Monthly News Archives: September 2020
7 September 2020 by Guest Contributor
This article was originally published on Serjeants’ Inn Chambers UK Police Law Blog. They have kindly given us permission to repost it here.
In Y v Bulgaria [2020] ECHR 163, the European Court of Human Rights set out the minimum requirements for criminal investigations where a person has been subjected to ill-treatment contrary to article 3 and held that those principles were properly derived from cases involving breaches of article 2, despite their different content and rationale. Here, the court found a breach of article 3 in respect of the authorities’ failure to pursue an obvious line of enquiry in a rape investigation and awarded €7,000. It is an example how an investigation can be satisfactory in several respects but still fail to comply with the minimum requirements of article 3. It is also worth comparing with the bands of damages that English cases have suggested.
On 10 July 2013 at 23.30, a woman was raped in a field by an unknown man with whom she had spoken at a bus stop and agreed to follow to a nearby train station. She called the police at around 00.05. The police recovered forensic material, the applicant’s clothes and, later that day, the applicant underwent medical examination and gave a description of the assailant.
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6 September 2020 by Rosalind English
The Russian political dissident Alexei Navalny is still in an induced coma in a hospital in Berlin after being poisoned with the nerve agent Novichok on a flight from Siberia to Moscow on the 20th of August. The last time we heard of this lethal organophosphate was two years ago when two Russian residents in Salsibury, Wiltshire, survived an assassination attempt. Dawn Sturgess, who lived eight miles away, was not so lucky. She died after spraying herself with a discarded bottle of the poison which she thought to contain perfume.
At her inquest, the senior coroner declined to extend the scope of his investigation to the involvement of the Russian state in her death as collateral damage to the assassination attempt. Her family took judicial review proceedings to challenge his conclusion. They were partially successful; the court said the although the coroner couldn’t state, in terms, that the Russian state was liable in civil or criminal law, he could still investigate that matter. They reverted the matter to him. Read the judgment of the Administrative Court on the 24th of July here.
The senior coroner, who must now ask if answering how Ms Sturgess died requires him to look at involvement of Russian state. In the latest episode of Law Pod UK Rosalind English discusses the broader implications of this case with Matt Hill of 1 Crown Office Row. (Apologies – due to a technical error, the wrong episode was posted under “The Salisbury Poisonings” yesterday. The correct episode is now in place.
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3 September 2020 by Guest Contributor
In this article, Prachiti Venkatraman and Ashley Jordana of Global Rights Compliance analyse the case before the International Court of Justice relating to the persecution of the Rohingya people by the Myanmar authorities.
Readers are encouraged to read the previous articles about this topic published on the blog here and here.
To read more about Global Rights Compliance’s work with the Rohingya, please see: https://www.globalrightscompliance.com/en/projects/the-rohingya-accountability-project.
The perilous situation of the Rohingya in Myanmar continues – the recent UN policy brief on Covid-19 in South-East Asia highlighted the compounded effects of the nation’s weak healthcare system and an ongoing armed conflict that targets ethnic communities.
On 11 November 2019, The Gambia filed an Application to commence proceedings against Myanmar before the International Court of Justice (‘the Court’). The Application alleged that Myanmar had violated its obligations under the Genocide Convention by committing acts intended to destroy in whole or in part the Rohingya community, as well as attempting and conspiring to commit genocide, inciting genocide, being complicit in its commission, and failing to prevent and punish genocide. To demonstrate the validity of these allegations, The Gambia relied on the actions of the Burmese military (‘the Tatmadaw’) and individuals connected to the State of Myanmar during the ‘clearance operations’ in 2016 and 2017 which led to the mass murder, sexual violence, and destruction of Rohingya villages in Rakhine state.
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1 September 2020 by Emma-Louise Fenelon
After a summer hiatus, Law Pod UK returns with an interview with Joshua Rozenberg who will be well known to listeners as a legal commentator, journalist, and presenter of the BBC’s Law in Action.
In Episode 123 Joshua addresses attacks on judges and lawyers by the media and the government, and discusses his new book Enemies of the People? How Judges Shape Society
This interview was recorded the day after the Home Office released a post on social media suggesting that “activist lawyers” were abusing regulations by delaying and disrupting returns of migrants. The Law Society and Bar Council both condemned the video, and it has since been taken down by the Home Office, see here.
For links to the cases discussed, see below:
- The recent New Zealand High Court decision concerning the lawfulness of the first 9 days of lockdown in New Zealand here (for an analysis, see UK Human Rights Blog article here.
- Read more about Simon Dolan’s challenge to lockdown, represented by Philip Havers QC, here.
Listeners can avail of 20% discount on the retail price of Joshua Rozenberg’s book, linked on Joshua’s blog here.
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