This post originally displayed an image of a sign at Stepping Hill Hospital, including reference to Stockport NHS Foundation Trust. The case did not involve Stockport NHSFT so I have removed the image: my apologies for any confusion caused. In the absence of any interesting images of Pennine Care NHS Trust, who were the Respondent, [...]
Archive for the ‘LEGAL TOPICS’ Category
Times contempt challenge thrown out in Strasbourg
Posted in Art. 10 | Freedom of Expression, Art. 6 | Right to Fair Trial, Case summaries, European, Media, tagged contempt of court, contempt of court act on February 8, 2012 | 1 Comment »
Michael Alexander SECKERSON and TIMES NEWSPAPERS LIMITED against the UK Applications nos. 32844/10 and 33510/10 – Read decision / press release The European Court of Human Rights has rejected as “inadmissible” Times Newspaper’s challenge to its 2009 conviction for contempt of court. The decision, which was made by six judges, is a good example of [...]
Indefinite detention: not very British
Posted in Art. 3 | Torture / Inhumane Treatment, Art. 6 | Right to Fair Trial, Criminal, European, Immigration/Extradition, In the news, Prisons, Terrorism, tagged abu qatada on February 8, 2012 | 4 Comments »
Angus McCullough QC appeared for Abu Qatada as his Special Advocate in the domestic proceedings before SIAC, the Court of Appeal and the House of Lords. He is not the author of this post. ‘Human Rights Act to blame!’ is a frequent refrain in the media, as well reported on this blog. Often, though, the outcome [...]
UK Supreme Court is tweeting, but where are the other courts?
Posted in Art. 10 | Freedom of Expression, Art. 6 | Right to Fair Trial, In the news, Judges and Juries, Technology, tagged open justice on February 7, 2012 | 4 Comments »
The UK Supreme Court began tweeting yesterday as @UKSupremeCourt to deserved international fanfare. Some even speculated that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange’s extradition fate could now be revealed on Twitter. The court is already being followed by almost 4,000 Twitter users (for the uninitiated, that is a lot) and has already beaten its own Twitter policy’s [...]
Axel Springer and Von Hannover: Grand Chamber victory for media – Inforrm
Posted in Art. 10 | Freedom of Expression, Art. 8 | Right to Privacy/Family, Case summaries, European, Margin of Appreciation, Media, tagged axel springer, European Court of Human Rights, Freedom of Expression on February 7, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
The media were successful in both the judgments handed down this morning by the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights. The judgments made it clear that the right to privacy has to be carefully balanced against contribution which a publication makes to a debate of general interest. In both cases, taking account [...]
What you can do with rights – Justice Edwin Cameron
Posted in Features, International, Lectures, tagged constitutional court of south africa, Justice Cameron, Law Commission, South Africa, systemic violence on February 7, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
On 25 January 2012 Justice Edwin Cameron, Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa, delivered an emotive and thoughtful talk entitled “What you can do with rights”. The Law Commission’s annual Lord Scarman Lecture covered apartheid, AIDS denialism, LGBT rights and delved into the essence of moral humanity. It was a lecture delivered with skill and fluency, [...]
Aarhus and environmental judicial review: cracking legal costs per Jackson LJ
Posted in Costs and Procedure, Environment, European, Features, In the news, International on February 2, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
In October 2011, I posted on an important consultation, Cost Protection for Litigants in Environmental Judicial Review Claims, in which the Ministry of Justice wheeled out its proposals to get it out of the various scrapes caused by the expense of environmental challenges. The Aarhus Convention requires that environmental challenges not be “prohibitively expensive”, and both the European [...]
Julian Assange: from the UK Supreme Court to The Simpsons
Posted in Art. 10 | Freedom of Expression, Art. 6 | Right to Fair Trial, Immigration/Extradition, In the news, Media, tagged Julian Assange, UK Supreme Court on February 1, 2012 | 5 Comments »
The Julian Assange circus rolls back into London today for the UK Supreme Court’s 2-day hearing of his appeal against extradition. It will be broadcast on Supreme Court live from 10:30am. The Wikileaks founder was granted permission in November 2011 to appeal to the Supreme Court under Section 32 of the Extradition Act 2003. If [...]
The princess and the actor: two important right to privacy rulings – Inforrm
Posted in Art. 10 | Freedom of Expression, Art. 8 | Right to Privacy/Family, European, In the news, Media, Public/Private, tagged axel springer ag, personality rights, princess caroline of monaco on January 31, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
The European Court of Human Rights has announced today that it will deliver two Grand Chamber judgments, in the cases of Axel Springer AG v Germanyand von Hannover v Germany (No.2) on 7 February 2012. The cases were both heard more than 15 months ago, on 13 October 2010. We had a post about the hearing at the time (and an earlier preview).Both [...]
Are lawyers in right-to-die cases breaking the law?
Posted in Art. 2 | Right to life, Art. 6 | Right to Fair Trial, Art. 9 | Thought/Conscience/Religion, Case summaries, Criminal, Disciplinary Proceedings, Medical, tagged assisting suicide, suicide act 1961 on January 31, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
Philip Havers QC of 1 Crown Office Row is representing Martin in the judicial review proceedings. He is not the author of this post. Albert Camus famously wrote: ‘there is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide.’ However profound a philosophical problem, the question of suicide or, more precisely, assisted suicide is proving quite [...]
Attorney General nuances the PM’s dig at European Court
Posted in Bill of Rights, In the news, Lectures, Margin of Appreciation, Politics / Public Order, tagged European Court of, human rights on January 31, 2012 | 2 Comments »
The Prime Minister’s speech at the Council of Europe (see our coverage here) has attracted significant press attention over the past week – ranging from flag-waving, sabre-rattling support to criticism from Sir Nicholas Bratza (the British President of the Court). Hot on the heels of Cameron’s address on Wednesday, the Attorney-General Dominic Grieve gave a [...]
More secret trials? No thanks
Posted in Art. 6 | Right to Fair Trial, Costs and Procedure, Freedom of Information, In the news, Inquests and Inquiries, Judges and Juries, Police, Politics / Public Order, Terrorism, tagged civil proceedings, consultation responses, Justice and Security Green Paper, terrorism legislation on January 31, 2012 | 3 Comments »
A child learns early that if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say it. Thankfully that principle does not apply to Government consultations and this is aptly demonstrated by a group of responses to the consultation into whether “closed material” (secret evidence) procedures should be extended to civil trials. Of the responses that [...]
Archbishop on warpath
Posted in Art. 14 | Anti-Discrimination, Art. 9 | Thought/Conscience/Religion, Discrimination, In the news, Public/Private, Religion, tagged church, Gay marriage on January 29, 2012 | 14 Comments »
Dr John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York, has thrown a firecracker into the consultation on gay marriage, which is about to begin in March. In an interview with the Daily Telegraph he declared that he did not agree that it was the role of the state to define what marriage is. ”It is set in tradition and history and [...]
European Court of Human Rights: is the admissions system transparent enough? – Ben Jones
Posted in European, In the news, Judges and Juries, tagged European Court of Human Rights on January 27, 2012 | 5 Comments »
Two recent posts on this blog have brought deserved attention to the question of the European Court’s handling of admissibility decisions. In the course of criticising the substantial misrepresentation of the statistics for UK petitions to the European Court, Andrew Tickell’s piece highlighted the significant contribution of “highly discretionary concepts” in the filtering of the [...]





Please stow your rights in the overhead compartment
Posted in Case comments, Case law, Damages, Discrimination, European, Features, In the news, International, tagged air travel, compensation, passengers rights on February 9, 2012 | 1 Comment »
Stott v Thomas Cook Operators and British Airways Plc [2012] EWCA Civ 66 – read judgment If you need reminding of what it feels like when the candy-floss of human rights is abruptly snatched away, take a flight. Full body scanners and other security checks are nothing to the array of potential outrages awaiting passengers [...]
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