Verfassungsrechtlicher Grundrechtsschutz in nationalen Rechtssystemen, einschließlich Freiheitsrechte, Verfahrensrechte und soziale Rechte im Rahmen nationaler Verfassungsordnungen. Umfasst die Verfassungsrechtsprechung zu individuellen Freiheiten, rechtsstaatlichen Garantien und sozioökonomischen Rechten, wie sie von nationalen Verfassungsgerichten geschützt werden.
In Fedotova and others v Russia issued on 17 January 2023, the ECtHR held that Russia had breached its positive obligation to secure the applicants’ right to respect for their private and family life under Article 8 of the Convention by failing to provide any form of legal recognition and protection for same sex couples. The ground-breaking aspect of the judgment is the clear rejection by the Court of the justifications advanced by the Contracting State.
The Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act 92 of 1996 (Choice Act) provides the legislative framework that regulates access to abortion in South Africa. It is noted for its liberal stance on abortion and for this reason South Africa ‘serves as a global role model of reform in the area of abortion laws’. Despite its celebrated reproductive rights affirming approach, there are several on-ground issues that undermine the aims of the Act and the reproductive rights and health of those seeking abortion care. In this blog, I position the Choice Act within its historical and contemporary context which provides the necessary backdrop to demonstrate why the Act offers a ground-breaking approach to legislative regulation of abortion care. Thereafter, I explore some of the barriers to access and consider some key state efforts to overcome these issues, thus demonstrating a commitment to ensuring access to abortion care as part of the continuum of sexual and reproductive health care.
In the last two years, India has witnessed significant changes in the legal regulation of abortion. In 2021, Parliament comprehensively amended the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971 (“MTP” Act) to ensure “access of women to safe and legal abortion without compromising on the safety and quality of care,” along with securing “dignity, autonomy, confidentiality and justice for women who need to terminate pregnancy.” Additionally, in September 2022, the Supreme Court of India delivered a path-breaking judgment on abortion, locating access to safe abortion within the fundamental rights to dignity, autonomy, privacy, and health. Despite these changes, the law and practice of abortion continue to deny pregnant persons access to safe and comprehensive abortion care.
On 17 January 2023, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights ruled in Fedotova v Russia that the absence of any legal recognition and protection for same-sex couples amounts to a violation of Art. 8 of the Convention. For 30 Member States of the Council of Europe (CoE), this judgment changes nothing since their legal orders already allow same-sex couples to enter into marriage or into other forms of legally recognised relationships. For the remaining countries, however, the Fedotova judgment amounts to an external judicial pressure to change their legal landscape in a politically very sensitive area of LGBT+ rights. Fedotova is probably the most political judgment of all times.
On the 24th of January, the Day of the Endangered Lawyer, we conclude our podcast with a conversation with Margaret Satterthwaite. She is a professor of Clinical Law at New York University and was appointed as United Nations Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers in October 2022. We talk about global trends in challenges to the independence of lawyers, and we talk about structural problems that need to be addressed to defend the defenders around the globe.
Das Bundeskartellamt versucht sich an der Zähmung des Datenkraken Google und zeigt, dass es trotz europäischer Regulierung weiterhin eine Vorreiterrolle im Kampf gegen die großen Digitalunternehmen einnehmen wird. Auf Grundlage des bisher kaum erprobten § 19a Abs. 2 GWB sollen Alphabet und Google Verbraucher*innen mehr Wahlmöglichkeiten bei der Einwilligung in das „Superprofiling“ geben. Damit zielt das Bundeskartellamt in das Herz des Geschäftsmodells der digitalen Giganten. Ob das gelingt, hängt maßgeblich davon ab, ob der für diesen Zweck geschaffene § 19a GWB in der Anwendung schlagkräftiger ist als das „alte“ Kartellrecht.
Nothing has changed since the last time there was a debate regarding the relationship between telecommunication providers and online content providers. Nevertheless, the European Commission is willing to take a massive gamble and entertain the possibility of regulation to oblige online services to pay their "fair share" towards increased bandwidth consumption. This regulatory shift could risk an Internet collapse in Europe.
Am 6. Januar 2022 trat in Nordrhein-Westfalen das erste landeseigene Versammlungsgesetz (VersG-NRW) in Kraft. Obschon die Gesetzgebungskompetenz für das Versammlungsrecht seit der Föderalismusreform 2006 bei den Ländern liegt, galt in Nordrhein-Westfalen bis Anfang 2022 das Versammlungsgesetz des Bundes fort. Dass der Landesgesetzgeber im Bereich des Versammlungsrechts ein eigenes Landesgesetz vorgelegt hat, ist grundsätzlich begrüßenswert. Das Gesetz ist jedoch in vielerlei Hinsicht freiheitsbeschränkend und daher verfassungsrechtlich angreifbar.
Die Räumung von Lützerath ist im Gange. Die klimapolitischen Protestaktionen dürften bald beendet sein und das Dorf für den Braunkohleabbau abgebaggert werden. Friedliche Proteste dagegen am Ort des Geschehens waren nicht nur demokratisch legitim, sondern auch von der Versammlungsfreiheit aus Art. 8 GG geschützt. RWE war daher verpflichtet, die Proteste zu dulden, solange nicht zu befürchten war, dass die Abbaggerung gewaltsam verhindert würde.
On 21 April 1998, the then mayor of İstanbul, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was sentenced to one year (subsequently reduced to ten months) in prison and a hefty fine by the State Security Court of Diyarbakır for “incitement to hatred and hostility on grounds of religious discrimination”. His criminal act was that of reading two provocative verses from the poem “Divine Army” by Cevat Örnek (“the minarets are bayonets, the domes are helmets / mosques are our barracks, the faithful our soldiers”) during a rally of the Islamist Welfare Party (of “Strasbourg fame”) in 1997. Twenty-five years after the aforementioned rally, Turkey experienced a free speech case involving another conservative-leaning political figure on the rise: on 14 December 2022, İstanbul’s mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu was sentenced by İstanbul’s 7th Criminal Court of First Instance to a term of imprisonment of two years, seven months and fifteen days for criminal defamation.
13. September 2025
Giovanni Capoccia
12. September 2025
Anne Peters
12. September 2025
Anne Peters