European Court of Human Rights: review of the Grand Chamber judgment of 17 October 2019 in the case of López Ribalda and Others v. Spain (applications nos. 1874/13 and 8567/13)

In the decision in the case of López Ribalda v. Spain, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights considered a complaint of the five applicants, who were the store employees, regarding the violation of their rights in the light of Article 8 (right to respect for private life) and Article 6 (right to a fair trial) of the Convention due to the actions of the employer, who carried out hidden surveillance and dismissed the appellants for the theft of goods. The court, referring to the criteria in the case of Bărbulescu v. Romania, found that the measures taken by the employer were justified by the suspicion of a serious crime and did not violate the guarantees established in Article 8 of the Convention. The court also noted that, assessing the situation for compliance with the principles of proportionality, the national courts did not go beyond the given “margin of appreciation”. Finally, the Court concluded that the use of video material as evidence in the applicants’ trials did not violate their right to a fair trial.

Citation: (2019) Evropeyskiy Sud po pravam cheloveka: obzor postanovleniya Bol'shoy Palaty ot 17 oktyabrya 2019 goda po delu Lopez Ribal'da (López Ribalda) i drugie protiv Ispanii (zhaloby No. 1874/13 i 8567/13) [European Court of Human Rights: review of the Grand Chamber judgment of 17 October 2019 in the case of López Ribalda and Others v. Spain (applications nos. 1874/13 and 8567/13)]. Mezhdunarodnoe pravosudie, vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 8–15. (In Russian).