European Court of Human Rights

Gender-based law on marital names.  The Court found no legal justification for a law to require married women to take their husbands' surnames.

In 2008, a developmentally disabled woman was walking home when she was threatened by an unknown man with a knife and forced to have sexual intercourse with him. The man was later identified, and he claimed that the act had been consensual. The man did have a previous conviction for rape.

E’s husband, a police officer, had been abusive towards her, often in the presence of their teenage daughters, whose psychological well-being was adversely affected as a result. A protection order had been issued against E’s husband upon E’s first request but was not respected by the husband and was partly revoked on appeal. E filed a criminal complaint and claimed being pressured by other police officers to withdraw the complaint.

In Case of M.G.C. v. Romania, an 11-year-old was sexually assaulted multiple times by a fifty-two-year-old man and five teenagers, resulting in her pregnancy. With the approval of her parents, she was able to terminate the pregnancy.

The Court found a law that only required men, and not women, to serve as firefighters, or alternatively, required men to pay a fire service levy, was discriminatory and violated the ECHR.

Der Gerichtshof stellte fest, dass ein Gesetz, das nur Männer und nicht Frauen zum Feuerwehrdienst verpflichtete bzw. von Männern die Zahlung einer Feuerwehrgebühr verlangte, diskriminierend war und gegen die EMRK verstieß.

Romanian administrative and judicial authorities rejected the requests of applicants, who are transgender persons, to correct their gender markers, their first name, and their personal identification number on official identification documents on the grounds that, in order to justify such a request, an applicant must prove that they had undergone gender affirmation surgery.

The applicant alleged that the forced gynecological exam of his wife constituted a breach of Article 8 of the Convention. The Government argued that the exam was carried out with the consent of both the applicant and his wife. The Court found that the interference with the woman’s right to physical integrity was not “in accordance with law” because the Government failed to demonstrate a medical necessity or circumstanced defined by law for an exam, and there was the question of consent.

The first applicant, the mother, filed for asylum upon arriving in Sweden, claiming she had fled Nigeria while pregnant with her daughter, the second applicant, in an attempt to flee the female-genital mutilation ("FGM") that would have been performed on her during childbirth if she stayed in Nigeria. The Swedish Migration Board rejected the asylum application, explaining that FGM was not grounds for asylum, and that FGM was outlawed by Nigerian law so it was unlikely the first applicant would be submitted to the procedure upon return to Nigeria.

DJ was allegedly raped by his colleague. The Croatian authorities failed to conduct an effective investigation of the rape allegation by failing to conduct a proper inspection of the scene of the alleged crime, interview the injured party and other witnesses, and secure forensic evidence. The trial judge placed his emphasis on DJ alleged antisocial behavior thus lacked perceived impartiality. The ECtHR found Croatia in breach of the procedural aspect of Article 3 and 8 of the ECHR.

The Muslim applicant, aged eleven at the material time, was enrolled in the first year of a state secondary school and wore a headscarf to school. On seven occasions in January 1999 the applicant went to physical education and sports classes wearing her headscarf and refused to take it off despite repeated requests to do so by her teacher, who explained that wearing a headscarf was incompatible with physical education classes.