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Archive for September, 2010

Family legal aid tender process was “unfair, unlawful and irrational”

Posted in Art. 8 | Right to Privacy/Family, Family, In the news, Politics / Public Order, Spending cuts, tagged , on September 30, 2010 | 2 Comments »

Updated The High Court has ruled that the Legal Service Commission’s legal aid tender process was “unfair, unlawful and irrational”. The decision came in  a judicial review of the tender brought by the Law Society. According to the Law Society’s press release: The failure of the LSC to anticipate, let alone manage, the outcome of [...]

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New “loss of control” defence as murder law reforms take effect

Posted in Art. 6 | Right to Fair Trial, Criminal, In the news, tagged on September 30, 2010 | 1 Comment »

Joshua Rozenberg has written an article in today’s Guardian pointing out that, as of Monday, a major reform of the law of murder will take effect. The measures, which were introduced by the last Government, in effect replace the old partial defence to murder of provocation with a new partial defence of “loss of control”. [...]

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Roma: Commission shies away from full discrimination action against France

Posted in Art. 8 | Right to Privacy/Family, European, In the news, tagged , on September 30, 2010 | 1 Comment »

We reported earlier on the threat by EC Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding to institute infringement proceedings against France in respect of its expulsion of Roma and the dismantling of their encampments. It seems now that the Commission itself may not have the stomach for an action expressly based on the ban on discrimination in the [...]

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UK discriminated by making same-sex relationship mum pay more child maintenance

Posted in Art. 14 | Anti-Discrimination, Art. 8 | Right to Privacy/Family, Case comments, Children, Family, Margin of Appreciation, tagged , on September 30, 2010 |

J M v. The United Kingdom – 37060/06 [2010] ECHR 1361 – Read judgment The European Court of Rights has declared that rules on child maintenance prior to introduction of the Civil Partnership Act discriminated against those in same-sex relationships. The events happened nearly a decade ago and the law in relation to same-sex couples has [...]

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Human rights roundup: Green Milibands, press freedom and Guantanamo Bay rights

Posted in In the news, tagged on September 30, 2010 |

Some of this week’s human rights news, in bite-size form. The full list of our external links can be found on the right sidebar or here: Can an institution demand a CRB check from tutors visiting to train staff? – Anna Fairclough, Liberty: Another excellent answer to a human rights question via the Guardian’s Liberty Clinic. [...]

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Coroners take action on deaths in custody

Posted in Art. 2 | Right to life, In the news, Inquests and Inquiries, tagged on September 29, 2010 |

Coroners are making more recommendations about how to avoid deaths in custody, according to the latest report from the Ministry of Justice. The latest statistics on “rule 43 reports”, where coroners make reports to prevent future deaths, show that deaths in custody account for 11% of reports made, up from just over 6% in the [...]

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Did the security services know about detainee mistreatment?

Posted in Art. 3 | Torture / Inhumane Treatment, In the news, Terrorism, tagged , on September 29, 2010 | 1 Comment »

More documents have emerged calling into question what the UK security services knew about the alleged mistreatment of ‘War on Terror’ detainees. Until this case is resolved, it is unlikely that work will begin on the upcoming torture inquiry. Various documents have been disclosed in the ongoing case of Al Rawi and Others v The Security Services, [...]

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A Russian reminder

Posted in Art. 6 | Right to Fair Trial, In the news, International, Politics / Public Order, Prisons, tagged on September 28, 2010 | 1 Comment »

I attended a talk this morning given by Igor Sutyagin, a nuclear scientist who was detained for 11 years on charges of treason. He was released in July as part of the high-profile spy-swap with the United States. Hearing Sutyagin’s description of the Russian justice system, as well as the “gulag” he was sent to [...]

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Warning: Wild Lawyers at Large

Posted in Blog news, Environment, European, In the news, tagged on September 28, 2010 | 3 Comments »

A group of lawyers, academics and campaigners has been deciding how to shake up our legal landscape to make the future safer for our environment. Sixty years of human rights and it feels like they’ve been with us for ever.  Two hundred and nine years since the founding fathers’ Bill of Rights came into effect [...]

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Police breached rights of short-skirt snooper

Posted in Art. 8 | Right to Privacy/Family, Case summaries, Police on September 27, 2010 | 3 Comments »

A, R (on the application of) v B [2010] EWHC 2361 (Admin) (21 July 2010) – Read judgment When should the police disclose a person’s private sexual practices to his employer? The high court has just ruled that a detective inspector breached a man’s human right to privacy by telling his employer that he had [...]

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Fathers’ rights on the agenda for upcoming family justice reform

Posted in Art. 8 | Right to Privacy/Family, Family, In the news, tagged , on September 26, 2010 | 12 Comments »

Last week I posted on a speech given by Sir Nicholas Wall on family justice reform. The speech has been widely reported: see the BBC, Zoe Williams’ challenge to Sir Nicholas’ point that intelligent parents made worse litigants, and this thorough analysis from Marylin Stowe. It should not be forgotten, however, that Sir Nicholas’ speech [...]

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Supreme Court status “still to be decided” in bonfire of quangos

Posted in In the news, Judges and Juries, tagged , on September 24, 2010 | 1 Comment »

Updated x 3 | The UK Supreme Court Blog has pointed out that the UK Supreme Court is listed as “still to be decided – options being considered” in the quango reform document which was leaked this morning. But what does this mean? Surely not that the new UK Supreme Court, after £56m of investment [...]

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Human rights roundup: Gaza acquitting, Google snooping and grade suing

Posted in In the news on September 24, 2010 |

Some of this week’s human rights news, in bite-size form. The full list of our external links can be found on the right sidebar or here: Judge’s veiled criticism of Israeli actions in Gaza causes a legal dilemma – Joshua Rozenberg: I posted on this in July (see here). A judge in a criminal damage case [...]

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Eviction of council tenants was breach of human rights

Posted in Art. 8 | Right to Privacy/Family, Case comments, Case law, Housing, In the news, tagged on September 23, 2010 | 1 Comment »

Updated x 2 | Kay and Others v United Kingdom (European Court of Human Rights, 21st September) – Read judgment The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that the UK violated the human rights of short-term tenants of council property whose leases had been terminated. The decision will not, however, prove much help to [...]

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When is access to environmental justice “prohibitively expensive”?

Posted in In the news, tagged on September 22, 2010 |

Coedbach Action Team Ltd v Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change [2010] EWHC 2312 (Admin) – Read judgment A recent decision of the High Court, relating to a challenge to planning permission for a power station, could significantly limit access to environmental justice for local community groups. The Aarhus Convention requires that access to [...]

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