Monthly News Archives: November 2010
8 November 2010 by Adam Wagner
Today marks the beginning of National Pro Bono Week, with events being held across the country to celebrate the range and impact of pro bono work undertaken by solicitors, barristers and legal executives. A calendar of events can be found here.
How much pro-bono, or free, work should a lawyer do? This is a question which I have heard asked surprisingly rarely. I cannot recall the topic being addressed during my legal training, although pro-bono work was generally encouraged not just as charity but also as an excellent way of gaining legal experience with a view to finding a job. This was certainly my experience, and I cannot stress enough how valuable my work at the Free Representation Unit was in providing an interesting and valuable insight into representing real clients.
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8 November 2010 by Richard Mumford
Updated | On 3 November the judge acting as coroner for the 7/7 inquests ruled that she does not have the power to hold secret hearings to hear evidence which, if made public, would pose a threat to national security. Dame Heather Hallett also ruled that although she, as a Court of Appeal Judge, could look at ‘intercept evidence’ governed by the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (“RIPA”), such material could not form part of the evidence at the inquests.
The fundamental problem faced by Hallett LJ, linking the two parts of her ruling, was what to do about intelligence material , the revelation of which “in unredacted form would threaten national security” but which might have a bearing on her findings at the inquests. The problem can be traced back to Hallett LJ’s earlier ruling concerning the issues to be determined at the inquest, in particular the requirement for:
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8 November 2010 by Guest Contributor
Updated | On 5 November 2010 judgment was handed down in JIH v News Group Newspapers ([2010] EWHC 2818 (QB)) – Read judgment.
Update, 18 November 2010: The case has returned to the High Court after the Daily Telegraph reported a key detail relating to JIH’s identity. This was contrary – said JIH – to the court order. Mr Justice Tugendhat refused the application by JIH that his/her identity not be disclosed. However, he did sound a warning that “editors and publishers have regard to the “duties and responsibilities” referred to in Art 10(2) itself. These duties and responsibilities include a requirement that they comply with orders of the court, and that they take all necessary steps to ensure that journalists understand this necessity.” If they ignore that warning, warned the judge, they may be found in contempt of court.
This post by Mark Thomson first appeared on the media law blog Inforrm, and is reproduced with permission and thanks
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5 November 2010 by Adam Wagner
In
Updated | Today the UK courts have made two decisions in relation to radical Muslim clerics. The score card reads: Abu Hamza can keep his passport and stay (for now), but Dr Zakir Naik, an Indian preacher who was excluded from the UK by the Home Secretary in June, will remain unwelcome.
The Special Immigration Appeals Commission has ruled that Abu Hamza can keep his UK passport as if a deprivation order were made, he would be made stateless, as he claimed he had already been stripped of his Egyptian citizenship. By section 40 of the British Nationality Act 1981, the Secretary of State cannot make a person stateless. The UK is trying to deport him altogether, but his claim is being heard at the European Court of Human Rights (see our post).
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5 November 2010 by Adam Wagner
Updated | For your weekend reading pleasure, some of this week’s human rights news, in bite-size form. The full list of our external links can be found on the right sidebar or here.
Abu Hamza wins passport appeal – BBC: Radical Muslim cleric Abu Hamza has won his appeal in the Special Immigration Appeals Commission against government attempts to strip him of his British passport. Apparently he won as taking his passport away would have rendered him “stateless”. We will comment on the case once the judgment is released (update – judgment is here and our post is here). In the meantime, you can read the background to his extradition appeal here.
A breathtaking Bill of which even Henry VIII would have been proud – Law and Lawyers: The Public Bodies Bill is making its way through Parliament, and the Law and Lawyers blog has sounded the alarm that the bill, if passed into law, will amount to a “permanent extension to Ministerial powers exercisable with quite minimal Parliamentary oversight.” It is “replete” with so-called Henry VIII clauses, which could provide unchecked power to the Executive. I discussed the issue of Henry VIII clauses in July, in light of the Lord Chief Justice’s comments on the issue.
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5 November 2010 by Adam Wagner
In a new article, Afua Hirsch discusses the difficult question of the place of religion in our courts, in light of comments made by a judge sentencing Roshonara Choudhry, a radicalised Muslim woman, for the murder of a Christian man.
The writer compares this case to Lord Carey’s recent appeal in a same-sex counselling case that religious cases be heard by religion specialists (see our post), as well as the official censure of a judge in a criminal damage case who made overtly political comments about the 2008/9 Israel-Gaza war (our post here). Hirsch argues that religious courts may be the answer to these problems, although this may be unfair to other groups affected by discrimination such as women and ethnic minorities.
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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 Adam Wagner
Today marks the 60th anniversary of the signing of the European Convention on Human Rights on 4 November 1950. This comes hot on the heels of the tenth birthday of the Human Rights Act, which we celebrated on October 2nd.
The European Convention on Human Rights, which came into force on 3 September 1953, guarantees a range of political rights and freedoms of the individual against interference by the State. Before the incorporation of the Convention, individuals in the United Kingdom could only complain of unlawful interference with their Convention rights by lodging a petition with the European Commission of Human Rights in Strasbourg. That all changed on 2 October 2000 when the Human Rights Act 1998 came into force, allowing UK citizens to sue public bodies for breaches of their Convention rights in domestic courts.
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4 November 2010 by Adam Wagner
Updated | The dust has hardly settled on the government’s decision to allow prisoners to vote when, with uncanny timing, the European Court of Human Rights has denied the Austrian government permission to appeal in a similar case involving prisoners’ voting rights.
The Strasbourg court has notified Austria that its request for referral of the case of Frodl v Austria to the Grand Chamber has been rejected. This is likely to have a significant impact on the UK’s implementation of the prisoner voting system, as the court in Frodl effectively ruled that the disenfranchisement of prisoners could only happen on rare occasions: namely, where a prisoner was detained as a result of the abuse of a public position or a threat to undermine the rule of law or democratic foundations. As I said in Monday’s post:
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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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4 November 2010 by Alasdair Henderson
The air freight bomb plot that came to light over the weekend was a stark reminder that, while new pressures on human rights may come as a result of the economic crisis and budget cuts, the tension between national security and civil liberties as a result of terrorist threats is still a live issue.
However, whereas the New Labour government came under intense criticism for its anti-terrorism policies, the Coalition’s response to last weekend’s events has (so far) been comparatively restrained. The measures announced yesterday were mainly focused on cargo originating from Yemen and other potentially dangerous parts of the world. The government has also said that it will conduct a review of air freight policies and procedures, and consult with the air freight industry on improving security.
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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 Richard Mumford
On 1 November 2010 the Terrorist Asset-Freezing etc. Bill received its third reading in the House of Lords. The bill, which started in the Lords, must now be passed by the Commons before receiving Royal Assent.
The Bill represents the coalition government’s response to the Supreme Court’s decision in HM Treasury v Ahmed (incidentally, the first appeal to have been heard in the Supreme Court) concerning the lawfulness of measures enabling the Treasury to freeze the assets of, amongst others, a person whom it has reasonable grounds for suspecting is or may be a person who facilitates the commission of acts of terrorism.
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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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