This case concerned the impact of Hungary’s constitutional guarantee of the right to life on its parliament’s ability to pass abortion laws. Petitioners submitted that Hungary’s Act LXXIX/1992 on the Protection of Foetal Life (“the Act”), regarding permissible abortion, was unconstitutional. The Act allowed a pregnant woman to have an abortion if she was “in …Read more

The Applicants were the South African Human Rights Commission and a coalition of 70 organizations representing lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in South Africa. They brought a constitutional challenge to various statutory provisions in South Africa criminalizing homosexual acts. The Applicants claimed that the statutes in question violated sections 9, 10 and 14 of …Read more

On 19 March 1996, an indictment was issued against the four accused ZD, ZM, HD and EL. The indictment related to the events that took place in 1992 in a prison camp near the town of Celebici in central Bosnia and Herzegovina. The accused were charged with grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, …Read more

The applicant, a Finnish national, had been married to X, who was not a Finnish national, at the time the events occurred. They were both infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). X was convicted for rape and during the criminal proceedings the court gave orders requiring the applicant’s medical advisers to give evidence. In …Read more

A group of armed persons with their faces covered by masks violently entered the home of the Mejías, abducted Mr. Mejías and later returned to the house, apparently to ask Mrs. Mejías for her husband’s identity documents. While she looked for them, one of the men followed her into the room and told her that …Read more

Stubbings was born in 1957, placed in the care of Mr. and Mrs. W by a local authority when she was  two years old, and adopted by them when she was three. She alleged that she was sexually assaulted by Mr. W and committed acts of indecency at his instigation on a number of occasions …Read more

The first defendant was a fourteen and a half year old girl who became pregnant after being raped by a family friend. Her parents (second and third defendants) reported the rape to the police and inquired whether there was a process available to test the paternity of the fetus before the defendants aborted the pregnancy …Read more

Cruz Varas (C V) , his wife and son (all Chilean nationals) had applied for political asylum but the National Immigration Board held that, from the information given, they had not invoked sufficiently strong reasons to be considered as refugees under national or international law and that they should be expelled. In an unsuccessful appeal …Read more

A defendant in a rape case petitioned a writ of Habeas Corpus before the Federal Supreme Court against the Court of Appeals decision because the survivor refused to be subject to physical exam and the jurisprudence gives extra weight to witness evidence in absence of such exam.  The second argument was that the Court of …Read more

The Court considered three cases together that involved individuals sentenced to death. One case involved a black man who was convicted of murdering a homeowner during an attempted burglary. He was committed to a psychiatric hospital after arrest and diagnosed as suffering from mild to moderate mental impairments with psychotic episodes, but was later found …Read more