Monthly News Archives: February 2022
28 February 2022 by Guest Contributor
Statement as ‘conclusive evidence’
The European Convention 1950 guarantees the right to a fair trial. Everyone knows that. At article 6.1 the Convention says:
Right to a fair trial
1. In the determination of his civil rights and obligations or of any criminal charge against him, everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal established by law….
What everyone does not know is what is a ‘civil right’. And in the present context – namely divorce of civil partnership dissolution – do you have a right to query the assertion of your spouse or civil partner that your marriage or civil partnership has irretrievably broken down?
The Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Act 2020 simplifies the divorce and civil partnership dissolution process by changing the law to make irretrievable breakdown – as now – the only ground for divorce or dissolution. But to prove that, there was no longer any need to establish one or more facts: adultery (marriage only), unreasonable behaviour or living apart for varying periods. One, or both, parties can file a statement of irretrievable breakdown. The procedure for this is likely – no commencement date has been confirmed – to be in force from 6 April 2022. All so far so civilised.
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24 February 2022 by Guest Contributor
The UKHRB is grateful to Aileen McColgan QC for allowing us to republish her article, which originally appeared on Panoptican, a blog published by the barristers at 11KBW here.
The central question for the Supreme Court in Bloomberg v ZXC [2022] UKSC 5 was, as Lords Hamblen and Stephens put it (with Lord Reeds, Lloyd-Jones and Sales agreeing): “whether, in general, a person under criminal investigation has, prior to being charged, a reasonable expectation of privacy in respect of information relating to that investigation”. The short answer was “yes”.
The decision has been greeted with howls of indignation from Bloomberg but more muted responses from other sections of the press; whereas Bloomberg’s editor in chief released an editorial entitled “U.K. Judges Are Helping the Next Robert Maxwell” which stated that the judgment should “frighten every decent journalist in Britain”, the Financial Times and Guardian were more restrained, pointing out respectively that the decision would have “far-reaching implications for the British media” and would “make it harder for British media outlets to publish information about individuals subject to criminal investigations”. This is no doubt the case, but it is worth noting that the publication which gave rise to this decision was based on a highly confidential letter leaked to Bloomberg and occurred apparently without any consideration of ZXC’s privacy interests.
ZXC, regional CEO of a publicly listed company which operated overseas (“X Ltd”), sued for misuse of private information because of an article concerning X Ltd’s activities in a country for which ZXC’s division was responsible. The activities had been subject to a criminal investigation by a UK law enforcement body (“the UKLEB”) since 2013 and the article was based almost completely on a confidential Letter of Request sent by the UKLEB to the foreign state. ZXC claimed that he had a reasonable expectation of privacy in information published in the Article, in particular in the details of the UKLEB investigation into himself, its assessment of the evidence, the fact that it believed that ZXC had committed specified criminal offences and its explanation of how the evidence it sought would assist its investigation into that suspected offending. ZXC’s application for damages and injunctive relief was upheld at first instance by Nicklin J and £25,000 awarded: [2019] EWHC 970 (QB); [2019] EMLR 20. Bloomberg’s appear was dismissed (see Panopticon post by Robin Hopkins and [2020] EWCA Civ 611; [2021] QB 28.
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23 February 2022 by Ruaridh Owens
On 7 December 2021, the European Court of Human Rights (the “Court”) published its judgment in Standard Verlagsgesellschaft MBH v Austria (No.3) regarding anonymity online. The Court found that the Austrian courts had violated the applicant’s right to freedom of expression by requiring the applicant to disclose the identities of those who had posted allegedly defamatory comments on its website. The Court’s judgment is a notable development of its case law regarding freedom of expression on the internet.
Legal and factual background
The applicant is the publisher of the Austrian Der Standard daily newspaper published in print, digitally and online. At the end of each online article, registered users can post comments anonymously. When registering, users are warned that the applicant may disclose their data if required to do so by law. Users also accept the applicant’s Community Guidelines stating that users are responsible for their comments and that personal attacks, threats, abuse, or defamatory statements are prohibited. All comments are screened by a keyword identification programme before they can be posted. The applicant also operates a “notice and take down” system via which users can trigger a manual editorial review of comments by using a “report” button.
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22 February 2022 by hrupdateadmin
We are looking for 4 volunteers to form our ’rounder-upper’ team, responsible for creating our weekly legal ‘Round Up’ of cases. Each person would rotate so it only involves crafting one post a month. The round-up goes out first thing on a Monday, and consists of a summary of recent authorities and also broader issues which may have an impact on rights e.g. legislative developments, NGO or UN reports, political developments etc. The focus of the article is not to be a general news outlet per se, but to provide an update on important legal news and developments over the past week. The new rounder-up writers will be given assistance and guidance in finding their feet from the editorial team to assist them in the first few weeks in getting to grips with the job.
Please note that applications have now closed.
Examples
Here are some (randomly chosen) examples of recent round-up articles:
Our blog style guide, which although not specific to the round-up itself, is helpful to indicate the style we are looking for.
Benefit to law students
We have found in the past that GDL and other law students find writing the round-up a very useful way to stay on top of legal issues in the field of human rights. Further, it is an excellent thing to have on the CV and your LinkedIn. It provides the author with a certain level of profile given the blog’s large readership and so is likely to be very helpful to anyone applying for pupillages, particular at chambers with a public law bent. Many across the legal sector and beyond rely on the blog to keep up with developments in human rights law. In the past, rounder-up writers have tended to be recruited as pupils to very high calibre chambers. Also, former round-up writers are in a good position to ‘graduate’ into becoming contributors to the Blog in due course if they wish.
How to Apply
We are looking for authors who can succinctly but accurately summarise key authorities and other developments. We are therefore recruiting by asking those interested to send the following to Rosalind English events@1cor.com by 9 am on 4th March 2022. Please include your name in the title of each document. We endeavour to contact every applicant but, due to application numbers, prioritise successful candidates.
- A 250-word summary in Microsoft Word of the case of Secretary of State for the Home Department v NF [2021] EWCA Civ 17 (https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2021/17.html). This summary should include a pithy explanation of the result of the case at the outset (do not leave the outcome to the end). We understand that it is challenging to distil a full judgment down into 250 words and are looking for a summary that succeeds in bringing out the key facts, the key legal principles and the fundamental reason(s) that the court decided the case in the way that it did. Any summary which exceeds 250 words will automatically be ineligible. Inclusion of the case name and citation at the start of the entry will not count towards the word limit.
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21 February 2022 by Rosalind English
“A Decent Death” is the title of an article written by former Court of Appeal judge Stephen Sedley, and published in the London Review of Books, to which Sir Sedley is a frequent contributor.
In Episode 158 of Law Pod UK, Rosalind English considers the points made by Sir Stephen in his erudite and forthright column with Trevor Moore, Chair of the assisted dying campaign My Death, My Decision.
With clips from Sir Stephen’s presentation of his talk, we consider the contradictions in the law which still renders assisted dying a criminal offence, but allowed Coronavirus restrictions to be lifted to enable people to travel to end their lives at Dignitas in Switzerland; the stressful possibility faced by relatives returning from Switzerland that they are at risk of being prosecuted under the 1961 Suicide Act, and the constant buck-passing of reforms to this Act between the courts and Parliament.
As Sir Stephen commented in his talk, the “historical anathema”, of punishing either unsuccessful suicides or their families, lives on in the undifferentiated crime of assisting a person to commit suicide.
The present-day offence fails – signally – to differentiate between the intervener who, out of self-interest or perversion, helps to ensure that a suicide attempt succeeds, and the individual who, out of compassion, gives a rational fellow being the help he or she needs to end a life that has become medically unbearable.
For those of you who have listened to this episode, here is another reflection from Sir Stepen, on the obligation on family members returning from Switzerland, to protect themselves from prosecution under the Suicide Act by reporting themselves to the police.
On self-incrimination, I think there’s possibly more to be said. The senior police officer or crown prosecutor whose desk the case reaches may be personally (even doctrinally) hostile and decide – armed now with a full ‘confession’ given in the hope of clemency under the DPP’s policy – to prosecute. In that event there is no defence of compassion; the jury may have to convict. I find this a terrifying scenario.
Stephen Sedley
Law Pod UK is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Audioboom, Player FM, ListenNotes, Podbean, iHeart, Radio Public, Deezer or wherever you listen to our podcasts. Please remember to rate and review us if you like what you hear.
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21 February 2022 by Lucy McCann
CN v Secretary of State for Health and Social Care [2022] EWCA Civ 86
Judgment here, hearings here: part 1 and part 2.
In a judgment handed down on 4 February 2022, the Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal for permission to apply for judicial review concerning the lawfulness of the England Infected Blood Support Scheme (EIBSS) (the “Scheme”). The Court of Appeal concluded that the Scheme’s exclusion of those infected with hepatitis B was not discriminatory. In any event, the Secretary of State’s justification for who was to be compensated under the ex gratia Scheme was to be given a wide margin of appreciation by the courts.
Background
CN
The Appellant, CN, suffers from hepatitis B virus (“HBV”) which he alleges he contracted when given blood transfusions on or after 14 April 1989. Consequently, CN has suffered from serious health problems, and was forced to abandon his business to receive medical treatment; he has been reliant on state benefits for the last 13 years. CN is a core participant in the ongoing infected blood inquiry, which was established to examine the circumstances in which NHS patients in the UK were given infected blood and blood products (read more about the Inquiry here).
In 1995, CN issued a civil claim against the NHS and the National Blood Authority (now the NHS Blood and Transplant Service). Despite obtaining expert evidence to the effect that his infection was obtained from infected blood, he had to discontinue his claim when legal aid was withdrawn.
Infected blood and the England Infected Blood Support Scheme (EIBSS)
The Scheme was set up on 1 November 2017, to provide ex gratia support to people historically infected with hepatitis C virus (“HCV”) and/or human immunodeficiency virus (“HIV”). Specifically, the 2017 Directions set out the EIBSS’s purpose as:
a scheme to make payments and provide support in respect of individuals infected with HIV or Hepatitis C (or both) from blood or blood products used by the NHS and to provide support to family members of such individuals.
The Scheme addresses the ongoing social issues concerning those infected and affected by HIV and HCV from unscreened products. The Scheme recognises a moral imperative to compensate those infected with HCV and HIV in circumstances where attempts to allege negligence against the NHS would run into significant difficulties of fault-based liability and evidential issues surrounding the state of scientific knowledge at the time. It also helps families and partners after the death of someone infected, who would otherwise be unable to make a civil claim.
Those infected with HBV do not fall within the remit of the Scheme. In basic terms, this is because the NHS screened blood and blood products for HBV from the mid 1970s, so the number of patients infected with HBV were low after screening. Within the Scheme, the cut-off date for HCV claims is September 1991, when screening was introduced. For HIV there is no cut-off, but the eligibility criteria make clear that after October 1985, when the NHS screened for HIV, it was very unlikely that HIV would be transmitted through infected blood.
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21 February 2022 by Byul Ryan-Im
In the news:
Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to announce the removal of the last remaining COVID-19 restrictions this afternoon. It is expected that the legal requirement to self-isolate after testing positive will be scrapped alongside free PCR and lateral flow tests. Mr Johnson is set to announce the end of restrictions to be a “moment of pride”, although some groups have expressed concerns about the approach, including NHS leaders and the chair of the British Medical Association Dr Chaand Nagpaul, who said the decision “is not based on current evidence and is premature”.
The Welsh Parliament on Tuesday voted to withdraw consent for the British Nationality and Borders Bill, on the basis that reforms to methods for determining asylum-seeker age would undermine the Senedd’s legislative competence, as they related to a devolved matter. In a letter to Minister for Immigration Kevin Foster, the Welsh Minister for Social Justice outlined this and a further ten matters of concern for the Senedd. These included the establishing of Accommodation Centres, which she said would be “fundamentally incompatible with our Nation of Sanctuary approach”, and the fact that the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has said that the Bill “is fundamentally at odds” with the UK’s obligations under the UN Refugee Convention.
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18 February 2022 by Rosalind English
The Good Law Project and The Runnymede Trust, R (on the application of) v The Prime Minister and Anor [2022] EWHC 298 (Admin) (15 February 2022)
This was an interesting ruling on the matter of standing, something that has fallen rather by the wayside since it formed the subject of much satellite litigation in the 1990s. In essence, the Court ruled that the GLP had no standing to bring this claim. Despite its articles of association, whose purposes include the provision of sound administration and equality, democracy, high standards in public administration, access to justice, preservation of the environment or “any other philanthropic or benevolent purpose ancillary”. Such a general statement of objects could not confer standing on an organisation:
That would be tantamount to saying that the GLP has standing to bring judicial review proceedings in any public law case. [58]
Arguments before the Court
The GLP and the Runnymede Trust brought a challenge to the government’s decision to appoint two individuals to head Covid projects such as the Test and Trace programme (Baroness Harding of Winscombe (Dido Harding) was one of the individuals named). Mike Coupe, Director of Testing, NHS Test & Trace, was the other.
The claimants contended that the government had a practice of appointing people to positions critical to the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic without open competition, that only candidates with some relevant personal or political connection to the decision-maker were appointed, and that, even though the positions to be filled were senior and strategically important, the person appointed was unpaid. The Claimants said this gave rise to indirect discrimination on grounds of race and/or disability. They made other complaints about the process used by the Defendants.
The Defendants disputed all these claims on their merits. In addition, they contended (a) that the matters complained of had now been overtaken by events rendering the claims academic, and that for that reason, the claims should not be determined by the court; (b) that the claims had been brought too late and should be dismissed for that reason; and (c) that the Claimants lacked standing to bring the claims. There was also one further matter, which the Court considered in the context of the standing issue, although it was conceptually distinct. That was whether the decisions challenged were amenable to judicial review. Each of the decisions challenged in these proceedings was an employment decision. Employment decisions, even when taken by public authorities, are not ordinarily challengeable by application for judicial review.
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17 February 2022 by Jasper Gold
R (Richards) v Environment Agency Case [2022] EWCA Civ 26
Richards is, at its core, a case about the proper relationship between the courts, regulators and third parties who engage in potentially hazardous activities, but the Claimant in the case was none of these. Rather, it was Mathew Richards, a 6-year-old boy who suffers from lung problems, recovery from which was inhibited by emissions of hydrogen sulphide gas from the Walleys Quarry Landfill Site which is situated near his home in Staffordshire. The central question was whether the Environment Agency (EA) had taken sufficient steps to discharge its legal duties to protect the Claimant.
In Richards, the Court of Appeal set aside a declaration of Fordham J in which he had spelled out in some detail the scientific and regulatory goals that the EA would have had to meet in their regulation of emissions from the landfill. It is an interesting case for several reasons: it is the first domestic case to consider the human rights standards applicable to regulators tackling present threats under article 2 ECHR (the right to life); it discusses the limits of judicial power in the context of specialist regulators; and it also addresses complex and important questions about the requirements for, and functions of, judicial declarations.
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8 February 2022 by Emma-Louise Fenelon
In the latest episode of Law Pod UK – number 157 – Emma-Louise Fenelon speaks to Jon Metzer about some of the most significant cases of last year. This episode covers:
Law Pod UK is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Audioboom, Player FM, ListenNotes, Podbean, iHeart, Radio Public, Deezer or wherever you listen to our podcasts. Please remember to rate and review us if you like what you hear.
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3 February 2022 by Samuel March
Pwr v Director of Public Prosecutions [2022] UKSC 2 — judgment here
On 26 January 2022 the Supreme Court ruled that s.13(1) Terrorism Act 2000 (“TA 2000 “) is a strict liability offence and that, whilst it does interfere with Art.10 ECHR (freedom of expression), the interference is lawful, necessary and proportionate.
BACKGROUND
S.13 provides that it is a criminal offence for a person in a public place to carry or display an article “in such a way or in such circumstances as to arouse reasonable suspicion that he is a member or supporter of a proscribed organisation”. The offence is summary-only and carries a maximum sentence of six months imprisonment.
The three appellants in this case, Mr Pwr, Mr Akdogan and Mr Demir were convicted in the Westminster Magistrates’ Court of an offence contrary to s.13 TA 2000. All three had attended a protest in central London on 27 January 2018. The protest concerned perceived actions of the Turkish state in Afrin, a town in north-eastern Syria. The convictions related to carrying a flag of the Kurdistan Workers Party (the Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê (“the PKK”), an organisation proscribed under the TA 2000. Mr Pwr and Mr Akdogan were given three-month conditional discharges. Mr Demir received an absolute discharge.
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