article 3

When the UN breach human rights… who wins?

5 October 2012 by Alasdair Henderson

NADA v. SWITZERLAND – 10593/08 – HEJUD [2012] ECHR 1691 – read judgment

How is a Member State of the ECHR supposed to react when the UN Security Council tells it to do one thing and the Convention requires it to do another? That is the interesting and important question which the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights was presented with, and dodged, in its recent decision in Nada v. Switzerland.

Mr Nada is an 82-year-old Italian-Egyptian financier and businessman, who in November 2001 found himself in the unfortunate position of having his name added to the international list of suspected funders and supporters of al-Qaeda and the Taliban, which is maintained by the Sanctions Committee of the UN Security Council. Mr Nada has consistently denied that he has any connection to al-Qaeda or any other terrorist group, and in 2005 the Swiss Government closed an investigation after finding that the accusations against him were unsubstantiated. However, despite this Mr Nada remained on the list until September 2009. During the intervening 8 years the impact on Mr Nada’s health and his private and family life was severe, so he brought a claim against Switzerland for breach of his Article 8 rights, as well as breaches of Article 13 (right to an effective remedy), Article 3 (right not to be subjected to ill-treatment), Article 5 (right to liberty) and Article 9 (right to freedom of religion).

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Delay in transferring mental health patient for treatment amounted to “inhumane treatment”

3 May 2012 by Rosalind English

M.S. v United Kingdom, 3 May 2012 – read judgment

In a ruling revealing stark differences between the UK courts and the Strasbourg court’s approach to the threshold for Article 3 treatment, Strasbourg has ruled that the detention of a mentally ill man in police custody for more than three days breached his rights under that provision

The Court held in particular that the applicant’s prolonged detention without appropriate psychiatric treatment had diminished his human dignity, although there had been no intentional neglect on the part of the police.

The following details are taken from the Strasbourg Court’s press release:

The applicant was arrested in Birmingham in the early morning of 6 December 2004, after the police had been called to deal with him because, highly agitated, he was sitting in a car sounding its horn continuously. His detention at a police station was authorised under the 1983 Mental Health Act, which allows the detention of a person suffering from a mental disorder for up to 72 hours for the purpose of being examined by a doctor and receiving treatment. The police subsequently found the applicant’s aunt at his address, seriously injured by him.
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Extradition of murder accused to US not breach of human rights

19 January 2012 by Isabel McArdle

HARKINS AND EDWARDS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM – 9146/07 [2012] ECHR 45 – Read judgment

The European Court of Human Rights has found that there would be no breach of Article 3 ECHR (prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment) in extraditing two men accused of murder to the US.

The men argued that they face the death penalty or life imprisonment without parole if found guilty. The US had given assurances to the UK government that the death penalty would not be sought. The following summary is based on the Court’s press release (my abridgement):

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Was local authority responsible for harassment campaign against vulnerable adults?

25 November 2010 by Caroline Cross

Application no. 32666/10 by X, Y & Z against the UK, lodged on 8 June 2010 – Read statement of facts

In a potentially landmark case, the European Court has been asked to determine the extent to which a local authority is under a duty prevent a breach of a person’s rights under Articles 3 (against inhuman and degrading treatment) and 8 (home and family life) in a case where two people with learning difficulties were violently harassed and threatened by a group of teenage youths.

The case concerns vulnerable adults who rely on social services. X and Y, who are married, both have learning difficulties. Z is the mother of X, and acted as a carer and advocate for both X and Y. X and Y lived in Hounslow Borough with Y’s two young children. Three local authority departments were involved with X and Y’s family, providing for their housing needs and allocating social workers for both the adults and children. Over a period from August 1999 until November 2000, X and Y were continually harassed and threatened by a group of teenage youths, who used the flat as a general ‘doss house’, dumping stolen goods, having sex and staying overnight.

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New feature | Articles of the European Convention on Human Rights

5 June 2010 by Guest Contributor

The European Convention - now it has its own blog page

We have added a new “ECHR” page where you can access an index of the Articles of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The page can be accessed by clicking here, or by clicking on the “ECHR” tab at the top of any page on the blog.

Each Article has its own separate page with the wording of the Article itself and a brief summary of how it works in law.

You can access this summary by clicking on the “more info” link. You can also click on the “posts” link to see all posts on the UK Human Rights Blog relating to that Article. A few articles don’t have a live link “posts” as we have not posted on it yet. We would welcome your comments on this or on any way we can make the blog better.

The index is reproduced below:
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Article 3 and the minimum standard of social support

18 November 2009 by Rosalind English

R (on the application of EW) v Secretary of State for the Home Department, [2009] EWHC 2957 (Admin) 18 November 2009 – read judgment

Summary and comment by Rosalind English

Article 3 does not dictate a minimum standard of social support for those in need, nor does it require the state to provide a home or minimum level of financial assistance to all within its care.

SUMMARY

W was an Eritrean national who had entered the UK illegally. Fingerprint evidence traced his irregular entry into the EC to Italy following which the UK authorities sought from the Italian authorities an undertaking to accept responsibility for W’s application for asylum under the terms of the Dublin II Regulation. Italy did not respond and therefore it was deemed to have accepted responsibility for the asylum claim by default.

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