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Archive for September, 2011

What is a life worth living? Further analysis of “M” – Daniel Sokol

Posted in In the news on September 30, 2011 |

W (by her litigation friend, B) v M (by her litigation friend, the Official Solicitor) and others [2011] EWHC 2443 (Fam). Read judgment. In the first case of its kind, the Court of Protection ruled that withdrawing artificial nutrition and hydration from a person in a minimally conscious state was not, in the circumstances, in [...]

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No right to die without a “Living will”

Posted in In the news on September 30, 2011 | 5 Comments »

We posted earlier on the Court of Protection’s refusal to declare that doctors could lawfully discontinue and withhold all life-sustaining treatment from a patient in a minimally conscious state (MCS) – “just above” a vegetative state (VS), which itself is slightly higher than a coma – read judgment. The message underlying this ruling  is clear: [...]

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Court refuses family’s “right to die”

Posted in In the news on September 29, 2011 |

M and others v NHS Primary Healthcare Trust – read judgment For the first time the courts have been asked to consider whether life-supporting treatment should be withdrawn from a patient who was not in a persistent vegetative state (PVS) but was minimally conscious. The patient’s family sought a declaration for the withdrawal of artificial [...]

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Detention of mentally ill foreign national violated Convention rights

Posted in In the news on September 29, 2011 |

R (on the application of S) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2011] EWHC 2120 (Admin) – read judgment The High Court has found that the Secretary of State unlawfully detained a mentally ill foreign national who was awaiting deportation.  By failing to notify the claimant of the deportation order in good time [...]

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Strict liability for offence of under-age sex does not offend presumption of innocence

Posted in In the news on September 28, 2011 |

C v United Kingdom Application no. 37334/08 – read judgment The Strasbourg Court has rejected as manifestly ill-founded a complaint that the offence of strict liability for rape of a child under 13 violated the right to a presumption if innocence under Article 6 and respect for private life under Article 8. This admissibility decision [...]

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When is family life family life? A look at deportation cases – Lourdes Peroni

Posted in Art. 8 | Right to Privacy/Family, Case law, European, Family, Immigration/Extradition, tagged , on September 27, 2011 |

In A.A. v. the United Kingdom, a recent case involving the deportation of a young Nigerian man, the Court faced, once again, the question whether relationships between adult children and parents/siblings amount to family life in deportation cases. The Court’s Fourth Section did not give a clear answer to this question. The 24-year-old applicant resided with [...]

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The suits in Strasbourg – Yukos Oil, tax evasion and human rights

Posted in In the news on September 27, 2011 |

Oao  Neftyanay Kopaniya Yukos v Russia (Application no. 14902/04) - read judgment  The collapse of the Russian oil giant Yukos following enforcement proceedings for multi-billion tax evasion has not prevented the ghost of the now-defunct company appearing in Strasbourg as a “victim” of the Convention.  After majority shareholder Mikhail Khodorkovsky  was prosecuted and imprisoned for fraud, the [...]

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Don’t throw the BAILII out with the bath water

Posted in Art. 10 | Freedom of Expression, In the news, Judges and Juries, Technology, tagged on September 26, 2011 | 8 Comments »

The Guardian published an editorial today arguing that court judgments should be opened up to the public. The editorial challenges the fact that BAILII, the charity which currently publishes most judgments online, is not searchable on Google. Broadly speaking, it is good to see The Guardian taking up this somewhat esoteric but important topic. As [...]

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Application of EU Rights Charter – Advocate General’s Opinion

Posted in In the news on September 26, 2011 |

Updated |NS v Secretary of State for the Home Department (Principles of Community law) [2011] EUECJ C-493/10 (22 September 2011) - read opinion The Common European Asylum System was designed to establish a fair and effective distribution of the burden on the asylum systems of the EU Member States. Regulation No 343/2003 was passed in order to [...]

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Misrepresenting the law on squatting

Posted in Art. 8 | Right to Privacy/Family, Criminal, Housing, In the news, Protocol 1 Art. 1 | Peaceful enjoyment of property on September 26, 2011 | 19 Comments »

Today, an open letter from 158 lawyers and academics has been published in The Guardian claiming that the law on squatting, on which the Government has proposed reforms, has been misrepresented by politicians and the media. I am one of the letter’s signatories. Amongst other things, it states that: a significant number of recent media [...]

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Do ask, do tell – The Human Rights Roundup

Posted in In the news, Roundup on September 26, 2011 |

Welcome back to the human rights roundup, a regular bulletin of all the law we haven’t quite managed to feature in full blog posts. The full list of links can be found here. You can also find our table of human rights cases here and previous roundupshere. Reiterating the last roundup’s call, if you know [...]

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Your honey with a dash of GM pollen: EU Court rules

Posted in Agriculture, Case comments, Environment, European, Freedom of Information on September 22, 2011 | 2 Comments »

Case C‑442/09 Bablok et al v. Freistaat Bayern, Monsanto intervening The result of this decision by the CJEU is summed up in a pithy summary by EU Business entitled “EU court backs angry honeymaker in GM pollen row.” The underlying question arose when food law met honey law (yes, there is one) met GMO licensing law, It was all about whether adventitious [...]

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Rape conviction carries little weight against right to family life, rules Strasbourg

Posted in Art. 8 | Right to Privacy/Family, Case comments, Case law, Case summaries, Criminal, Immigration/Extradition, In the news on September 21, 2011 |

 A.A. v. THE UNITED KINGDOM – 8000/08 [2011] ECHR 1345 – Read judgment The Strasbourg Court has ruled unlawful the deportation of a Nigerian man convicted of rape. Considering the facts of his case afresh, the Court came to the conclusion that the 24 year old student’s right to family life would be violated if [...]

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Liberty recruiting human rights advice line volunteers

Posted in In the news, tagged on September 21, 2011 | 5 Comments »

Liberty, the human rights advocacy organisation, is currently recruiting for trainees, pupils, solicitors and barristers to volunteer on its evening Advice Line. The Advice Line runs on Mondays and Thursday 6:30pm – 8:30pm and gives advice to members of the public on human rights and civil liberties (members of the public can call on 0845 [...]

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Lord Justice Wall lays down law on family court privacy

Posted in Art. 10 | Freedom of Expression, Art. 6 | Right to Fair Trial, Children, Family, In the news, Poor reporting on September 20, 2011 | 16 Comments »

Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council v Watson [2011] EWHC 2376 (Fam) (01 September 2011) – Read judgment Sir Nicholas Wall, the President of the Family Division, has suspended a nine-month prison sentence for contempt of court given to Elizabeth Watson, a “private investigator” who published online sex abuse allegations which had been rejected by a series [...]

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