A Look at the European Court of Human Rights Case Law on Moral Issues and Academic Freedom

• Author: Julia Laffranque
• Pages: 34-46

34 JURIDICA INTERNATIONAL 26/2017

Julia Laffranque

Judge, European Court of Human Rights*1

Visiting Professor, University of Tartu

A Look at the European Court

of Human Rights Case Law

on Moral Issues and

Academic Freedom

Introduction

Moral issues are present in very many aspects of life and are involved in choices we make. Ethics is a subject

that leaves no one of us indif‌f erent and is constantly topical. This is true also in times of economic crises, in

dealing with issues of migration and refugees and in coping with the threat of terrorism.

In almost all cases brought before it, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR, the Court) in

Strasbourg faces more or less morally oriented issues. There are hardly any problems of life that have not

been dealt with in the ECtHR case-law. More than 800 million people from the 47 member states of the

Council of Europe can potentially turn to the Court in Strasbourg for help. As of 31 March 2017 there were

87,850 applications pending before the European Court of Human Rights. Most applications currently are

from Turkey (in the aftermath of the coup d’état attempt, as well as of the curfew situation in south-eastern

Turkey), Ukraine, Hungary, Romania and Russia, but quite many also arrive from Italy, Georgia, Azerbai-

jan, Poland and Armenia.

The present article will concentrate only on a few aspects of the case law of the European Court of

Human Rights related to moral and ethical issues and will not go into depth on the more comprehensive,

philosophical and social dimensions of this phenomenon. Firstly, the dif‌f erent dimensions of ethics at the

European Court of Human Rights in general will be analysed. Secondly, some central topics related to moral

issues in the case law of the European Court of Human Rights will be examined, and thirdly, more precisely,

some of the judgements of the ECtHR that have dealt with academic freedom will be touched upon. Finally,

a few concluding observations will be provided.

 The article does not express any o cial opinions of the European Court of Human Rights and represents the author’s personal

views.

https://doi.org/10.12697/JI.2017.26.04