Paulo Pinto de Albuquerque

Paulo Pinto de Albuquerque (born 5 October 1966) is a Portuguese judge born in Beira, Mozambique and currently the judge of the European Court of Human Rights in respect of Portugal.^[1]

Early career

Before joining the Court, Albuquerque has served as a judge in various civil and criminal courts in Lisbon, an expert with the Council of Europe’s Group of States Against Corruption (GRECO), an advisor to the Portuguese Ministry of Internal Administration, and an associate professor at the Universidade Católica Portuguesa (UCP).^[2] From 2006, he served as an adjunct professor at the University of Illinois College of Law.^[3]

European Court of Human Rights

In January 2016, Albuquerque issued the only dissenting opinion of the seven judges when the Court ruled against Romanian engineer Bogdan Barbulescu who was fired in 2007 after his company discovered that he was using their internet for personal purposes during work hours. Albuquerque detailed in court documents that Barbulescu's personal correspondence during work time was neither prolonged nor damaging to the company he was employed by. He called Barbulescu's dismissal "disproportionate." He warned that unless companies clearly stipulate their Internet usage policy, "Internet surveillance in the workplace runs the risk of being abused by employers acting as a distrustful Big Brother lurking over the shoulders of their employees, as though the latter had sold not only their labor, but also their personal lives to employers."^[4]

References