Monthly News Archives: April 2015
30 April 2015 by David Hart KC
R (ClientEarth) v Secretary of State for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, Supreme Court, 29 April 2015, judgment here
Bit of a history to this one, with 5 hearings so far. The short version is that in May 2013, the UK Supreme Court (here), faced with the UK’s non-compliance with EU Directive 2008/50 (nitrogen dioxide etc in air), decide to refer various issues to the CJEU in Luxembourg. In 2014, the CJEU said its piece, (C404-13 and my post here), and its views are now considered by the Supreme Court, hence this second SC judgment.
The UK has been in breach of Article 13 of the Air Quality Directive since 1 January 2010, by not complying with pollution limits in specified areas. ClientEarth, an environmental NGO, sought to enforce the Directive in the national courts. Defra admitted breach of Article 13 and the lower courts said that, given that admission, it was for the EU Commission, if it wished, to take infraction proceedings. The Supreme Court’s 2013 judgement disagreed; it granted a declaration that the UK was in breach of Article 13, and posed various questions about the meaning and enforcement of the Directive to the CJEU.
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29 April 2015 by Rosalind English
Zuchtvieh-Export (Judgment) [2015] EUECJ C-4242/13 (23 April 2015) – read judgment
Animal welfare groups and campaigners for humane farming have welcomed the latest ruling by the European Court of Justice upholding the refusal of German authorities to allow the export of live cattle to Kazakhstan, a 7,000 km journey involving insufficient rest stops and unloading. According to Compassion in World Farming,
Every year, over three million animals are exported from the European Union to non-EU countries. Hundreds of thousands are destined for countries in Russia, Turkey, The Middle East and North Africa. (Live exports from the EU)
This was a referral from German municipal authorities on just this question. It sought a ruling from the European Court of Justice (CJEU) regarding the interpretation of Council Regulation (EC) No 1/2005 of 22 December 2004 on the protection of animals during transport and related operations.
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29 April 2015 by Adam Wagner
RightsInfo (www.rightsinfo.org) has just had its first full week and I wanted to update you on how things are going.
Have you seen our brand new launch film, This is RightsInfo? It has just been released, and we love it – it explains what RightsInfo is about and how we are going to change the way we communicate about human rights. If you were at the launch party, you may even spot yourself on the film.
What week it has been. We launched seven days ago. The party at the Free Word Centre was packed out. After seven days we have already had over 40,000 page views on the site. The reaction has been amazing – you can read a sample it in this post: “Wow… just wow”, People Really Like RightsInfo And That Makes Us Very Happy.
If you want to follow RightsInfo, you can sign up to free daily or weekly email updates here. We are also on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
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28 April 2015 by Thomas Raine
Mirza v The Secretary of State for the Home Department [2015] CSIH 28, 17 April 2015 – read judgment
On the same day as it handed down judgment in the Khan case (see Fraser Simpson’s post here), the Court of Session’s appeal chamber – the Inner House – provided further guidance on the relationship between the Immigration Rules and Article 8. Of particular interest in Mirza are the court’s comments on where the rights of a British spouse figure in the context of an application for leave to remain by his or her partner.
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26 April 2015 by acwessely
In the news:
“If the Conservatives come back into power it’s revolution time”. These are the words of ex-Court of Appeal judge Sir Antony Hooper at a legal aid protest rally on Thursday, as he called for lawyers to ‘walk-out’ in the event of a Conservative victory. At the same rally another senior judge, Sir Alan Moses, lamented that all political parties are ignoring “the plight of those who [cannot] afford a lawyer” – citing that only the Greens have pledged to reverse the cuts to legal aid.
However, academic Graham Gee warns against using disrespectful rhetoric when analysing the Tory manifesto. He argues people should avoid “creating an impression that [Conservative] proposals are beyond-the-pale and reflective only of short-term, self-interested calculations”.
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26 April 2015 by Fraser Simpson
Photo credit: Guardian
This week we welcome to the Blog our new team of commentators on Scottish human rights issues – Fraser Simpson, David Scott and Thomas Raine.
Khan v. The Advocate General for Scotland, [2015] CSIH 29 – read judgment.
A Pakistani national refused leave to remain in the UK after expiry of his visitor visa has had his successful challenge to that decision upheld by Scotland’s civil appeal court, the Inner House of the Court of Session.
The request for leave to remain was initially refused under the Immigration Rules due to a lack of “insurmountable obstacles” preventing Mr Khan from continuing his family life in Pakistan. That decision was reduced (quashed) by the Lord Ordinary – a first-instance judge in the Outer House of the Court of Session – as although the decision had been in accordance with the Immigration Rules, the decision-maker had failed to undertake a proportionality assessment of the decision as required under Article 8 ECHR (read the Outer House judgment here).
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23 April 2015 by Rosalind English
JK, R(on the application of) v Secretary of State for Home Department and another [2015] EWHC 990 (Admin) 20 April 2015 – read judgment
This case concerned the rights of transgender women, and their families, in particular the right to keep private the fact that they are transgender.
The Court heard a challenge to the requirement in the UK’s birth registration system that men who had changed gender from male to female should be listed as the “father” on the birth certificates of their biological children. Having decided that this did engage the claimant’s privacy rights under Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights, in conjunction with the right not to be discriminated against under Article 14, the Court concluded that the interference was justified.
Factual and legal background
The clamant JK had been born male. She was married to a woman, KK, and the couple had two naturally conceived children. After the birth of the first child in 2012, JK was diagnosed with gender identity disorder and concomitant gender dysphoria. In October 2012, she started a course of feminising hormone treatment. The treatment pathway requires two years living as a female before consideration is given for referral for gender reassignment surgery. Before the claimant started feminising hormone therapy, KK fell pregnant a second time, again conceiving naturally by the claimant.
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23 April 2015 by David Hart KC
Jetivia v. Bilta [2015] UKSC 23, 22 April 2015 – read judgment
Nigel Farage is quoted yesterday as preferring immigrants to be Australians and Indians rather than EU citizens, because they probably speak English and “understand common law.”
Nice coincidence, then, that on the same day the Supreme Court came out with a perfect illustration of the potential difficulties of the common law process. This is the latest (but unlikely to be the last) instalment from the Court going to the question as to whether some crime by a claimant ought to stop his claim in its tracks.
The issue is well demonstrated by this claim, in effect a carousel fraud (see pic and see my post here), in which a company the victim of a fraud seeks to recoup losses from the fraudsters and is met with the argument – but your directors were in on the fraud too. How does the law deal with this?
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21 April 2015 by Adam Wagner
I am delighted to announce the launch of my new human rights initiative, RightsInfo. The site has just gone live at www.rightsinfo.org. Visit, share, subscribe by email and enjoy!
RightsInfo will use social media to improve public understanding of human rights. Our brilliant new website provides clear, reliable and beautiful human rights information to share.
I have been working closely with a large team of volunteers and the amazing Information is Beautiful Studios to build a space which looks and feels like nothing that has come before it. Here are some of RightsInfo’s great features:
I really hope you enjoy the site, which will tie in closely with the work we will continue to do at the UK Human Rights Blog.
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19 April 2015 by Laura Profumo
Photo credit: The Guardian
Laura Profumo runs through the week’s human rights headlines.
In the News:
The Conservative party published its manifesto last week. The document makes for curious reading, writes academic Mark Elliott. The manifesto confirms the party’s pledge to scrap the Human Rights Act and to replace it with a British Bill of Rights, reversing the “mission creep” of current human rights law.
Yet the polarising references to “Labour’s Human rights Act” illustrate the Act’s failure to secure supra-political constitutional status, being tossed between the parties like a “political football”, writes Elliott.
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17 April 2015 by Rosalind English
Reactiv Media Limited v The Information Commissioner (Privacy & Electronic Communications Regulations (2003) [2015] UKFTT 2014_0213 (GRC) (13 April 2015) – read judgment
Although an individual’s right to privacy is usually thought of in the context of state intrusion in one form or another, in reality the real threat of intrusion in a society such as ours comes from unsolicited marketing calls.
What many people may not be aware of is that if an individual has registered with the Telephone Preference Service, these calls are unlawful and the company responsible may be fined. It is therefore worth making a complaint, even if one instinctively feels that taking such a step will invite more intrusion. This case is a nice illustration of privacy being upheld and the rules enforced against an unscrupulous and persistent offender.
TPS is operated on behalf of the direct marketing industry by the Direct Marketing Association (DPA) and subscribers’ rights not to receive such calls may be enforced under Regulation 21 of the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003.
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16 April 2015 by Rosalind English
Fish Legal v Information Commissioner and others (Information rights practice and procedure) [2015] UKUT 52 (AAC) Charles J – read judgment
Water and sewage utility companies are “public authorities” for the purposes of the environmental information regulations, and are bound by them accordingly, the Administrative Appeals Chamber of the Upper Tribunal has ruled.
Fish Legal is the legal arm of the Angling Trust. In 2009 it asked United Utilities Water plc and Yorkshire Water Services Ltd for information relating to discharges, clean-up operations, and emergency overflow. Emily Shirley is a private individual. Again, she asked Southern Water Services Ltd for information relating to sewerage capacity for a planning proposal in her village. All three companies denied that they were under a duty to provide the information under Environmental Information Regulations. Both Fish Legal and Mrs Shirley complained to the Commissioner. In 2010 the Commissioner replied, explaining that as the companies were not public authorities for the purposes of EIR, he had no power to adjudicate the complaints.
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14 April 2015 by acwessely
This week’s Round-up is brought to you by Alex Wessely.
In the news:
Military chiefs have criticised the influence of Human Rights law in a report published this week, arguing that the “need to arrest and detain enemy combatants in a conflict zone should not be expected to comply with peace-time standards”. This follows a series of cases over the years which found the Ministry of Defence liable for human rights violations abroad, culminating in allegations of unlawful killing in the Al-Sweady Inquiry that were judged “wholly without foundation” in December.
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10 April 2015 by David Hart KC
Department of Health v. Information Commissioner et al [2015] UKUT 159, 30 March 2015, Charles J read judgment Simon Lewis requested that the Department of Health supply him with copies of the ministerial diary of Andrew Lansley from May 2010 until April 2011, via a Freedom of Information request. Mr Lewis’s interest in all this is not revealed in the judgment, but I dare say included seeing whether the Minister was being lobbied by private companies eager to muscle in on the NHS in this critical period. But such is the nature of FOIA litigation that it does not really look at the motive of the requester – and this case does not tell us what the diary showed. Indeed by the time of this appeal, Lewis was untraceable, and the burden of the argument in favour of disclosure was taken up by the Information Commissioner. The real interest in this decision is in Charles J’s robust agreement with the First Tier Tribunal that the information should be disclosed. In so doing, he fully endorsed the criticisms made by the FTT of the eminent civil servants who gave evidence before the FTT – in trenchant terms, as we shall see. He also gave an interesting account of how the public interest qualification should be applied in response to FOIA requests.
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8 April 2015 by Adam Wagner
Just a quick update on RightsInfo, my new human rights information project. As you can see, we now have a logo. The design is a clue to the look and feel of the site – all will be revealed when we launch on Tuesday 21 April.
RightsInfo will provide clear, reliable and beautiful human rights information to share. I am particularly excited that we have been working closely with the amazing Information is Beautiful Studios to build some fantastic infographics and other fantastic resources… I will say no more, just wait until a week on Tuesday!
If you would like to come to the launch party, there are around 20 spaces left and a final invitation will be going out via the RightsInfo mailing list shortly. If you want to receive it, and get general updates, sign up to the mailing list at rightsinfo.org.
You can also follow RightsInfo on Twitter and Facebook.
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R (ClientEarth) v Secretary of State for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, Supreme Court, 29 April 2015, judgment here
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