Respect for privacy from the Strasbourg perspective

Abstract

Following a general overview of the EHCR case of law and some of its distinctive features, this article focuses on explaining the meaning of ‘privacy’, and guaranteed as a fundamental right in light of Article 8 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, using as illustrations the verdicts of some cases judged by the institutions of Strasbourg. Certain paragraphs of the article address a series of issues, which according to the Court-referring to the images created by the Convention-cover a range , within which any individual may freely follow the development of their personality. The article also raises some questions, which the ECHR has often fully answered,or at least, indirectly implied. The author elaborates also on limits of privacy as foreseen by paragraph 2 of Article8, as well as on some obligations that the Convention assigns to its contracting State-Parties.