The Weekly Round-up: Contempt of Parliament, ECHR no defence for criminal damage, and online safety

3 October 2022 by

In the news

The House of Commons privileges committee has issued its response to the legal opinion of Lord Pannick KC and Jason Pobjoy (on behalf of Boris Johnson) in respect of its inquiry into ‘partygate’. Pannick’s opinion criticised the committee’s proposed conduct by identifying 6 areas where a ‘fundamentally flawed approach’ has been adopted. The most substantial criticism was that the committee did not consider intent to be necessary in proving that Johnson misled the House. The weight behind this argument was that there would be a ‘chilling effect’ on Ministerial comments if unintentional mistakes were held to be contempt. In their response, the committee described this proposition as ‘wholly misplaced and itself misleading’. The response also says that the opinion is ‘founded on a systemic misunderstanding of the parliamentary process and misplaced analogies with the criminal law’. Questions have been raised as to both the method of publication of the opinion (which was not shown to the committee as is convention) and why the matter was not arranged by the government legal service.

The Home Office plans to re-open immigration detention centres as Suella Braverman indicates that she will take a harder line on immigration than Priti Patel, her predecessor. The plans are for 2 centres to open in order to detain 1,000 male asylum seekers, and to increase the number of people the Home Office can imprison. The plan is specifically linked to the detainment of people before they are sent to Rwanda, at a projected cost of £399m. The new contracts come after the former prison ombudsman, Stephen Shaw, published two comprehensive and highly critical reports on immigration detention, though officials stress they will take this into consideration.

In other news

  • Anne Sacoolas, the US citizen accused of causing the death of Harry Dunn by driving on the wrong side of the road, has appeared via a video link at the Westminster magistrates court for the first time. After 3 years of waiting for criminal proceedings to begin due to extradition issues, the chief magistrate told Sacoolas that she must attend the next hearing at the Old Bailey in person.  
  • TikTok could be fined £27m for failing to protect children’s privacy. The Information Commissioner’s Office found that the app may have processed the data of under 13s without parental consent. They also may have failed to provide proper information to its users in a concise, transparent and easily understood way, as well as processing special category data without legal grounds to do so.
  • Ian Russell’s campaign, following his daughter Molly taking her own life due to negative online content, is having a major impact on the future of online safety. A cross-bench peer has stated that the efforts of the family have ‘made an unavoidable case for the online safety bill’, which proposes to place a duty of care on tech companies to shield children from harmful content.

In the courts

  • In AG Ref No 1 of 2022, the Court of Appeal held that protestors in similar circumstances to the ‘Colston four’ cannot rely on human rights defences to charges of criminal damage. The ruling came after the attorney general referred a point of law following the acquittal of the Colston four, the protestors who toppled the statue of the slaver trader Edward Colston. The Lord Chief Justice handed down the judgment, which held that ‘prosecution and conviction for causing significant damage to property during protest would fall outside the protection of the Convention’ [at 115]. This principle was qualified with the caveat that Convention rights could be used in minor or temporary criminal damage cases, with proportionality being a central consideration [at 116]. As such, if criminal damage crosses the new threshold of ‘significant’, defendants will not be entitled to rely on an ECHR defence. Rosalind English will expand on the Court of Appeal’s judgment later this week.
  • In Uhunamure v Belgium [2022] EWHC 2435 (Admin), the High Court discharged an extradition order against the claimant in respect of one offence, but kept the order in respect of 5 other offences. The order was in place to extradite the appellant to Belgium in order to stand trial for 6 offences related to human trafficking. Permission to appeal the order was granted on 2 grounds: (i) the first instance judge should have found that the warrant failed to include adequate particulars of the offences; and (ii) the judge was wrong to find that the offences were extradition offences. These grounds failed for 5 of the 6 offences. The only offence to which the order was discharged was for coercion into prostitution. Because the conduct occurred in Dubai, it had not met the dual criminality requirement for extradition [at 66].

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Aarhus Abortion Abu Qatada Abuse Access to justice administrative court adoption ALBA Allison Bailey Al Qaeda animal rights anonymity Appeals Article 1 Protocol 1 Article 2 article 3 Article 4 article 5 Article 6 Article 7 Article 8 Article 9 article 10 Article 11 article 13 Article 14 Artificial Intelligence Asbestos assisted suicide asylum Australia autism benefits Bill of Rights biotechnology blogging Bloody Sunday brexit Bribery Catholicism Chagos Islanders charities Children children's rights China christianity citizenship civil liberties campaigners climate change clinical negligence Coercion common law confidentiality consent conservation constitution contempt of court Control orders Copyright coronavirus Coroners costs court of appeal Court of Protection covid crime Cybersecurity Damages Dartmoor data protection death penalty defamation deportation deprivation of liberty Detention diplomatic immunity disability disclosure Discrimination disease divorce DNA domestic violence duty of candour duty of care ECHR ECtHR Education election Employment Employment Law Employment Tribunal enforcement Environment Equality Act Ethiopia EU EU Charter of Fundamental Rights EU costs EU law European Court of Justice evidence extradition extraordinary rendition Family Fertility FGM Finance football foreign criminals foreign office France freedom of assembly Freedom of Expression freedom of information freedom of speech Gay marriage Gaza gender genetics Germany gmc Google Grenfell Health healthcare high court HIV home office Housing HRLA human rights Human Rights Act human rights news Huntington's Disease immigration India Indonesia injunction Inquests international law internet Inuit Iran Iraq Ireland Islam Israel Italy IVF Jalla v Shell Japan Japanese Knotweed Judaism judicial review jury trial JUSTICE Justice and Security Bill Land Reform Law Pod UK legal aid legality Leveson Inquiry LGBTQ Rights liability Libel Liberty Libya Lithuania local authorities marriage Maya Forstater mental capacity Mental Health military Ministry of Justice modern slavery monitoring murder music Muslim nationality national security NHS Northern Ireland nuclear challenges nuisance Obituary ouster clauses parental rights parliamentary expenses scandal Parole patents Pensions Personal Injury Piracy Plagiarism planning Poland Police Politics pollution press Prisoners Prisons privacy Private Property Professional Discipline Property proportionality Protection of Freedoms Bill Protest Public/Private public access public authorities public inquiries public law Regulatory Proceedings rehabilitation Reith Lectures Religion RightsInfo Right to assembly right to die right to family life Right to Privacy Right to Roam right to swim riots Roma Romania Round Up Royals Russia Saudi Arabia Scotland secrecy secret justice sexual offence sexual orientation Sikhism Smoking social media Social Work South Africa Spain special advocates Sports Standing statelessness Statutory Interpretation stop and search Strasbourg Supreme Court Supreme Court of Canada surrogacy surveillance Syria Tax technology Terrorism tort Torture travel treaty TTIP Turkey UK Ukraine UK Supreme Court unduly harsh united nations unlawful detention USA US Supreme Court vicarious liability Wales War Crimes Wars Welfare Western Sahara Whistleblowing Wikileaks Wild Camping wind farms WomenInLaw YearInReview Zimbabwe
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