Long before the coming of the Bill of Rights in written Constitutions, the common law has had the greatest regard for the personal liberty of the individual. In order to safeguard that liberty, the remedy of habeas corpus was always available to persons deprived of their liberty unlawfully. This ancient writ has been incorporated into the modern Constitution as a fundamental right and enforceable as other rights protected by virtue of their entrenchment in those Constitutions. This article aims to bring together the various understanding of habeas corpus at common law and the principles governing the writ in common law jurisdictions. The discussion is approached through a twelve-point construct thus providing a brief conspectus of the subject matter, such that one could have a better understanding of the subject as applied in most common law jurisdictions.

By a majority of 4-3, the Supreme Court of Ireland has held that the Workplace Relations Commission’s power to adjudicate disputes between employers and employees was not unconstitutional. However, the majority of the Supreme Court did find that certain aspects of the Commission’s procedures were unconstitutional, namely the blanket ban on public hearings and the lack of capacity for taking evidence on oath. The Workplace Relations Act 2015 and the Workplace Relations Commission procedures have consequently been amended to address these issues. This case report is a follow-up on EELC 2020/34.

This article examines how Spanish and Catalan laws deal with claims of grandparents who seek contact with their grandchildren against the will of one or both parents, and the scope given to their rights. It starts by explaining the content and the goals of the legal reforms enacted in Spain at the beginning of the 21st century to promote grandparents’ interests. Then, it presents the case law developed in the interpretation of the relevant legal rules. The resulting state of the law is assessed, taking into account the interests of all the parties involved (parents, grandparents, and grandchildren). The experience of more than twenty years of application of the specific provisions concerning grandparents’ contact rights sheds light on the impact of giving grandparents stronger legal rights. However, it also prompts the question of whether this legislative choice might have brought about useless and potentially harmful litigation.

In the Netherlands, the use of involuntary treatment in the mental health care sector is governed by the Dutch Care and Compulsion Act (Wzd). This study examines the legal position of persons with intellectual disabilities under this Act. The Wzd is analyzed in light of the human rights standards of Article 12 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). The findings of this study show that the Wzd does not meet the standards of Article 12 in several cases. The Wzd does not recognize the legal capacity of persons with intellectual disabilities, it continues to allow for substituted decision-making and support measures are not complemented by adequate safeguards. From a theoretical point of view, an imbalance between the protection of and the respect for the autonomy of persons with intellectual disabilities can be observed. This article formulates several recommendations in order to restore this balance.
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De Nederlandse Wet zorg en dwang (Wzd) ziet toe op de rechten van mensen met een verstandelijke beperking bij onvrijwillige zorg of onvrijwillige opname. Dit artikel onderzoekt de juridische positie van mensen met een verstandelijke beperking ten aanzien van deze wet. De Wzd wordt geanalyseerd in relatie tot artikel 12 van het Verdrag inzake de Rechten van Personen met een Handicap (VRPH). De bevindingen van dit onderzoek laten zien dat de Wzd in verschillende gevallen niet voldoet aan de normen van artikel 12 VRPH. Zo wordt onder andere de handelingsbekwaamheid, ofwel ‘legal capacity’, van mensen met een verstandelijke beperking niet erkend en blijft plaatsvervangende besluitvorming mogelijk. Vanuit theoretisch oogpunt is er sprake van een disbalans tussen de bescherming van en het respect voor de autonomie van mensen met een verstandelijke beperking. Dit artikel doet daarom meerdere aanbevelingen om dit evenwicht te herstellen.

Thought experiments have been widely used in virtually all sciences and humanities. Law is no exception. We can find countless instances of such experiments in both the legal practice and the legal theory. However, this method has hardly been studied by legal scholars, which contrasts with the vast literature devoted to it in other fields of knowledge. This article analyses the role that some thought experiments – those where an imaginary legal change is made, and its social effects are observed – may play in law. In particular, we show why these empirical legal thought experiments might be useful for the practice and theory of law, the main principles for conducting them and how the law deals with them.

Hoewel kinderen disproportioneel geraakt worden door klimaatverandering, is er tot op heden nog relatief weinig aandacht besteed aan de juridische kant hiervan. Dit artikel tracht bij te dragen door antwoord te geven op de vraag in hoeverre kinderen ‘klimaatrechten’ hebben op mensen- en kinderrechtelijk vlak. In dit kader worden de ontwikkelingen op het terrein van mensenrechten geschetst. Ook wordt ingegaan op de belangrijkste juridische implicaties van kinderrechten zoals neergelegd in het IVRK. Hiervoor zijn ook alle Concluding Observations uit 2019 op dit onderwerp bestudeerd. Bovendien wordt het analytisch rapport van de OHCHR over klimaat en kinderrechten besproken. Tot slot wordt ingegaan op de klimaatklacht die momenteel voorligt bij het VN-Kinderrechtencomité en de mogelijkheden van kinderen in Nederland voor de effectuering van hun rechten op dit vlak.

In principle, a Member State can require an attorney-at-law from another Member State to cooperate with a local attorney-at-law during litigation, but a general obligation not taking the experience of the visiting laywer into account would go beyond what is necessary in order to attain the objective of the proper administration of justice

De beroepsethiek van overheidsjuristen wordt traditioneel gericht op het functioneren als poortwachter van de rechtsstaat. Zij ontlenen hun beroepsethisch normenkader aan bovenliggende normen van democratie en rechtsstaat. Beroepsdilemma’s komen daarbij voort uit zich voordoende spanning tussen ambtelijke en juridische verantwoordelijkheden, bijvoorbeeld die tussen loyaliteit aan de politieke leiding versus het bevorderen van proportionaliteit van bevoegdheden (case Tijdelijke wet maatregelen covid-19) en die van handhaving (case kinderopvangtoeslagen). In de praktijk van de overheidsjurist is de beroepsethiek het resultaat van het omgaan met genoemde dilemma’s. Deze contextuele beroepsethiek van onderop wijkt af van de aan de rechtstaat ontleende beroepsethiek van bovenaf. Er zijn de nodige argumenten om het professionele (universitaire) ethiekonderwijs voor aankomend overheidsjuristen te richten op een normatieve oriëntatie van onderop. Het bevordert realisme, waakzaamheid voor tegenkrachten en rolvastheid. In het ethiekonderwijs voor aankomend overheidsjuristen zou dan een empirische en op verantwoording gerichte attitude centraal moeten staan.

In the last decades, many Western countries have embraced an exclusionary stance towards non-members by increasingly relying on deportation. An important target of ‘crimmigration’ practices is represented by convicted foreign nationals, who are subject to deportation after serving their sentence. In Italy, trial judges can issue a deportation order towards convicted foreign nationals considered socially dangerous. This article examines whether and how deportation has found its space in judicial settings. Drawing on data collected in the court of Turin, this article sheds light on how structural and cultural traits of the Italian judicial system make deportation ‘a machine without an engine’.

Within the past half century, a market in adoptable children has emerged. The imbalance between the demand for and the supply of adoptable children, combined with the large sums of Western money, incite greedy actors in poor countries to illegally obtain children for adoption. This renders intercountry adoption conducive to abuses. Private adoptions are particularly prone to abusive and commercial practices. Yet, although they violate both international and national law, German and Dutch family courts commonly recognize them. They argue that removing the child from the illegal adopters would not be compatible with the rights and best interests of the individual child concerned. In 2017, the ECtHR rendered a ground-breaking judgement in Campanelli and Paradiso v. Italy. In this case, the Court dealt with the question as to whether removing a child from the care of an Italian couple that entered into a surrogacy agreement with a Russian clinic, given that surrogacy is illegal in Italy, violated Article 8 ECHR. Contrary to previous case law, in which the ECtHR placed a strong emphasis on the best interests of the individual child concerned, the Court attached more weight to the need to prevent disorder and crime by putting an end to the illegal situation created by the Italian couple and by discouraging others from bypassing national laws. The article argues that considering the shifting focus of the ECtHR on the prevention of unlawful conduct and, thus, on the best interests of children in general, the German and Dutch courts’ failure to properly balance the different interests at stake in a private international adoption by mainly focusing on the individual rights and interests of the children is difficult to maintain.

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In de afgelopen halve eeuw is er een markt voor adoptiekinderen ontstaan. De disbalans tussen de vraag naar en het aanbod van adoptiekinderen, in combinatie met grote sommen westers geld, zet hebzuchtige actoren in arme landen ertoe aan illegaal kinderen te verkrijgen voor adoptie. Dit maakt interlandelijke adoptie bevorderlijk voor misbruik. Particuliere adoptie is bijzonder vatbaar voor misbruik en commerciële praktijken. Ondanks het feit dat deze privé-adopties in strijd zijn met zowel internationaal als nationaal recht, worden ze door Duitse en Nederlandse familierechtbanken doorgaans wel erkend. Daartoe wordt aangevoerd dat het verwijderen van het kind van de illegale adoptanten niet verenigbaar is met de rechten en belangen van het individuele kind in kwestie. In 2017 heeft het EHRM een baanbrekende uitspraak gedaan in de zaak Campanelli en Paradiso t. Italië. In deze zaak behandelde het Hof de vraag of het verwijderen van een kind uit de zorg van een Italiaans echtpaar dat een draagmoederschapsovereenkomst met een Russische kliniek is aangegaan, in strijd is met artikel 8 EVRM, daarbij in ogenschouw genomen dat draagmoederschap in Italië illegaal is. In tegenstelling tot eerdere jurisprudentie, waarin het EHRM sterk de nadruk legde op de belangen van het individuele kind, hechtte het Hof meer gewicht aan de noodzaak om de openbare orde te bewaken en criminaliteit te voorkomen door een einde te maken aan de illegale situatie die door het Italiaanse echtpaar was gecreëerd door onder andere het omzeilen van nationale wetten. Het artikel stelt dat, gezien de verschuiving in de focus van het EHRM op het voorkomen van onwettig gedrag en dus op het belang van kinderen in het algemeen, de Duitse en Nederlandse rechtbanken, door met name te focussen op de individuele rechten en belangen van de kinderen, er niet in slagen om de verschillende belangen die op het spel staan ​​bij een particuliere internationale adoptie goed af te wegen.

The French ‘Code de procédure pénale’ provides the possibility to revise final criminal convictions. The Act of 2014 reformed the procedure for revision and introduced some important novelties. The first is that it reduced the different possible grounds for revision to one ground, which it intended to broaden. The remaining ground for revision is the existence of a new fact or an element unknown to the court at the time of the initial proceedings, of such a nature as to establish the convicted person’s innocence or to give rise to doubt about his guilt. The legislature intended judges to no longer require ‘serious doubt’. However, experts question whether judges will comply with this intention of the legislature. The second is the introduction of the possibility for the applicant to ask the public prosecutor to carry out the investigative measures that seem necessary to bring to light a new fact or an unknown element before filing a request for revision. The third is that the Act of 2014 created the ‘Cour de révision et de réexamen’, which is composed of eighteen judges of the different chambers of the ‘Cour de cassation’. This ‘Cour de révision et de réexamen’ is divided into a ‘commission d’instruction’, which acts as a filter and examines the admissibility of the requests for revision, and a ‘formation de jugement’, which decides on the substance of the requests. Practice will have to show whether these novelties indeed improved the accessibility of the revision procedure.

This article focuses on the posting of workers in the aviation industry. The main problem is that it is not clear in which situations the Posting of Workers Directive should be applied to aircrew (i.e. cabin crew and pilots). The aviation sector is characterised by a very mobile workforce in which it is possible for employees to provide services from different countries in a very short timeframe. This makes it, to a certain extent, easier for employers to choose the applicable social legislation, which can lead to detrimental working conditions for their aircrew. This article looks into how the Posting of Workers Directive can prevent some air carriers from unilaterally determining the applicable social legislation and makes some suggestions to end unfair social competition in the sector. This article is based on a research report which the authors drafted in 2019 with funding from the European Commission (hereafter the ‘Report’)

On 13 December 2019 the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) Court held that a national provision that renders a father’s entitlement to parental benefits during a shared period of leave dependent on the mother’s situation, but not vice versa, fell outside the scope of Directive 2006/54/EC (the Equal Treatment Directive) since it did not concern “employment and working conditions” within the meaning of Article 14(1)(c) of that Directive. The action brought by the EFTA Surveillance Authority (ESA) was thus dismissed. The Court consequently did not consider whether the Norwegian rules amounted to unlawful discrimination under the Directive. Furthermore, no assessment was made as to the potential breach with the general principle of equality of gender under EEA law, as this had not been pleaded by ESA.

The Belgian Code of criminal procedure provides the possibility to revise final criminal convictions. This procedure had remained more or less untouched for 124 years, but was finally reformed by the Act of 2018, after criticism was voiced in legal doctrine concerning its narrow scope and possible appearances of partiality and prejudice. The Act of 2018 therefore broadened the third ground for revision, the so-called novum, and defined it as an element that was unknown to the judge during the initial proceedings and impossible for the convicted person to demonstrate at that time and that, alone or combined with evidence that was gathered earlier, seems incompatible with the conviction, thus creating a strong suspicion that, if it had been known, it would have led to a more favourable outcome. Thereby, this ground for revision is no longer limited to factual circumstances, but also includes changed appreciations by experts. To counter appearances of partiality and prejudice, the Act of 2018 created the Commission for revision in criminal matters, a multidisciplinary body that has to give non-binding advice to the Court of Cassation on the presence of a novum. However, the legislature also introduced new hurdles on the path to revision, such as the requirement for the applicant to add pieces that demonstrate the ground for revision in order for his or her request to be admissible. For that reason, the application in practice will have to demonstrate whether the Act of 2018 made the revision procedure more accessible in reality.

The Italian Constitution expressly contemplates the possibility of a wrongful conviction, by stating that the law shall determine the conditions and forms regulating damages in case of judicial error. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that many provisions of the Italian Code of Criminal Procedure (CCP) deal with the topic. The aim of this article is to provide an overview of the post-conviction remedies in the Italian legal system by considering the current provisions of the CCP, on the one hand, and by exploring their practical implementation, on the other.

This article reviews exoneration in Sweden, with a focus on the procedure of applying for exoneration. First, it highlights some core features of Swedish criminal procedural law, necessary to understand exoneration in the Swedish context. Secondly, it outlines the possibilities in Swedish law to apply for exoneration, both in favour of a convicted person and to the disadvantage of a previously acquitted defendant. Thirdly, it identifies some challenges with the current Swedish model of administering applications for exoneration. Fourthly, it argues that the current system should be reformed by introducing into Swedish law a review committee that administers applications for exoneration.

The Dutch legislature has recently (2012) altered the legislation for post-conviction revision of criminal cases. The legislature aimed to improve the balance between the competing interests of individual justice and the finality of verdicts, by making post-conviction revision more accessible. In this article we describe the current legal framework for revising cases. We also study how the revision procedure functions in practice, by looking at the types and numbers of (successful) requests for further investigations and applications for revision. We observe three challenges in finding the right balance in the revision process in the Netherlands. These challenges concern: 1) the scope of the novum criterion (which is strict), 2) the appropriate role of an advisory committee (the ACAS) in revision cases (functioning too much as a pre-filter for the Supreme Court) and, 3) the difficulties that arise due to requiring a defence council when requesting a revision (e.g., financial burdens).

In Nederland wordt het mededingingsrecht (nog steeds) bestuursrechtelijk afgedaan. De strafrechtelijke handhaving van dit rechtsgebied heeft de laatste jaren in andere landen een opmars gemaakt; ook in verschillende lidstaten van de Europese Unie. Hoewel in Nederland het mededingingsrecht een ‘strafrechtelijk verleden’ kent, werd deze handhavingsvorm weinig benut en/of was deze weinig succesvol en is hiervan afscheid genomen. Dat Nederland overtredingen van de mededingingswet nu niet strafrechtelijk sanctioneert, wil echter niet zeggen dat aan mededingingsrechtelijke overtredingen voor Nederlanders geen strafrechtelijke risico’s kleven. Indien dergelijke overtredingen door Nederlandse onderdanen in het buitenland effect hebben, omdat daar bijvoorbeeld de klanten van een kartel zijn gevestigd, kunnen Nederlanders alsnog – zij het in het buitenland – tegen strafrechtelijke vervolging en een veroordeling aanlopen.