In a long-awaited Grand Chamber judgment delivered on Tuesday 17 January, the European Court of Human Rights upheld Russia’s conviction for failing to offer legal recognition to same-sex couples, which is considered a violation of the right to private and family life (Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights).
This judgment has the peculiarity that it concerns Russia, which was excluded from the Council of Europe in March 2022, one month after its invasion of Ukraine and, de facto, left the Court’s jurisdiction six months later, in September 2022.
“The judgment is not binding in the classical sense of the term”, says Edoardo Stoppioni, professor of public law at the University of Strasbourg and member of the Advisory Commission on Human Rights of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.
“But it strengthens the Court’s jurisprudence in the 46 member states of the Council of Europe and, in Russia, it can be a political instrument of resistance for applicants and for associations or NGOs that need an external and critical voice on the evolution of the Russian legal order”.
It is also very important in terms of the rights of LGBTI people in the 46 member states of the Council of Europe, says Pierre Karleskind from France, vice-president of the LGBTI intergroup in the European Parliament.
It cites Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, Slovakia, Latvia and Lithuania, which have now been “pushed to the wall” by “this extensive interpretation of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights”.
Link to the Fedotova vs. Russia judgment: https://aeur.eu/f/4xq (Véronique Leblanc)