Can we talk about poverty? How does the law protect socio-economic rights?
It is difficult for me in the present stage to take a stance on this issue because the Court has never found a violation instance of Article 3 in connection to poverty. But that does not mean that the Court might not reconsider that issue in the future. We have communicated one case under Article 3 and one case under Article 8. So it depends how this case will be argued and appraised by the Court. So I cannot, at the present stage, make comments as to what might happen, because we are just at the start of maybe reconsidering new issues. Do you think that national European legal systems might one day protect socio-economic rights, or is that too far away? The Court has already said that there is no watertight division, between classical civil and political rights and socio-economic rights. It depends on the circumstances. If a socio-economic problem might also be a problem under the classic civil and political rights. So, there is no right not to be poor, but, being poor might be a prob
