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Reform UK reported to the Equality and Human Rights Commission
On Wednesday, a group of 27 MPs wrote to the Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Dr Mary-Ann Stephenson, calling for a formal investigation into Reform UK over alleged Islamophobia. The signatories – 26 Labour backbenchers, co-ordinated by Afzal Khan (Manchester Rusholme) – contend that the party has breached its obligations under the Equality Act 2010, and that it has no adequate internal process by which members can raise concerns. The letter points, among other things, to Nigel Farage’s criticism of a Ramadan event in Trafalgar Square. Reform UK rejects the complaint.
The referral is the latest test of the Commission’s appetite to deploy its enforcement powers against a political party. Dr Stephenson succeeded Baroness Falkner of Margravine as Chair at the end of November 2025.
Record drug-related deaths in prisons
On Monday, The Independent reported that drug-related deaths in prisons in England and Wales have reached a record high. Charlie Taylor, HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, has warned that dealers are “operating with impunity” and that drones are used to deliver large consignments into prison estates. The figures sharpen the focus on the state’s positive obligations under Articles 2 and 3 ECHR towards those whom it detains, and on the increase of Prevention of Future Deaths reports concerning the availability of novel psychoactive substances in custody.
UN High Commissioner warns of escalation in Ukraine
On Thursday, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, warned against a dangerous escalation in Ukraine amid Russian threats to intensify its attacks, urging both sides back to the negotiating table: “I strongly urge restraint. Resume negotiations and end the suffering.” His Office recorded 815 civilians killed and 4,174 injured in the first four months of 2026: a 21% increase on the same period in 2025.
The High Commissioner reiterated that international humanitarian law obliges the parties to a conflict to take all feasible precautions to spare the civilian population.
In the Courts
Mavrakis and Kasapoğlu v. Türkiye: religious-minority foundations in Strasbourg
On Tuesday, the ECtHR considered the position of two Greek Orthodox priests, both Turkish nationals: the late Father Gennaidos (born Nikolaos) Mavrakis, who died during the proceedings in August 2025, and Father Georgios Kasapoğlu.
Mavrakis and Kasapoğlu had been removed by Türkiye’s General Directorate of Foundations from the boards of three Greek Orthodox community foundations: the Beşiktaş Cihannüma foundation; the Aya Konstantin foundation in Samatya; and the foundation of the Phanar Greek Orthodox College, the historic ‘Great School of the Nation’.
The sole ground for their removal was that they were members of the clergy. The applicants relied on Articles 9 (freedom of religion), 11 (freedom of association) and 14 (prohibition of discrimination), together with Articles 6(1) and 13. The case is Mavrakis and Kasapoğlu v. Türkiye (apps. nos. 12549/23, 71/24 and 2023/24).
The Chamber found a violation of Article 11 read in light of Article 9. The case falls within the established Strasbourg jurisprudence on the institutional autonomy of religious communities. Although Türkiye had in 2008 introduced elections to the boards of non-Muslim foundations, the Directorate continued in practice to bar serving clergy from standing, permitting only the election of lay members of a community whose numbers are in decline. The Court awarded €2,000 in non-pecuniary damages to each applicant (the late Father Mavrakis’s award being payable to his widow and two sons).
The decisive point was that the exclusion had no basis in domestic law. No statute or regulation barred clergy from foundation boards: the eligibility criteria turned on matters such as citizenship, age, residence and education, rather than lay status. The General Directorate had no power to remove a duly elected member on account of his clerical status. The interference was accordingly not ‘prescribed by law’. The Court awarded €2,000 in non-pecuniary damages to each applicant (the late Father Mavrakis’s award being payable to his widow and two sons).
These modest damages belie the practical significance of this ruling for the Greek Orthodox community in Istanbul – as well as a fifteen-year battle through the Turkish courts and then to Strasbourg to secure it. Community foundations administer churches, schools, cemeteries and property around which Greek Orthodox life in the city is organised.
The decision has been welcomed by minority-rights observers as dismantling a long-standing administrative doctrine, said to be derived from the Treaty of Lausanne, that members of the clergy could not exercise administrative functions within minority foundations. The judgment affirms that a state cannot invoke religious identity as an administrative pretext for paring back a minority’s right to run its own institutions.
Tožičková v. the Czech Republic: the arrest of a journalist at an environmental protest
On Thursday, Strasbourg returned to freedom of expression in Tožičková v. the Czech Republic (app. no. 21512/23). The applicant, a journalist, was covering a September 2020 environmental demonstration at a coal mine, wearing a visible press badge. When some demonstrators entered the mine’s restricted operating area, she followed them. Police ordered those present to leave and, on her refusal, arrested her, releasing her some two hours later. The domestic courts found that the order to vacate and a ban on filming during her arrest had both been unlawful, but nonetheless upheld the arrest, and the Constitutional Court dismissed her complaint.
The Chamber unanimously found a violation of Article 10. A refusal to obey a police order did not, in and of itself, justify arrest: before detaining a journalist, the police had to weigh the alternatives open to them against her press status and the effect on her Article 10 rights, which they had not done. By treating her non-compliance with an order later acknowledged to be unlawful as automatic justification, and giving no adequate reasons, the domestic courts had sanctioned an arrest that was not necessary in a democratic society: the more so given the press’s watchdog role over the policing of protest and the correspondingly narrow margin of appreciation where a matter of public interest is in play.
The Court awarded €3,000 in respect of costs and expenses.
Kakar v London Borough of Harrow: access to justice and statutory time limits
Ms Kakar had sought council-tax discounts on two grounds: first, that her son, who had been suspended from his studies on medical grounds, should have been treated as a qualifying full-time student; second, that Ms Kakar was her son’s carer. The Valuation Tribunal for England held that time to appeal ran from a council email of 5 February 2024, rendering her October 2024 appeal some seven months out of time.
Before David Pievsky KC (sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge), counsel for Ms Kakar argued that to refuse an extension of time for a near-miss — the appeal having been filed only minutes after the deadline — was disproportionate. Counsel invoked the right of access to justice by analogy with Article 1 of Protocol No. 1, and also relied on the Court of Appeal’s recent decision in Eskander v General Medical Council [2026] EWCA Civ 372.
The Deputy Judge distinguished Eskander, in which the appellant had adduced detailed evidence of the steps personally taken to comply, and observed that the council-tax context differed materially from the professional-regulatory appeals in which the Adesina line of authority had developed.
The appeal was dismissed. The case is a useful reminder of the limits of the discretion to relieve against rigid statutory time limits outside the regulatory sphere.
The former Philippine President is charged with three counts of crimes against humanity (murder and attempted murder) arising from the ‘war on drugs’. Duterte has been in the Court’s custody since March 2025, and was committed for trial following confirmation of the charges in April 2026.
Mr Duterte did not attend the first status conference, having waived his right to be present. He is now represented by a new defence team led by Peter Haynes.
The Chamber indicated that it was prepared to accede to the Prosecution’s application for the trial to open on 30 November 2026, sitting on a daily basis until the judicial recess. That date should, however, be treated as provisional: Judge Korner, citing Mr Duterte’s age and reported ill-health, directed that the three medical experts who had assessed his fitness at the confirmation stage be re-instructed to examine him afresh, a separate finding on fitness being required before trial can begin.
The Prosecution indicated that it intends to call between 60 and 70 witnesses.
Also this week, Rosalind English examines Rodoy v Optical Express Ltd[2026] EWHC 1219 (KB) (judgment available here), in which Griffiths J dismissed a libel claim over letters describing the claimant as a “self-confessed and known fraudster” who trolled the defendant’s staff online: the words had caused serious harm, but were substantially true and protected by qualified privilege.
Court of Appeal hears Palestine Action proscription challenge
From Tuesday to Thursday, the Court of Appeal heard the Home Secretary’s appeal against the Divisional Court’s ruling in R (Ammori) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2026] EWHC 292 (Admin) regarding the proscription of Palestine Action under section 3 of the Terrorism Act 2000. Two days of open hearings were followed by a closed hearing on 30 April. Judgment was reserved.
The Divisional Court below (whose decision was covered on this blog) had held the proscription unlawful on two grounds: first, that the Home Secretary had failed to follow her own published proscription policy; and second, the proscription was a disproportionate interference with the rights to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly under Articles 10 and 11 ECHR.
The Home Secretary now appeals both of those findings. Ms Ammori cross-appeals (on a rolled-up application) on the two grounds dismissed below: first, that the Home Secretary acted unlawfully in failing, before laying the Order, to give Palestine Action the opportunity to make representations; and second, in proscribing in a manner that was discriminatory contrary to Article 14 ECHR. The proceedings represent the most consequential test of the proscription regime in years: the Court below was told that, by November 2025, over 2,000 people had been arrested under section 13 of the 2000 Act for holding signs reading “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action”; of those, approximately 700 had been charged, and none yet convicted.
The Court of Appeal’s reserved judgment will shape both the lawfulness of the Home Secretary’s decision and the operational practice of the criminal courts.
On Monday, the Commons passed a carry-over motion in respect of the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill, ensuring that the legislation will not fall on prorogation and may continue into the new session.
The Bill removes the conditional-immunity scheme, restores the right to bring civil claims for Troubles-related conduct, and reconstitutes the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery as a ‘Legacy Commission’ with a statutory oversight board, two Co-Directors of Investigations, a Victims and Survivors Advisory Group and conflict-of-interest safeguards. It implements the UK-Ireland Joint Framework on the Legacy of the Troubles, announced in September 2025.
The legislative process now runs in tandem with the Supreme Court’s pending judgment in the linked appeals of Martina Dillon, John McEvoy, Brigid Hughes and Lynda McManus, expected to be handed down on 7 May 2026. The Government’s appeal challenges the Court of Appeal of Northern Ireland’s ruling that, first, Colton J was entitled to disapply provisions of the 2023 Act for incompatibility with Article 2(1) of the Windsor Framework; and second, the ICRIR could not, in its present form, comply with Articles 2 and 3 ECHR.
The respondents’ cross-appeal in turn challenges the Court of Appeal’s departure from Colton J’s further disapplication of provisions of the 2023 Act for breach of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.
Snowden LJ to the Supreme Court
On Thursday, His Majesty The King approved the appointment of Lord Justice Snowden as a Justice of the UK Supreme Court. Sir Richard Snowden, a chancery specialist promoted to the Court of Appeal in October 2021, was Vice-Chancellor of the County Palatine of Lancaster and Supervising Judge of the Business and Property Courts for the Northern and North-Eastern Circuits, as well as Lead Judge for International Relations from March 2025. He will be sworn in on 15 June 2026, replacing Lord Richards of Camberwell on his retirement.
The Order amends section 9(3) of the Human Rights Act 1998 to add a further exception to the prohibition on damages for judicial acts done in good faith, allowing damages to be awarded where a judicial act is incompatible with Article 8 ECHR by reason of a procedural defect amounting to a breach of the requirements of procedural fairness.
The Order responds to the ECtHR’s judgment in SW v United Kingdom(Application no. 87/18, 22 June 2021), in which the Court found violations of Articles 8 and 13 ECHR arising from a Family Court judge’s adverse findings of fact made against a non-party social-worker witness without procedural protections, the Article 13 violation flowing from the inability under section 9(3) HRA to recover damages. The amendments will apply retrospectively as well as prospectively.
Sussex v Office for Students: a regulator with a ‘closed mind’
On Wednesday, the High Court quashed the Office for Students’ decision that the University of Sussex breached its registration conditions, and the £585,000 monetary penalty imposed on it. The case is The University of Sussex v The Office for Students [2026] EWHC 984 (Admin). The Free Speech Union intervened, contending – in support of the OfS’s position – that no proportionality assessment was required.
The University challenged the OfS’s Final Decision of 27 March 2025, which had held it in breach of registration conditions E1 (governing documents to uphold the public-interest governance principles, including freedom of speech and academic freedom) and E2(i) (governance arrangements) by reference to the 2018, 2022 and 2023 versions of the University’s Trans and Non-Binary Equality Policy Statement (‘TNBEPS’). The investigation was prompted by the October 2021 protests targeting Professor Kathleen Stock. Lieven J was emphatic that the Court was “not adjudicating on any issues relating to the events surrounding Professor Stock” ([17]).
The University’s grounds succeeded almost entirely across the board.
First, the OfS had no jurisdiction to find a breach of condition E1, because the TNBEPS was not a “governing document” within the meaning of section 14(1) of the Higher Education and Research Act 2017: the ordinary and natural meaning of the phrase, supported by the legislative history, points to a narrow construction capturing instruments that “had some governing effect, rather than simply setting out a policy” ([150]).
Secondly, the OfS had misdirected itself on the meaning of “freedom of speech within the law”: it had treated any restriction on lawful speech as a breach despite the regulator’s own Regulatory Advice 24 acknowledging that lawful speech may, in appropriate circumstances, be lawfully restricted, and had failed to read the TNBEPS alongside the University’s Freedom of Speech Code of Practice ([246]).
Thirdly, the OfS had misdirected itself on academic freedom, wrongly treating the prospect of disciplinary proceedings as in itself jeopardising academic posts ([266]).
Fourthly, although the OfS did have jurisdiction in respect of condition E2(i) – which encroaches on the visitorial jurisdiction (a jurisdiction of ecclesiastical origin) of fourteen universities and colleges, including Sussex – it had been wrong in law not to consider whether the breaches had been remedied by the time of the Final Decision ([305]).
The Court held that the entire Final Decision was “vitiated by bias” ([455]) because the OfS had approached its decision-making “with a closed mind” and had unlawfully predetermined the outcome. The Court traced the institutional approach from the OfS Board’s resolution on 23 September 2021 to “[p]roactively seek cases to pursue using [their] investigatory powers” ([366]); the then Chief Executive Susan Lapworth’s witness-statement evidence that initiating investigatory work on a free-speech case would send “a strong signal” to the sector ([367]); the OfS’s settlement-stage approach (assuming a breach before the Provisional Decision was issued) ([433]); and the OfS’s writing to other higher education providers using identical Advance HE template policies only after the Final Decision had been published, in order to highlight the breach and the fine ([435]).
Notably, the Court rejected allegations of personal apparent bias against Dr Arif Ahmed, the OfS’s Director for Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom: he had not been the decision-maker and had joined the investigation team only after the Provisional Decision was issued ([420]-[426]). The unlawfulness lay with the institution, not the individual.
The OfS’s interim chief executive said the regulator would “carefully consider the consequences of the judgment before deciding on next steps”; the Free Speech Union described the decision as “disappointing”. The judgment is an unusually pointed criticism of a regulator’s procedural fairness, with sweeping consequences for OfS enforcement of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 regime. As recently confirmed by the Government, the Act’s substantive enforcement machinery – the complaints scheme and the new condition of registration – will not commence until 1 September 2026 and 1 April 2027 respectively.
R v Skinner: Crown Court allows Articles 9 and 10 appeal
A High Court judge sitting in the Crown Court at Bournemouth has quashed the conviction of an 80-year-old appellant under section 127(1) of the Communications Act 2003, holding that conviction would be a disproportionate interference with his rights under Articles 9 and 10 ECHR. The case is R v Skinner(Case Ref: 55CH0180823, Saini J sitting with Mr N. Butler JP and Mr J. Griffin JP, hearing 23 April 2026, oral judgment 24 April 2026, on appeal from Poole Magistrates’ Court).
The appellant, Mr David Skinner, had been convicted at Poole Magistrates’ Court on 1 May 2024 of two offences under section 127(1) and ordered to pay fines, compensation orders to the recipients, prosecution costs and a victim surcharge. The communications were two identical letters, attached as documents to emails sent on 28 April 2023, addressed to Temporary Inspector Fern Graham of Dorset Police and to the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner (‘PCC’) for Dorset, David Sidwick: the latter opened by an employee in the PCC’s office, Ms Yvonne Fenwick.
The letters, entitled “Reporting mass murder in Ophir Road”, contained graphic photographs of aborted foetuses interleaved with photographs of victims of Nazi concentration camps, set in the context of Mr Skinner’s strenuous opposition to the abortion-clinic public spaces protection order (“buffer zone”) imposed in October 2022 around the BPAS clinic on Ophir Road, Bournemouth. The Court accepted that the elements of section 127(1) were technically made out: the images were “grossly offensive”, and Mr Skinner himself accepted in evidence that they were so. The decisive question was whether conviction was a proportionate interference with Convention rights.
Applying the principles set out in Cobban & Borders v Director of Public Prosecutions [2024] EWHC 1908 (Admin) at [111] (reproduced at [17] of the present judgment), and focusing on the fourth limb of the Bank Mellatproportionality test, the Court held that the Crown had not met the demanding standard required to justify a conviction restricting political speech ([33]-[34]). Three reasons were given. First, the letters were political speech entitled to the highest form of Article 10 protection ([35]). Second, images – however shocking – may legitimately be used to make political points: the Court found persuasive Mr Skinner’s own evidential analogies of the open-casket photographs of Emmett Till during the US 1950s civil rights movement and the use of distressing medical images on cigarette packets ([36]). Third, the intended recipients were public officials: Inspector Fern “can be expected to have a higher tolerance”, the PCC was “plainly a political actor”, and as to Ms Fenwick, Mr Skinner had “no way of knowing that anyone other than the PCC would open this correspondence” and should not be held responsible for an administrator opening it ([37]).
The Court distinguished Connolly v DPP [2007] EWHC 237 (Admin), in which a section 1 Malicious Communications Act 1988 conviction had been upheld in respect of letters with similar imagery sent to pharmacy staff, those recipients having no role in the public debate on abortion. The present case is, by contrast, important Article 10 authority for protest correspondence with public-official recipients, and is being treated as a meaningful rebuke to the use of communications offences in protest contexts. It takes its place alongside the recent decision in DPP v Coskun [2026] EWHC 427 (Admin), referred to at [35] of the present judgment, in shaping the Article 10 jurisprudence on offensive expression in political and religious contexts.
Strasbourg: Article 8 violation in Kanev v Bulgaria; upcoming Yasak v Türkiye judgment
On Tuesday, the ECtHR held, by 5 votes to 2, that Bulgaria violated Article 8 ECHR in respect of the lack of effective oversight of personal data processed by its State Agency for National Security (“SANS”). The case is Kanev and Bulgarian Helsinki Committee v Bulgaria(45864/22, judgment of 28 April 2026, Third Section).
The first applicant – Mr Krasimir Kanev, chair of the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee – sought to ascertain in 2021 whether SANS had gathered intelligence on him or the Committee, after the then caretaker Minister of Internal Affairs had publicly stated that SANS had conducted secret surveillance of civil-society activists during the 2020-21 protests. SANS refused to disclose; Mr Kanev’s domestic challenges failed.
The Chamber held that Bulgarian law contained insufficiently clear rules and effective safeguards governing SANS’s processing of personal data. None of the potential oversight mechanisms (the Commission for the Protection of Personal Data; reporting to Parliament or to government) appeared in practice to scrutinise how SANS processed operational data. The Court directed Bulgaria to bring its law into conformity with the Convention, in continuation of the line of authority running from Association for European Integration and Human Rights and Ekimdzhiev v Bulgaria(62540/00, 28 June 2007), through Ekimdzhiev and Others v Bulgaria (70078/12, 11 January 2022), and most recently Green Alliance v Bulgaria(6580/22, 17 February 2026). A modest sum was awarded by way of just satisfaction.
Kanev is a notable restatement of the principle that the absence of effective independent oversight is fatal to the ‘quality of law’ requirement under Article 8. It is also an important case for practitioners working on the UK Investigatory Powers regime, intelligence-services subject access, and the Investigatory Powers Tribunal.
Additionally, the Grand Chamber will hand down its judgment in Yasak v Türkiye (17389/20) on Tuesday 5 May 2026: a follow-on to Yalçınkaya v Türkiyeon the foreseeability of liability under Article 7 for membership of FETÖ/PDY, an armed terrorist organisation.
On the UKHRB
Rosalind English speaks with Edie Bowles of the Animal Law Foundation and Veronica Wiggins (Ad-Free Cities and Badvertising) about consumer-protection enforcement around misleading representations of farm-animal welfare, and the recent challenge to the labelling of Scottish farmed salmon, in Episode 237 of Law Pod UK: “Humane-washing” (28 April 2026).
‘In peril’: Human Rights Watch publishes their World Report 2026
On Wednesday, Human Rights Watch published World Report 2026, the 36th edition of its annual review of human rights practices in over 100 countries.
Introducing the Report, Executive Director Philippe Bolopion describes 2025 as a potential ‘tipping point’: US hostility to multilateral institutions, he argues, now compounds longstanding efforts by China and Russia to erode the rules-based international order.
The Report’s UK chapter highlights restrictions on protest, including the proscription of Palestine Action, alongside rising absolute poverty, disability benefit cuts and far-right anti-migrant mobilisation. It criticised the Supreme Court’s ruling that ‘sex’ in the Equality Act 2010 refers to biological sex rather than legal gender identity (For Women Scotland Ltd v The Scottish Ministers [2025] UKSC 16). The same ruling forms part of a report by the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, discussed further below.
The World Report also welcomed Parliament’s vote to decriminalise abortion. Although the Abortion Act 1967 permitted lawful terminations in specified circumstances, abortion itself remained a criminal offence. In June 2025, the House of Commons voted 379 to 137 to add Clause 191 to the Crime and Policing Bill, removing women from criminal liability in relation to their own pregnancies at any gestational stage. The provision, which represents the most significant reform of abortion law in England and Wales in nearly 60 years, is currently before the House of Lords.
Human Rights Watch’s full global report can be accessed here.
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