The predictable response was swooning gasps of attempts at 'politicizing the court' with a healthy chorus of 'how dare you.'

The countries that are chafing at the restrictive and meddlesome nature of the court's ever-expanding purview (which they've awarded themselves) are mostly the Eastern bloc, formerly Communist countries, who have only in the past few decades shuffled off their Soviet coils and joined 'The West.'

What they are seeing coming out of Brussels is alarming them, as the level of binding regulation from a largely unelected continental overlord is not creeping, but marching into the everyday governance of the relatively new democracies. Sometimes they have to feel as if a Politburo had been reborn with a blond, female figurehead.

For having the unmitigated gall to pretend they are a nation and not a vassal of Brussels.

The 'migrant' crisis has been one huge flashpoint, as nearly every  EU member is suffering under the weight of the EU's quotas, incomprehensible rules for allowing a country's invasions, and strictures against removing any of the invaders to the country from which they came.

All in the name of humanity and human rights, neither of which seems to be a concern for the EU hierarchy as far as native Europeans go. Germans, Austrain, Danes, Dutch and in between can just suck it up.

The Dutch government recently collapsed over it.

...This caused a rift with Wilders. Nine EU heads of government signed a letter calling for a stricter asylum policy and criticising the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which, through the judges of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, impede a strict asylum policy. The ECHR dates to the Cold War era, when there was a small flow of refugees from Eastern Europe. It is not designed to cope with the current mass immigration from Africa and the Middle East. The Convention needs an update. 

The initiative came from Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever also signed. But Schoof regarded it ‘a step too far’. Wilders then pulled the plug. In fact, the Netherlands had a centre-right coalition but still pursued a centre-left immigration policy. Dutch citizens feel like strangers in their own country. Some asylum seekers are even being housed on cruise ships, a place the average Dutch person cannot afford.

The pattern resembles other European countries. All Western European nations are struggling with an excessive influx of asylum seekers. Central and Eastern European countries were wise enough to prevent this. Every election in every European country is about immigration. Germany, the Netherlands, France, Italy, Scandinavian countries, Spain, Portugal. Rarely has Western Europe faced such a common problem while lacking a common, strenuous, approach. As a result, voters are protesting at the ballot box, and parties such as Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National (RN) and countless other parties which are being transformed into leading parties.

There are smaller cases involving the ECHR which are also prodding a schism between EU-ophiles and the current nationalist fervor beginning to rumble through the continent.

A case in point was just decided today against the Czech Republic.

In what seems like reasonable rules, your 'personal identification number' in that country, which denotes male or female, cannot be changed without your having the surgery to physically remove the bits that made you one sex and attempt to fashion you into the other.

At least, I guess, they're woke enough to be willing to go that far.

A non-binary type took them to the big court for not cooperating with their delusion.

It turns out the Czech government's accommodation is not far enough for the ECHR.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled that the Czech Republic violated the right to private life of a non-binary citizen by refusing to alter the gendered portion of their personal identification number unless they underwent irreversible gender reassignment surgery.

The opinion, published Thursday, marks a partial victory for the complainant, identified as T.H., who claimed to have long struggled with the male identity assigned at birth but opted not to have surgery due to health concerns.

As reported by Echo24, T.H. legally changed their name and obtained a new identity card in 2012, but Czech authorities declined to modify the birth number, which reflects a person’s gender. The national law requires individuals to undergo surgery before their legal gender can be officially changed.

NATIONAL LAW requires one thing; however, the ECHR determines what is best and, ultimately, what will happen.

...The ECHR found that this legal requirement constituted a violation of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects the right to private and family life. In its reasoning, the court said: “Making the legal recognition of transgender people’s new gender identity conditional on the undergoing of surgery, which entails or may entail sterilization against their will, constituted making the full exercise of their right to respect for private life conditional on the full exercise of their right to bodily integrity.”

I can't imagine how that will sit with the Czechs themselves, as their highest court spelled out quite clearly what the republic felt about the issue - that they only recognized men and women, with 'binary existence' being merely a social construct.

...The case had previously reached the Czech Constitutional Court, which ruled against T.H. in 2022, declaring, “In the Czech Republic, people are divided into women and men. This understanding of the binary existence of the human species does not originate in the will of the state in the sense of the will of public authority, as the public authorities have only accepted it as a social reality.”

“If it is constitutionally accepted, and even foreseen by the constitutional order, that people are divided into men and women… then it seems logical that the state records information about gender,” the Czech court added at the time.

The ECHR has the power to compel a so-called republic to keep a machete-wielding Syrian, as well as not allowing that same country to define on their terms 'What is a woman?'

The European Court of Human Rights will take that from here, thank you.

Well...actually, they already took it from them when they joined.

All 46 Council of Europe member states, including the 27 EU countries, are already bound by the Convention. However, the EU itself is not. This means that the actions of the EU’s institutions, agencies and other bodies cannot currently be challenged at the European Court of Human Rights.  

It's kind of funny how the Brussels Brahmins managed to avoid folding themselves into the mix, though.

Rules for thee and not for me.

In countries so long under a Soviet boot, I don't know how much longer that's going to sit well.