Brussels, 16 May 2024: Today, on Roma Resistance Day, the European Roma Rights Centre launches its Roma Justice Project: a long-term, evolving initiative arguing for a restructuring of Europe’s criminal legal systems to provide better accountability and fairer representation for Roma before the law. The project is centred around a web platform that explores Romani people’s interactions with the criminal legal systems of Europe. By linking our lived experiences of discrimination as Romani individuals with a body of evidence that includes research reports, legal judgments, and quantitative data, the project exposes a criminal legal system that is deeply embedded with institutional racism and unable to function in a way that provides equality or justice for Roma.

Brussels, 16 May 2024: Today, on Roma Resistance Day, the European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) launches its RoMagic initiative, bringing much needed visibility to the discrimination faced by Romani LGBTIQ+ individuals, both from society and also within their Romani communities. Alongside our partners Vojvodjanski Romski Centar in Serbia and RomaJust in Romania, the ERRC will seek to foster an activist group of LGBTIQ+ Romani individuals through this initiative which will serve as a base for the ERRC’s ongoing commitment to defending all Roma from rights abuses, regardless of their gender identity or sexual orientation. 

Brussels, 22 April 2024: A Romani family who were evicted from the ‘La Barbuta’ segregated Romani camp in September 2021 have brought a civil lawsuit against the Municipality of Rome for its failure to take positive actions to end housing segregation and provide them with adequate alternative accommodation following the closure of the camp.

Brussels, 18 April 2024: The Supreme Court of North Macedonia has issued a groundbreaking ruling in favour of the European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) concerning discrimination against Romani children in the Tetovo Correctional Home (currently located in Volkovija) with regard to their right to education. The collective complaint covering a period from 14 September 2015 to 4 March 2020, accused North Macedonia’s juvenile correction system of failing to provide equal access to education for children placed in the correctional centre (direct discrimination by status). As most of the affected children were Romani, this also amounted to indirect discrimination based on ethnicity, violating the children's right to equality. The Supreme Court ordered the Court of Appeal to reassess the case and emphasised the need for a more detailed judgment. The decision included the first ever analysis of indirect discrimination by this court in a collective complaint (actio popularis), highlighting that the focus should be on unequal treatment and the differential impacts experienced by individuals in various positions.

Brussels, Budapest, 11 April 2024: The European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) and the National Association of Disadvantaged Families have taken legal action to raise serious concerns about equal access to education and the safety of Romani children from the Bűd district of Tiszavasvári who are forced to walk around seven kilometres to reach their local school after their bus service was stopped.

Brussels, Budapest, 10 April 2024: The European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) and the National Association of Disadvantaged Families are taking legal action against the Saint Damien Greek Catholic Hospital in Kisvárda for their denial of abortion services to women, including disadvantaged Romani women. The organisations have filed a complaint before the Deputy Commissioner for Fundamental Rights, Ombudsman for the Rights of National Minorities in Hungary.

Brussels, 25 March 2024: The European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) has formally requested a comprehensive investigation into the tragic death of Michelle, a 6-year-old Romani girl who lost her life due to an electric shock at Giugliano camp in Naples, Italy.