In four judgements of 13 January 2011 the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg returned to the issues raised in its earlier jurisprudence regarding preventive detention (“Sicherungsverwahrung”) under German criminal law. In its decision of 17 December 2009, M. v. Germany, the Court had held that the German Criminal Law's retroactive extension of confinement in preventive detention failed to meet the requirement of lawful detention “after conviction” under Art. 5 § 1 (a) of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (hereinafter “the Convention”), and violates the prohibition of retroactivity (Art. 7 § 1 of the Convention). The articles read as follows: