Tag Archives: Wikileaks

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The Chagossian Wikileaks cable judgment, fishing rights and a dose of EU law

330px-ChagosmapBancoult v. Foreign & Commonwealth Office, Divisional Court, Richards LJ and Mitting J, 11 June 2013 read judgment

The Divisional Court has now dismissed  the claim by Mr Bancoult on behalf of the Chagossian islanders. He had challenged the designation of the waters around the islands as a “no take” Marine Protected Area, i.e. one which could not be fished. 

Mr Bancoult said that the decision was flawed (i) by having an improper purpose (it would put paid to the Chagossians’ claims for resettlement); (ii) by inadequate consultation and (iii) by amounting to a breach of an EU obligation to promote the economic and social development of the islands. The Court ruled against all these claims.

The case has, to say the least, quite a back-story. It started with the Chagossians’ eviction from their islands in the Indian Ocean in the late 1960s and early 1970s,  on which I have posted here, here, and, in Strasbourg, here. After a judgment from the courts in 2000, the Foreign Office accepted that the original law underlying their departure was unlawful, and agreed to investigate their possible resettlement on some of their islands.

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Chagossians: Wikileaks cables not admissible in court

9780199275670Bancoult v. Foreign & Commonwealth Office, Divisional Court, Richards LJ and Mitting J, 16-24 April 2013, judgment awaited, but see 25 July 2012, Stanley Burnton LJ for an earlier judgment   UPDATED

A quick update at the end of the recent judicial review on 24 April by Mr Bancoult on behalf of the Chagossian islanders, but before judgment. The challenge was to the designation of the waters around their islands as a “no take” Marine Protected Area, i.e. one which could not be fished.

I have posted on this saga before, which started with the Chagossians’ eviction from their islands in the Indian Ocean in the late 1960s and early 1970s, here, here, and, in Strasbourg, here. After a judgment from the courts in 2000, the FCO accepted that the original law underlying their departure was unlawful, and agreed to investigate their possible resettlement on some of their islands.

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Chagossians hit the buffers in Strasbourg – but not over yet

_64878328_005205708Chagos Islanders v. United Kingdom, ECtHR 4th Section, 11 December 2012 read admissibility decision

The set of injustices which led to these claims is well known – and see my posts here and here. For the uninitiated, in the 1960s, the US wanted Diego Garcia (one of the Chagos Islands) as a major air base. It spoke nicely to the UK, its owners, who consequently evicted and banned all the inhabitants from it and the neighbouring islands. The constitutional arrangements were apparently decorous. A new UK colony was established (the British Indian Ocean Territory or BIOT) with a Commissioner to make laws for the peace, order and good government of the Territory.

The UN was told that the population consisted of migrant workers, their position had been fully protected, and they had been consulted in the process – none of this in fact happened. Those evicted mainly went to Mauritius and the Seychelles. So the peace, order and good government in fact forthcoming from the UK amounted to total depopulation for military objectives.

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A Chagossian double bill: an environmental information contest, and a touch of Wikileaks

The Chagos Refugees Group in Mauritius v. Foreign and Commonwealth Office, First Tier Tribunal, 4 September 2012, read judgment

and Bancoult v. FCO, 25 July 2012, Stanley Burnton LJ, read judgment

The manoevres by which the Chagossians were evicted from their islands in the Indian Ocean, the late 1960s and early 1970s, so to enable the US to operate an air base on Diego Garcia, do not show the UK Foreign Office in its best light. Indeed, after a severe rebuke from the courts in 2000, the FCO accepted that the original law underlying their departure was unlawful, and agreed to investigate their possible resettlement on some of their islands.

The first of these new cases is an environmental information appeal concerning the next phase of the story – how the FCO decided that it was not feasible to resettle the islanders in 2002-2004.

This decision was taken in the modern way – backed by a feasibility study prepared by consultants supporting the stance which the FCO ultimately were to take. And this case concerns the islanders’ attempts to get documents lying behind and around the taking of this decision.

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Julian Assange extradition hearing: what’s going on

Updated | Julian Assange, the founder of the whistle-blowing website Wikileaks, is in court today for the beginning of a two-day extradition hearing. Sweden have issued a European Arrest Warrant against Assange on suspicion of sexual assault.

Journalist tweeters at Assange’s bail hearings prompted a flurry of new court guidance on tweeting in court, culminating last week with the Supreme Court.

Unsurprisingly, a number of people are tweeting from the hearing, including the Times’ Alexi Mostrous, Joshua Rozenberg, the Guardian’s Esther Addley and Channel 4′s Marcus Edwards (click on their names to see their Twitter feeds). Guardian.co.uk is also publishing live updates.

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Julian Assange: Bail granted and judge gives permission to tweet

Julian Assange, the founder and head of Wikileaks, has succeeded in an initial challenge to last week’s refusal to grant bail in his extradition case. And, in an appropriate nod to the internet age, the judge granted two people the right to tweet from the court.

The tweeters (definition: users of Twitter, a social website which allows people to post 140 character messages to people who chose to follow them) are Alexi Mostrous, a Times special correspondent, and Heather Brook, a writer. Mostrous tweeted at 14:30:

judge just gave me explicit permission to tweet proceedings “if it’s quiet and doesn’t disturb anything”. #wikileaks

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Wikileaks and the arrest of Julian Assange

Updated | Wikileaks founder Julian Assange was arrested yesterday and refused bail after a hearing at Westminster Magistrates Court.

He was not arrested in relation to the whistle-blowing website Wikileaks, but rather on suspicion of having sexually assaulted two women in Sweden. His lawyers have said that “many believe” the arrest was politically motivated.

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