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With its Grand Chamber judgment of 14 February 2023 in the case Halet v. Luxembourg (application no. 21884/18), the ECtHR put an end to the long-lasting legal battle between one of the whistleblowers who triggered the LuxLeaks scandal and the state of Luxembourg. While previous judgments denied the defence of whistle-blower status according to Art. 10 ECHR (freedom of expression), the ECtHR’s Grand Chamber decided in the opposite and found a violation of Art. 10 ECHR.

On 25 January 2023, MONEYVAL published its fifth-round evaluation report on Estonia based on an onsite visit concluded in May 2022. Among other things, the report encourages the country to reinforce the capacities and performance of the private sector and improve its law enforcement efforts in the field of AML/CFT.

On 23 January 2023, MONEYVAL pub-lished its fifth-round evaluation report on the Principality of Monaco, based on an onsite visit concluded in March 2022. The fifth evaluation round builds on previous MONEYVAL assessments by strengthening the examination of how effectively Member States prevent and combat money laundering (ML) and ter-rorism financing (TF). The report states that Monaco demon-strates a moderate level of effectiveness in relation to the following issues:

On 26 January 2023, GRECO welcomed in a report the Slovenian Constitutional Court’s decisions that parliamentary inquiries into particular judicial proceedings and decisions by judges and prosecutors were unconstitutional, as they risked violating judicial independence.

On 9 March 2023 GRECO published its fifth round evaluation report on Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). The country joined GRECO in 2000 and initially had a positive track record of implementing GRECO recommendations; however, the trend has been declining. While 83.3% of the recommendations were ultimately implemented after the first evaluation round, full implementation of recommendations declined to 43.7% in the second and to 45.4% in the third evaluation rounds.

On 1 March 2023, GRECO published its fifth round evaluation report on Austria. The country has been a member of GRECO since 2006, implementing 67% of the recommendations of the joint first and second evaluation rounds and 76% of the recommendations of the third evaluation round.

On 16 February 2023 GRECO published its fifth round evaluation report on Ireland. The country joined GRECO in 1999 and has implemented 75% of the recommendations of the first evaluation round, 85% of the second evaluation round, and 70% of the third evaluation round.

On 19 January 2023, GRECO published its fifth round evaluation report on Bulgaria. The focus of the fifth round is on preventing corruption and promoting integrity in central governments, especially regarding persons with top executive functions (PTEFs) and law enforcement agencies.

Since the Russian Federation ceased to be a party to the ECHR on 16 September 2022 (→ eucrim 3/2022, 199), the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has ruled in a number of cases. In a background brief of 3 February 2023, the Registrar of the Court set out some guiding procedural principles for the future handling of cases against Russia that fall within the Court's jurisdiction:

On 20 March 2023 the ECtHR published a new version of the Rules of Court on its website. They clarify third-party intervention in amendments to Rule 44 (2) and (3) (b). These rules govern the conditions and time limits for the submission of written comments …