A week in which everything else paled into insignificance beside the devastating fire at Notre Dame de Paris and then the explosions in Sri Lanka

As one Twitter commentator said: “Preachers: Please don’t turn your Holy Week and Easter sermons into glorified travelogues. Yes, you’ve been to #NotreDame. Yes, it’s inspired you. But this week isn’t about you.” Likewise for blogs on law and religion.

A bereaved terrorist and balancing rights: Guimon

In Guimon v France [2019] ECHR 291 [in French: there is a press notice in English here], Ms Guimon, an active member of the Basque separatist organisation ETA until her arrest in 2003, had been sentenced to 17 years’ imprisonment for conspiring to plan an act of terrorism, handling assets obtained by racketeering and unlawful possession and transport of weapons and explosives in connection with terrorism. On 21 January 2014, her lawyer asked that she be granted leave under escort to pay her last respects to her father, who had died that day in a Bayonne hospital. Continue reading →