Sports Law: Update on the Pechstein Case

220px-Claudia_Pechstein_2008Regular readers of this blog will have followed our coverage of the Pechstein case, which, for the time being, came to an end with the June 2016 decision of the Federal Supreme Court (Bundesgerichtshof), which held that the court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) was a “proper” arbitral tribunal. Continue reading

ECHR Blog – Happy Anniversary!

ECHR Blog, Antoine Buyse’s blog covering the European Convention on Human Rights, is celebrating its fifth anniversary today. Happy anniversary, and keep up the good work!

The Convention and the case law of the ECHR did feature in this blog, readers may recall, in the context of Germany’s excessive length of court proceedings. Human rights is both a great concept, an abstract category, and of great relevance in our daily practice. If we do not have to pay attention to their impact on our daily practice and can take them for granted, all the better. But we should think of those who can not do so.

Speeding Up the Courts: The First Award of Damages for Excessive Lenghts of Proceedings

In December 2011, we reported about the legislation that was just introduced to sanction the excessive duration of legal proceedings. The German parliament addressed concerns of the European Court of Human Rights, who had criticized Germany for lacking effective remedies for excessive lengths of proceedings. Parties to such long-drawn proceedings can now be awarded monetary damages if the courts take longer than they should have. The new provisions were not exactly received with great enthusiasm, and most commentators were sceptical or even cynical about the effectiveness of the new law. So it was very interesting to see the first damages award come in. Continue reading

Speeding Up the Courts

There is quite some legislative activity impacting litigation at the moment: On Friday, December 2, 2011, the Law on Judicial Remedies in Court Proceedings and Criminal Investigations of Excessive Length (Gesetz über den Rechtsschutz bei überlangen Gerichtsverfahren und strafrechtlichen Ermittlungsverfahren) has been published in the Federal Gazette and became effective the day after.

By passing this law, Germanyis reacting to several judgments of the European Court of Human Rights. In 125 matters before the ECHR, Germany paid compensation due to  excessive length of judicial proceedings, and approx. 80% of all judgments delivered against Germany before the ECHR are due to such violations of the reasonable-time requirement of Article 6 § 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Continue reading