By: Rosalind English
26 October 2018 by Rosalind English
E.S. v Austria (Application no. 38450/12) 25 October 2018 – read judgment
In a judgment which has received instant and worldwide publicity, the Strasbourg Court has ruled that the Austrian government did not violate an individual’s freedom of expression when she was fined for saying at a 2009 seminar she gave on Islam that Mohammed had married one of his wives, Aisha, at the age of six and had intercourse with her from the age of nine. Although this would be classified as paedophilia today, the Austrian criminal court found that the insinuation that Mohamed had paedophilic tendencies amounted to an unlawful disparagement of religious doctrines. Because, in modern society, paedophilia was behaviour which was ostracised by society and outlawed, it was evident that the applicant’s statements were capable of causing indignation. Defaming the prophet in this way went “beyond the permissible limits of an objective debate” and “could stir up prejudice and put at risk religious peace”. Thus her words had exceeded the permissible limits of freedom of expression.
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15 October 2018 by Rosalind English
The Supreme Court’s judgment on the liability of hospitals for the actions and misstatements of their non-medical staff is an important line in the sand for the NHS. Owain Thomas QC discusses the implications of this ruling with Rosalind English on Law Pod UK here, following his widely read post on the UK Human Rights Blog.
And as part of our repodcast arrangements with Catherine Barnard of Cambridge University, we have posted two new episodes on the Brexit negotiations, here and here. In Episode 46 of Law Pod UK Professor Barnard features an exclusive interview with Sir Ivan Rogers, the former UK Ambassador to the EU, following his speech to Trinity College Cambridge last week: “Brexit as a revolution”.
Law Pod UK is available for free download on iTunes, Audioboom, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts. If you like what you hear, please subscribe, rate and leave a review to support our podcast.
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10 October 2018 by Rosalind English
Lloyd v Google LLC [2018] EWHC 2599 (QB) 8 October 2018 – read judgment
This is a novel form of action, but everything was new once (Warby J para 100)
Already today we are becoming tiny chips inside a giant data-processing system that nobody really understands. (Yuval Noah Harari, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, p. 36)
Do people want privacy? Because they seem to put everything on the internet. (Elon Musk, interview on Joe Rogan podcast #1169 at 1.49)
Most of us resignedly consent to the use of cookies in order to use internet sites, vaguely aware that these collect information about our browsing habits in order to target us with advertisements. It’s annoying, but does it do us any harm? That is the question that came up before Warby J in a preliminary application for a representative claim last week.
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4 October 2018 by Rosalind English
Help Refugees Ltd, R (on the application of) v Secretary of State for the Home Secretary [2018] EWCA Civ 2098 – read judgment
This was an appeal by Help Refugees Ltd against the refusal of its application for judicial review of the secretary of state’s consultation process regarding the relocation of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children under Section 67 of the Immigration Act 2016.
Background law and facts
This provision was passed in response to the mass migration into Europe of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children (UAS children) from the Middle East and North Africa. Section 67 established a scheme whereby the secretary of state was required to arrange for the relocation of “specified number” of UAS children. That number was to be determined by the secretary of state in consultation with local authorities. Because the s.67 scheme was not the only route by which UAS children might lawfully enter the UK, the specified number was to represent the highest number of s.67 UAS children that the local authorities could reasonably accommodate. It is inherent in the provision that the interests of UAS children in being located in the UK have to be balanced against the interests of other children for whom local authorities are responsible, and the public interest in ensuring that there is reasonable resource capacity in the system to accommodate the UAS children. In late 2015 – 2016 the number of migrants hugely accelerated in France, reflected in the increase in attempts to make unauthorised access to the UK from France through ports in Kent. This in turn imposed a huge burden on the local authorities in that region to fulfil their obligations under the Children Act, necessitating relocation to other parts of the UK.
On 8 September 2016, the Home Office wrote to all local authorities asking each to specify the number of children it could accept under s.67. By October, when the refugee camps in Calais were being cleared, UAS children in France were assessed for transfer under s.67 against published criteria, such as age, length of time in Europe, and country of origin (with older Sudanese and Syrian UAS children being allowed in). UAS children in France were assessed for transfer against these published criteria. For practical purposes, those who satisfied the criteria were transferred; and those who did not were not. The latter were told simply that they had not met the eligibility criteria –
“Age 18+” or “Criteria not met”.
The charity challenged both the lawfulness of the consultation process and the adequacy of the reasons given to the rejected children. The Divisional Court rejected both grounds of challenge ([2017] EWHC 2727 (Admin)).
The charity argued that the secretary of state had (1) failed properly to discharge her duty to consult; (2) breached her common law duty of procedural fairness by failing to give adequate reasons to the rejected children.
Hickinbottom LJ, giving judgment for the Court, allowed the appeal.
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2 October 2018 by Rosalind English
With the start of the legal term, we’ve posted three great podcasts on Law Pod UK. Episode 42 looks at the influence of international law on individual rights after Brexit. In Episode 43 Clare Ciborowska discusses the new offence of coercive and controlling behaviour in family proceedings. And in Episode 44 we go to the Sainsbury Laboratory in Cambridge to find out what plant scientists think of the recent CJEU ruling on genetically modified organisms.
Law Pod UK is available for free download on iTunes, Audioboom, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts. If you like what you hear, please subscribe, rate and leave a review to support our podcast.
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31 August 2018 by Rosalind English
In the matter of an application by Siobhan McLaughlin for Judicial Review (Northern Ireland) [2018] UKSC 48- read judgment
An unmarried mother has won a landmark Supreme Court case which could allow cohabitees to claim Widowed Parent’s Allowance, a benefit previously only applicable to married parents.
Background
Widowed Parent’s Allowance (“WPA”) is a contributory non-means-tested, social security benefit payable to men and women with dependent children, who were widowed before March 2017. The widowed parent’s entitlement depends upon the contribution record of the deceased partner. Under the relevant law (“s39A”) the widowed parent can only claim the allowance if he or she was married to or the civil partner of the deceased.
The issue before the court was whether this requirement was an unjustifiable discrimination against the survivor and/or the children on the basis of their marital or birth status, contrary to Article 14 of the Convention on Human Rights together with the right to respect for family life under Article 8, or the protection of property rights in Article 1 of the First Protocol ECHR.
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9 August 2018 by Rosalind English
In our ongoing reposts of Professor Catherine Barnard’s series 2903 CB, Catherine discusses her reaction to the publication of the government’s White Paper, the Cabinet resignations of David Davis and Boris Johnson, and the negotiating positions of the EU since the UK triggered Article 50 in March 2017.
Listen to Episode 41 of Law Pod UK Brexit – The White Paper now.
Available for free download from iTunes, Audioboom, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts. If you like what you hear, please subscribe, rate and leave a review to support our podcast.
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31 July 2018 by Rosalind English
JT v First Tier Tribunal [2018] EWCA Civ 1735 – read judgment
Between 1968 and 1975 the appellant JT was repeatedly assaulted and raped by her stepfather in her family home. Many years later, her assailant was prosecuted for those crimes and convicted on all counts in 2012. As a victim of violent sexual crime, JT applied for compensation under the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme. Her application was refused on the basis of the “same roof” rule, which stated that an award would not be made in respect of a criminal injury sustained before 1 October 1979
if, at the time of the incident giving rise to that injury, the applicant and the assailant were living together as members of the same family
This criterion may sound odd to anyone with a professional or even mild interest in crime stories, where the prime suspect is considered to be a member of the family of the victim, whether of rape, abuse, or even murder. But the thinking behind the rules – and there has to be a bright line for eligibility – was that there should be a requirement that the victim and the assailant no longer live together. This would at least suffice to ensure that the rapist or abuser would not benefit from the award accruing to his victim, and, if possible, is brought to justice.
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27 July 2018 by Rosalind English
In our latest podcast, Rosalind English talks to University of Pennsylvania professor of regulation Cary Coglianese and Yale researcher David Lehr about the future of rule making with machine-learning algorithms at our side. Regulation by robot; adjudication by algorithm: a different, but fairer world?
Episode 40 available for free download from iTunes, Audioboom or wherever you get your podcasts.
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18 July 2018 by Rosalind English
Sherratt v Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police [2018] EWHC 1746 (QB) (16 July 2018) – read judgment
This was an appeal on a preliminary issue from the decision of David Berkeley QC, sitting as the Recorder below. The question was whether the defendant chief constable owed a duty of care to the claimant’s partner, who had committed suicide.
The Recorder found that the defendant, either by his officers, employees or agents, failed expeditiously and/or adequately to deal with, and/or respond to, the information conveyed to them concerning the deceased in a 999 call made by the deceased’s mother.
King J upheld the Recorder’s findings and dismissed the appeal.
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15 July 2018 by Rosalind English
On 16thJuly 2018 the Supreme Court will begin to hear legal arguments on the appeal of the children against the judgment of the Court of Appeal in CN and Anor v Poole Borough Council [2017] EWCA Civ 2185
I wrote up the original judgment here. The appeal was expedited and the Court will now consider the extent to which local authorities owe a common law duty to protect children from harm arising within the community where they live.
Background
A quick reminder of the somewhat remarkable facts of the case. In 2006 Mrs N and her two sons CN and GN, then aged nine and seven (one of whom was severely disabled), moved to a housing estate in Poole. The accommodation was arranged by the council as the local housing authority. Over the ensuing years, the family suffered from the effects of extreme anti-social activities of a neighbouring family. This behaviour was frequently reported to the property owners, officers of the council and local police. A measure of the seriousness of the case can be gained by the fact that the Home Office became involved and commissioned an independent case review which reported critically on the reaction of the agencies. The appellants’ distress was so great that one of them attempted suicide. They continued to suffer from their neighbours’ behaviour until they were provided with alternative accommodation in December 2011.
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10 July 2018 by Rosalind English
Subscribers to the UKHRB will have received an earlier version of our announcement of recent podcasts by Emma-Louise Fenelon. There was a mix-up in the episode numbers and links which has now been corrected. Apologies for any confusion this may have led to, and please enjoy the properly attributed and linked recording!
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10 July 2018 by Rosalind English
Emma-Louise Fenelon recently interviewed Richard Booth QC about a successful injunction application to prevent a gross misconduct disciplinary hearing. You can hear the interview on Episode 39 of Law Pod UK.
The Claimant, represented by Jeremy Hyam QC, was a consultant forensic psychiatrist whose employment duties included working on the healthcare wing at Lewes prison. Following the death in custody of an inmate on the healthcare wing who had been under the Claimant’s care, the Trust initiated an investigation into the Claimant’s conduct and capability. The report of the investigation made a number of findings of failure to meet professional standards in particular with respect to the record keeping of ward reviews, but put them in the context of an under-resourced prison service. Based on the report, the Trust’s case manager purported to convene a hearing to consider disciplinary action for gross misconduct against the Claimant.
An injunction was sought to prevent such hearing going ahead on the basis that, taken at its highest, the content of the investigation report did not justify a charge of gross misconduct; that the Trust’s policy definition of gross misconduct was lower that normally set by the common law; and that the Case Manager’s management statement of case went beyond the findings in the investigation report. Granting the injunction on an interim basis, the Court concluded that there were serious issues to be tried on all the issues raised by the Claimant and the balance of convenience was clearly in favour of the grant of the injunction.
The judgment can be found here: Bailii.
Law Pod UK continues to go from strength to strength and has surpassed 55k listens. All episodes are freely available to listen or download from a number of podcast platforms, including iTunes, Audioboom, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts. If you like what you hear, please subscribe, rate and leave a review to support our podcast.
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26 June 2018 by Rosalind English
Two years from the vote to leave the European Union, Catherine Barnard, Professor of EU Law at Cambridge, considers the rocks and hard places of the Brexit negotiations. She speculates on what is meant by what exactly is meant by staying “within the remit of the CJEU”, something that has drawn a lot of fire, but has no legal meaning.
We may all be jaded with Brexit coverage. But do listen to Catherine’s podcast, it is remarkably unpartisan and clear on the facts.
Catherine’s series 2903cb is freely available on soundcloud and our repost is on iTunes and other podcast platforms, Episode 38 of Law Pod UK.
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18 June 2018 by Rosalind English
Pimlico Plumbers Ltd & Anor v Smith [2018] UKSC 29 – read judgment
The Supreme Court has unanimously dismissed Pimlico Plumbers Ltd’s appeal and upheld the Employment Tribunal’s ruling that the Respondent – Mr Smith – a plumbing and heating engineer had been:
(a) a “worker” within the meaning of section 230(3) of the Employment Rights Act 1996;
(b) a “worker” within the meaning of regulation 2(1) of the Working Time Regulations 1998 (SI 1998/1833)
(c) in Pimlico’s “employment” within the meaning of section 83(2)(a) of the Equality Act.
Questions concerning the true employment status of individuals who are presented to the paying customer as being an integral part of the business in question are increasingly common. Despite being presented to the end customer as such, the purported legal reality is that the individual is self-employed for both tax and employment law purposes. This is partly what is described by such arrangements being part of the so-called “gig economy”.
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