Human rights news and case-law roundup
2 July 2010
We recently started adding links to interesting new articles and case-law the sidebar under the heading “Recent selected sources (del.icio.us)”. Below is a quick rundown of the most recent links. The full list of links can be found here.
- 2 July | Police use of protest photos will face review – The Financial Times reports that the use of police databases containing thousands of photographs of demonstrators is to be reviewed by ministers as part of a government vow to expand the right to non-violent protest (a pledge made in the Coalition Program for Government).
- 1 July | Parliamentary privilege hearings not subject to press restrictions – The Court of Appeal is currently hearing the appeal of four men accused of fiddling their parliamentary expenses. The men are claiming parliamentary privilege on the basis of the 1688 Bill of Rights (see our previous post).
- 1 July | Iraq deaths in British custody could see military face legal challenges – Public Interest Lawyers is demanding that a public inquiry is held into the deaths of 102 civilians allegedly at the hands of British soldiers during the Iraq conflict. This would be the third such inquiry, with the Baha Mousa Inquiry nearly concluded and the Al-Swaedy Inquiry starting soon.
- 1 July | UK Supreme Court Decides R (Smith) v SSD « EJIL – We have posted on this important Supreme Court decision, most recently here. This link is to an interesting post on the Blog of the European Journal of International Law.
- 1 July | Same sex marriage case should go to the Grand Chamber – We have not posted yet on this important judgment of the European Court of Human Rights which found that Article 12 (the right to marriage) did not impose an obligation on the Austrian Government to grant a same-sex couple like the applicants access to marriage. See the court’s press release here.
- 30 June | Human rights or a British bill of rights? – The debate on whether there should be a British Bill of Rights rolls on, with this article arguing that there should be and that it should institute socio-economic rights. See our recent post discussing the issue.
- 30 June | David Cameron agrees terms of UK torture inquiry – There have been conflicting reports over the past week as to whether the Prime Minister has in fact agreed terms of the promised public inquiry into allegations that the intelligence services colluded in the torture of terrorist suspects. We will post on this once it becomes clear what shape the Inquiry will take.