The State is limited in riding roughshod over individual rights

In recent rulings, European courts have shown they are willing and able to keep individual human beings’ personal rights and dignity as the benchmark which all legislation must meet, writes Simon McGarr

Recent ruling by the European Court of Human Rights might mean the Irish Revenue practice of printing lists of tax defaulters might similarly be illegal.

There has been some recent reporting of a judgment of the European Court of Human Rights finding that a Hungarian law requiring publication on the internet of personal details of people in arrears or default in their tax affairs was a breach of privacy rights.

As there was some confusion on the matter, it is worth pointing out that the ECHR is not an EU institution and its decisions are not EU rulings. As such, it does not have the power to directly strike down legislation, in the way the EU’s Court of Justice has.