrawal of the UK from the EU without establishing terms of the separation would be in violation of the UK’s international human rights treaty obligations because such a move would expose British citizens to the risk of death.
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Legal Expert Pushes ECtHR to Overturn Blasphemy Decision
January 08, 2019
Constitutional law expert Dr. Tommaso Virgili calls on the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) to overturn a decision upholding Austria’s right to convict a woman over insulting comments about Islam’s prophet Muhammad, presenting extensive arguments against the enforcement of laws against “blasphemy” in Europe.
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ECtHR: Spain’s Expulsion of Drug Traffickers Violated Rights
January 03, 2019
The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has held that Spanish courts had violated the “right to respect for private and family life” by approving the expulsion of two Moroccan nationals convicted of drug trafficking without performing an “adequate appraisal” of criteria related to the seriousness of their offenses and their personal lives.
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ECtHR: Lithuania Violated Rights of Family Applying for Asylum
December 19, 2018
The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has held that Lithuanian authorities violated the rights against torture and to an effective remedy of seven members of a Russian family by denying them the ability to make an asylum application at the country’s border with Belarus.
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ECtHR: Prosecutor’s Dismissal for Media Statement Violated Rights
December 19, 2018
The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has held that the Romanian government violated the right to free expression of a prosecutor it dismissed for talking to the press about an ongoing criminal investigation.
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CoE Anti-Torture Body Critiques Northern Ireland’s Prisons
December 18, 2018
The Council of Europe’s (CoE) Committee for the Prevention of Torture has called for Northern Ireland to make “further progress” in complying with CoE rules against ill-treatment in prisons, including by ramping up the use of alternatives to custody and giving prisoners more time outside their cells.