Monthly News Archives: January 2013
10 January 2013 by David Hart KC
One of the stranger and bolder pieces of US legislation slipped into force in November 2012 – The European Union Emissions Trading Scheme Prohibition Act of 2011 – sic. This enables the US Secretary of Transportation to prohibit US airlines from complying with EU rules. Those EU rules apply to all airliners which touch down or take off in the EU, and requires them to participate in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme – designed progressively to limit carbon emissions from aviation via a cap and trade mechanism.
The US Act would be odd enough in its lack of respect for the laws of other countries, had the Act’s beneficiaries (the US airlines) not sought to challenge the legality of the EU measure in the EU Courts – and failed: see my post on the judgment of the CJEU. As will be seen, the EU Court expressly rejected claims (by US airlines) that the rules had extra-territorial effect and conflicted with international aviation conventions. Hence, the scheme was lawfully applicable to US airlines – just as to those of all other countries using EU airports.
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9 January 2013 by Guest Contributor
This is a short version of an article on the subject to be published by John Edwards, Professor Emeritus of Human Rights at London University
There have been three major conferences over the past two years (at Interlaken, Izmir, and Brighton) to discuss the functioning of the European Court of Human Rights and possibilities for its development and reform. Each provided an opportunity to scrutinise such important components of the Court’s work as the subsidiarity principle, the (quite separate) principle of the margin of appreciation, the prioritisation of Convention articles, admissibility criteria, the idea of “European consensus”, “just satisfaction”, and “significant disadvantage” as well as broader topics such as the future role of the Court and whether a court of individual petition with case law as its only corpus of wisdom is the best way of promoting and protecting human rights in Europe. On each occasion debate was hijacked by the singular topic of reducing the backlog of cases. Wherever one of these components had a bearing on the Court’s overload, discussion was virtually confined to how it could be amended to cut the backlog and bring applications and judgements into balance.
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9 January 2013 by Rosalind English
Schwartz and another v Insogna and another, United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit – read judgment
Never doubt the authority of the law, particularly in the US, where a six year battle triggered by a middle finger gesture continues to rage in the New York courts.
In May 2006, Mr. Swartz was a passenger in a car in a rural part of upstate New York when he spotted a police car that was using a radar speed-tracking device. The driver, a Vietnam veteran and retired airline pilot, acted on instinct to show his displeasure: he extended his right arm outside the passenger’s side window, and then further extended his middle finger over the car’s roof. As the New York Times reports
The reaction was swift. The officer followed the car; words were exchanged; backups were called; and Mr. Swartz was arrested on a charge of disorderly conduct.
Mr Schwartz maintained that his gesture was provoked by his anger that the local police were spending their time running a speed trap instead of patrolling and solving crimes.
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9 January 2013 by Shaheen Rahman
R (Khan) v Secretary Of State For Foreign & Commonwealth Affairs [2012] EWHC 3728 (Admin) (21 December 2012) – Read judgment
In this unsuccessful application for permission to apply for judicial review, the Claimant sought to challenge the Defendant’s reported policy of permitting GCHQ employees to pass intelligence to the US for the purposes of drone strikes in Pakistan. The Claimant’s father was killed during such an attack in March 2011.
The Claimant alleged that by assisting US agents with drone strikes, GCHQ employees were at risk of becoming secondary parties to murder under the criminal law of England and Wales and of conduct ancillary to war crimes or crimes against humanity contrary to international law. The Claimant sought declaratory relief to that effect and also sought a declaration that the Defendant should publish a policy addressing the circumstances in which such intelligence could be lawfully disseminated. [paragraph 6]
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8 January 2013 by Adam Wagner
With apologies for the boring title, here are three quick things.
First, the Government’s consultation on Judicial Review changes ends on 24 January 2013, so you have just over two weeks to respond. As with some previous consultations, I will be collating responses on the blog so please feel free to email them to me. My most recent thoughts are here: Quicker, costlier and less appealing: plans for Judicial Review reform revealed
Secondly, the European Court of Human Rights is to rule next Tuesday 15 January on four key cases involving discrimination and religious rights. The full background is here: Religious freedom in UK to be considered by Strasbourg Court and you can watch the entire hearing here. We will, of course, be covering the judgment in full.
Thirdly, in November 1 Crown Office Row hosted a mock trial on the topic of public inquiries and inquests at which a number of 1COR barristers, including me, spoke. The podcast of the event is now online and you find it here and also below the page break. You can also download the handout, which includes a number of very useful skeleton arguments for the mock trial, here.
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7 January 2013 by Richard Mumford
J Council v GU and others [2012] EWHC 3531 (COP) – Read judgment
On 11 December 2012 Mr Justice Mostyn handed down judgment in J Council v GU and others [2012] EWHC 3531 (COP) approving arrangements aimed at safeguarding the Article 8 (private and family life) rights of a 57 year old man detained under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 in a private care home. At seven pages, the judgment was admirably concise.
The detained man concerned, referred to in the judgment as George, suffered from a number of separable mental disorders: childhood autism, obsessive-compulsive disorder, dissocial personality disorder, mixed anxiety disorder and paedophilia. He lacked the capacity to litigate or to make decisions concerning his care needs (including where he lives), medication he should take, contact he should have with others and about his finances, property and affairs. It was likely that this incapacity would continue, possibly for the remainder of his life. He lived in a private care home and it was agree by all, including the Official Solicitor (who represented George in the proceedings) that it was in his best interests for him to remain living there indefinitely. Furthermore, he should be subjected to restrictions in relation to his contact with others and correspondence in order to minimise the risks that he presented.
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6 January 2013 by Sam Murrant
Welcome back to the UK Human Rights Roundup, your weekly bulletin of human rights news. The full list of links can be found here. You can also find our table of human rights cases here and previous roundups here.
This week’s major stories include deportation appeals, gay marriage, the petition for a posthumous pardon of Alan Turing on the centenary of his birth, and some discussion on the nature of paedophilia. This week also saw the new year rung in, and as such many legal blogs (including this one) have been running articles about the year that was. For those curious over whether they’ve missed anything, or looking to reminisce, here is a list of articles, sorted by topic:
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6 January 2013 by Adam Wagner
In a wide-ranging interview with the Sunday Telegraph, the Prime Minister has previewed a new ‘deport first, appeal second’ approach to deportation cases:
… in specific response to the never-ending Abu Qatada case, and vexatious use of the European Convention on Human Rights, the PM is looking at a new and radical option. “I am fed up with seeing suspected terrorists play the system with numerous appeals. That’s why I’m keen to move to a policy where we deport first, and suspects can appeal later.” Under this new arrangement, deportees would only be able to appeal against the decision while still in this country – thus suspending their removal – if they faced “a real risk of serious, irreversible harm”.
It seems to me that this approach is anchored in last month’s European Court of Human Rights (Grand Chamber) decision in DE SOUZA RIBEIRO v. FRANCE – 22689/07 – HEJUD [2012] ECHR 2066 (summary here). See in particular paragraphs 82
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3 January 2013 by Adam Wagner
Welcome to the fourth and final instalment in the epic UK Human Rights Blog review of 2012. In this post, I will review for your reading pleasure the very recent past: October to December. If you need to catch up:
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2 January 2013 by Adam Wagner
In March I complained that the Commission on a Bill of Rights should open up. Well, two weeks after publication of the Commission’s final report(s), two of the Liberal Democrat-appointed commissioners have given their insider perspectives of the Commission in an article in the London Review of Books.
Nothing in Helena Kennedy QC and Philippe Sands QC’s article is particularly surprising. The Commissioners emerge as a dysfunctional group of seasoned advocates on two sides of a case, with no presiding judge to rein them in or decide who was right. The report itself, with its bewildering array of separate papers and minority reports, demonstrated how little common ground there was between the commissioners.
I recommend reading the article in full, but here are a few interesting tidbits. Of course, some caution is necessary as the other members of the Commission (particularly the Conservative ones) may remember things differently.
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1 January 2013 by Adam Wagner
Happy new year! I hope that none of your new year’s eves were ruined by worrying when the next instalment of my year in review would arrive in your inboxes. Anyway, here we go with July to September.
If you need to catch up:
Now on to Part 3…
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One of the stranger and bolder pieces of US legislation slipped into force in November 2012 – The European Union Emissions Trading Scheme Prohibition Act of 2011 – sic. This enables the US Secretary of Transportation to prohibit US airlines from complying with EU rules. Those EU rules apply to all airliners which touch down or take off in the EU, and requires them to participate in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme – designed progressively to limit carbon emissions from aviation via a cap and trade mechanism. 
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