Articles for author: Justine Batura

A Union of Equality?

Last Thursday, Ursula von der Leyen, the new – and former – President of the EU Commission presented the ‘Political Guidelines for the next European Commission 2024-2029’, her ideas and priorities for the coming mandate. This blogpost will examine whether the Guidelines are living up to the scale of the gender-related concerns and challenges that are facing the Union, as Ursula von der Leyen promises. It identifies a shift in tone in the Commission’s pledges to promoting gender equality and outlines some proposals that the German Women Lawyers Association (djb) has advanced in order to help tackle these challenges.

A European Dialogue on Strike Action

With its decision in Humpert and others v Germany of 14 December 2023, the European Court of Human Rights settled a long-standing debate: The ban on strikes for German Civil Servants does not violate the rights under the European Convention on Human Rights. This decision ends the strategic litigating efforts of the applicants and their union to obtain the right to strike for the approximately 1.7 million civil servants in Germany. The judgment is also the culmination of an extraordinarily intense dialogue between Strasbourg and Karlsruhe.