Category: Case law
23 November 2010 by Catriona Murdoch
Petsafe Ltd, R (on the application of) v The Welsh Ministers [2010] EWHC 2908 (Admin) (16 November 2010) – Read judgment
The High Court has ruled that a Welsh ban on the use of collars designed to administer electric shocks to cats and dogs does not breach Article 1 of the First Protocol of the ECHR or impinge upon the free movement of goods protected under European Union Law.
The Judicial Review application was brought by two interested parties, Petsafe Ltd and The Electronic Collar Manufacturers Association against the Welsh Ministers who after a lengthy consultation period dating from 2007, brought into force the Animal Welfare (Electronic Collars (Wales)) Regulations 2010 (SI 2010/934) (“the 2010 Regulations”) which banned the use of electric collars. The 2010 Regulations were created under the powers conferred to the Welsh Ministers under the Animal Welfare Act 2006 (“AWA 2006”). A breach of the 2010 Regulations is an offence punishable with up to 51 weeks imprisonment and/or a fine not exceeding Level 5 (£5,000).
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19 November 2010 by Adam Wagner
RT (Zimbabwe) & Ors v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2010] EWCA Civ 1285 (18 November 2010) – Read judgment
The Court of Appeal has ruled that asylum seekers cannot be forced to lie about not holding political beliefs when returning to their home country. The potentially wide-ranging decision extends the protection arising from a recent Supreme Court decision which found that homosexuals could not be sent back to their home country if they would have to lie about their sexuality.
The case concerned four Zimbabwean asylum seekers. In previous asylum cases involving Zimbabwe, it had been assumed that it is legitimate to require applicants, in order to avoid persecution, to demonstrate loyalty to Zanu-PF, itself a persecutory regime. The men in this case did not hold strong political views, but did not support the Zanu-PF either. The question was whether it would breach their human rights to send them back if they would be forced to join the ruling party.
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18 November 2010 by Isabel McArdle
Adakini Ntuli v Howard Donald [2010] EWCA Civ 1276 – Read judgment
Take That’s Howard Donald has failed to maintain an injunction against the press reporting details of his relationship with a former girlfriend. He had originally sought the injunction after receiving a text from the woman saying: “Why shud I continue 2 suffer financially 4 the sake of loyalty when selling my story will sort my life out?”
‘Superinjunctions’ have received a great deal of press coverage recently, not least because they are usually granted in cases involving celebrities’ private lives. They are injunctions, usually in privacy or breach of confidence cases, which prevent not only the publication of certain matters, but even the publication of the existence of legal proceedings. These cases are of particular interest because of the competing ECHR rights in play: Article 8, the right to respect for private and family life, and Article 10, the right to freedom of expression.
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17 November 2010 by Alasdair Henderson
As we reported recently, the Special Immigration Appeals Commission has ruled that Abu Hamza, the extremist Muslim cleric, cannot be stripped of his British citizenship since this would have the effect of making him stateless.
This is the latest in a string of decisions by various courts in a long-running legal saga surrounding the British government’s attempts to remove Abu Hamza from the UK. Hamza is also facing extradition to the United States, but this has been stayed pending the substantive decision of the European Court of Human Rights as to whether the prospect of serving a life sentence in a ‘supermax’ US prison would breach his Article 3 rights (our analysis of the admissibility decision can be found here).
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11 November 2010 by Adam Wagner
The Royal College of Nursing & Ors, R (on the application of) v Secretary of State for the Home Department & Anor [2010] EWHC 2761 (Admin) (10 November 2010) – Read judgment
The High Court has ruled that a scheme which prohibits people convicted or cautioned for certain crimes from working with children or vulnerable adults breaches human rights law.
The system of automatically banning those convicted for or who admit certain crimes from working with children and vulnerable adults without allowing them to make representations breached their rights to a fair trial.
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11 November 2010 by Matthew Hill
Updated | JXF (a child) v York Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust [2010] EWHC 2800 (QB) – Read judgment
Mr Justice Tugendhat has held that the High Court should withhold the identity of a child claimant when approving the settlement of a clinical negligence case. The decision represents a restatement of the orthodox principle that cases should be heard in public and reported without restrictions, and that anonymity orders should only be granted after careful scrutiny.
His reason for coming to this particular decision was that revealing the name of the claimant would “make him vulnerable to losing the [settlement] money to fortune hunters or thieves.”
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10 November 2010 by Rosalind English
Robert Elwyn Watkins v Philip James Woolas [2010] EWHC 2702 (QB) 5 November 2010- read judgment
Update – read our 3 December 2010 post on his defeat in the administrative court
The Election Court has ruled that the Labour MP for Oldham knowingly and deliberately misled the constituency and as a result his election is void under Section 106 of the Representation of the People Act (1983). Permission for judicial review of the decision has been refused.
The provision of the 1983 Act makes it an offence for anyone to publish “any false statement of fact in relation to the candidate’s personal character or conduct” to prevent them being elected “unless he can show that he had reasonable grounds for believing, and did believe, that statement to be true”.
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10 November 2010 by Matthew Hill
R (Booker) v NHS Oldham and Direct Line Insurance PLC [2010] EWHC 2593 (Admin)- read judgment
The High Court has held that where a claimant agrees a damages settlement that includes an indemnity to fund private nursing care should existing NHS provision be withdrawn, it was unlawful for a primary care trust to cease its funding of the claimant’s care on the basis that her needs would be met through the settlement.
The claimant, B, was a tetraplegic who had sustained her injuries in a road traffic accident. She had received care from the defendant NHS trust (“the Trust”) over a number of years, and there was no dispute that her medical needs made her eligible for future care. In October 2009, B’s personal injury case was settled on the basis of both a lump sum and periodical payments, the latter due to commence from 15 December 2011. In respect of the period between the settlement date and the first periodical payment, a series of “safety net undertakings” were given by both sides in the litigation, and by DLI, the insurer of the injury claim defendant. These were to the effect that B would use her best endeavours to maintain the NHS funded care that she was receiving, but, should it nonetheless be withdrawn, DLI would indemnify B against the cost of providing replacement care. In June 2010, the Trust informed B that it intended to withdraw its provision of care from her with effect from the autumn, on the basis that B had elected to receive private care and hence no longer required NHS services. B sought judicial review of this decision.
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10 November 2010 by Catriona Murdoch
Dr Zakir Naik and The Secretary of State for the Home Department and Entry Clearance Officer, Mumbai India [2010] EWHC 2825 (Admin) – read judgment
As we reported last week, the High Court has approved the exclusion of Dr Zakir Naik, a popular Indian television Islamic preacher, from the UK on the grounds that his presence would not be conducive to the public good.
Despite the High Court finding that the initial decision to exclude Dr Naik was procedurally unfair and that Article 10 ECHR (the right to freedom of expression) was engaged in relation to his supporters, his challenge to the exclusion was rejected. This case focuses the spotlight once more on the somewhat limited territorial reach of the rights and freedoms guaranteed under the Convention, as well as the wide discretion of the Home Office to exclude radicals which it considers have displayed ‘unacceptable behaviours’.
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5 November 2010 by Rosalind English
Updated | We posted earlier on the Supreme Court ruling in Manchester City Council (Respondent) v Pinnock (Appellant), that requires courts to be satisfied that any order for possession sought by local authorities must be “in accordance with the law”, and (ii) “necessary in a democratic society” – that is, that it should be proportionate in the full meaning of the word.
How far this takes us from the previous position, where the role of the county court was limited to conducting a conventional judicial review of the councils’ decision in such cases, remains to be seen.
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4 November 2010 by Rosalind English
McLaughlin & Ors v London Borough of Lambeth & Anor [2010] EWHC 2726 (QB) – Read judgment
The High Court has been asked to consider whether the rule which prevents public authorities from suing in libel – to allow uninhibited criticism of government institutions – has the effect of preventing libel actions being taken by individual managers and employees of those institutions.
This was a claim by the defendants to strike out a libel action on grounds of abuse of process.The claimants are respectively head teacher, director of educational development and chairman of the governors of a primary school in Lambeth. The school was maintained by the first defendant pursuant to its statutory obligations. Now it is an Academy it is maintained by central government.
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3 November 2010 by Adam Wagner
Updated | Manchester City Council (Respondent) v Pinnock (Appellant) [2010] UKSC 45 On appeal from the Court of Appeal [2009] EWCA Civ 852 – Read judgment / press summary
The following is based on the Supreme Court press summary. Our full case comment is to follow.
The Supreme Court has ruled that Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (the right to family life) requires that a court, when asked by a local authority to make an order for possession of a person’s home, must have the power to assess the proportionality of making the order.
The 9-strong court departed from a series of House of Lords (its predecessor’s) decisions in order to follow a strong line of European Court of Human Rights authority (summarised at para 45 of the decision). The judgment was unanimous, and follows the important recent decision of the European court in Kay and Others v United Kingdom (see our post), as well as that in Connors v UK and others. The decision represents a welcome clarification of the rights of council tenants facing eviction, following a long and tortuous line of conflicting decisions from both the UK and European courts.
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3 November 2010 by Matthew Flinn
Broom v Secretary of State for Justice [2010] EWHC 2695 (Admin) – Read Judgment
When he was transferred from Whitemoor prison to Wakefield Prison in May 2008, Mr. John Broom had 24 historical photos of his children and nieces confiscated. He had been in possession of those photographs for 18 years. He challenged the decision not to return the photos to him by way of judicial review, claiming that it breached his right to respect for his private or family life. Mr Justice Behrens concluded that there was no infringement of Article 8 of the ECHR in this case.
Mr. Broom is currently serving a discretionary life sentence following his conviction in 1992 for buggery and rape of a female. There were two females involved, one of whom was 16. The nature of this conviction was central to the decision to withhold Mr. Broom’s photographs. The Safeguarding Children Panel said that:
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2 November 2010 by Matthew Hill
Updated | R (McDonald) v Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, [2010] EWCA Civ 1109 – read judgment
The Court of Appeal has held that a local authority was entitled to reduce the care package provided to one of its resident following a re-assessment of her needs, even though this had the effect of forcing her, against her wishes, to use incontinence pads and/or absorbent sheets at night.
In doing so, the authority did not breach Article 8 ECHR (right to privacy and family life), or the relevant disability discrimination legislation. The judgment suggests that the courts will only intervene in disputes about the level of care being provided by local authorities in limited circumstances, something that may be significant in an environment of public spending cuts.
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1 November 2010 by Matthew Hill
R v M(L) and others [2010] EWCA Crim 2327; [2010] WLR(D) 266 – Read judgment
The Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) has provided further guidance to prosecutors on whether or not they should bring charges against victims of human trafficking who go on to commit crimes. In the same judgment, the Court considered the extent of the obligation on the police to refer such victims to specialist agencies.
The state has a number of duties to victims of human trafficking deriving from the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings (CETS No 197).
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