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de Menezes: No individual prosecutions, but an effective investigation – ECtHR

This week, the mosaic shrine adorning the wall outside Stockwell underground station once again became the focal point for difficult questions surrounding the police response the terrorist attacks of 2005.

The judgment of a Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights in Da Silva v the United Kingdom draws a line under a long legal battle mounted by the family of Jean Charles de Menezes, the young Brazilian electrician shot dead by the Metropolitan Police on 22 July 2005 having been mistaken for a suicide bomber. Continue reading →

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Triumph for the rule of law in South Africa?

Jacob-Zuma(R)The leader of South Africa’s main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, has called for President Zuma to be impeached following the Constitutional Court’s finding that he had flouted the Constitution by failing to “uphold, defend and respect the Constitution.”

The case was brought by the Democratic Alliance, amongst others, seeking validity for the Public Protector’s remedial action against the President. Public Protector Thuli Madonsela had reported that Zuma should reimburse the country the money he has spent on upgrades to his palatial homestead. As a course of this remedial action, she recommended that he pay back a portion of the funds used for the upgrades. But this report was set aside by the National Assembly after Zuma made submissions on why he should not pay back the funds.

Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng, giving judgment for the Court, said that the remedial action had a binding effect. Continue reading →

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Does Art 5 entail a right to legal representation when facing prison for contempt of court?

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Hammerton v. the United Kingdom, Application no. 6287/10 – read judgment.

The European Court of Human Rights has held that the detention of an individual following his breach of a civil contact order, where he had no legal representation, did not violate his rights under Article 5, ECHR (Right to Liberty and Security of Person). However, the decision not to provide compensation to the individual following a failure to provide him with a lawyer during domestic proceedings resulted in a violation of Article 6 (Right to a Fair Trial).  Continue reading →

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The round-up: Genocide, domestic violence and justice on holiday

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In the news

Radovan Karadžić, the former Bosnian Serb leader, has been sentenced to 40 years in jail for genocide and war crimes committed during the 1992-95 Balkans war, including the massacre of more than 8,000 Bosnian men and boys at Srebrenica and the siege of Sarajevo, during which 13,952 people were killed. Despite the 70-year-old former leader’s insistence that his actions were aimed at protecting Serbs during the conflict, he was found guilty of 10 out of the 11 charges he faced, in a verdict delivered 18 months after the end of his five-year trial.

Karadžić had been indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) which was established by the UN in 1993. He was on the run for the next 13 years, during which time he assumed the identity of ‘Dr Dragon Dabic’, a bearded health guru who lived openly in the Serbian capital. He was finally arrested in 2008 and handed over to the Hague by the Serbian government. Continue reading →

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Human rights – a coat of many colours

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“Roses are red.

Violets are blue.

Whatever your political colour;

Human rights should matter to you”

Some legal oratory flows into the profound, beautiful and inspiring. Most of the time when it comes to poetry – as this particularly appalling ditty is designed to demonstrate – we lawyers should stick to the day job.* 

This week human rights commentators celebrated both World Poetry Day and the launch of a new project on the conservative commitment to human rights.  Announcing a Commission made up of MPs and commentators – including Maria Miller MP, Dominic Grieve QC MP and Matthew D’Ancona – Bright Blue this week published a series of essays by Conservative leaders on a range of human rights threats; from the refugee crisis to the repeal of the Human Rights Act.

Bright Blue now joins the Labour Campaign for Human Rights in taking steps to take the current debate beyond the heat and light of party politics and into a greater conversation about how we protect the rights of the most vulnerable in our communities and about the UK’s place in the world.

Continue reading →

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Stop and search controversy continues – the Round-up

Brought to you by Hannah Lynes

In the news

According to research released by the Home Office, large increases in stop and search operations have no discernible effect on crime reduction. The official study examined crime rates across 10 London boroughs in the first year of Operation Blunt 2, which led to a surge in the number of searches from 34,154 in the year before to 123,335 in 2008/2009.

The findings are likely to lend support to the position of the Home Secretary, Theresa May who in 2014 introduced new measures to curtail reliance on the powers. She has previously been critical of claims by the Metropolitan Police that a rise in knife crime in recent months is linked to a drop in the use of stop and search, warning against a “knee-jerk reaction.”

Police powers to conduct the searches have proved highly controversial, with campaigners arguing that ethnic minority groups are disproportionately targeted. An analysis by the Independent found that between December 2014 and April 2015, black people were more likely to be stopped than white people in 36 out of 39 police forces. Continue reading →

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Ethics on the bench and in the witness box: The Round-up

Photo credit: Guardian

This week’s round up comes from Alex Wessely.

In the news

A highly experienced magistrate – Richard Page – has been sacked for airing views opposing same-sex couples being allowed to adopt.  In a statement the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office said his views – which he had expressed in an BBC interview in 2015 – constituted “serious misconduct which brought the magistracy into disrepute”. Alice Arnold in the Guardian agrees with the decision to sack him (“the law is clear… magistrates must respect it”), whereas the Christian Legal Centre say this represents a “new political orthodoxy” and “modern day madness”. In a subsequent development, Mr Page is now planning to sue Michael Gove, citing religious discrimination. Continue reading →