By: Rosalind English
27 October 2014 by Rosalind English
CF v The Ministry of Defence and others [2014] EWHC 3171 (QB) – read judgment
Angus McCullough QC of 1 Crown Office Row acted as Special Advocate in this case. He has nothing to do with the writing of this post.
The High Court has ruled that in a case against the state which did not directly affect the liberty of the subject, there was no irreducible minimum of disclosure of the state’s case which the court would require. The consequences of such disclosure for national security prevailed.
Factual and legal background
The claimant, Mohammed Ahmed Mohamed, had made a number of claims against various government departments, alleging complicity in unlawful and arbitrary detention and inhuman and degrading treatment and torture on the part of British authorities in Somaliland. He also sought damages for trespass, breach of the Human Rights Act 1998, and misfeasance in public office. As Irwin J said,
The remedy sought is not confined to ordinary compensation, but extends to damages for breach of the Convention and to declaratory relief, which in the context of this case, and if the Claimant succeeded, would represent an important marking of unlawful behaviour: a matter in which there is a legitimate public interest.
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22 October 2014 by Rosalind English
A NHS Foundation Trust v Ms X (By her litigation friend, the Official Solicitor), 8 October 2014 [2014] EWCOP 35 – read judgment
The issues that arose before the Court of Protection in this case encapsulate the difficulties involved in applying legal tools to the organic swamp of human pathology. Everything that one may envisage, for example, in planning a “living will” (or, more precisely, an Advance Decision under the Mental Capacity Act), may have no application at the critical time because the human body – or rather the way it falls apart – does not fit in to neat legal categories. In such a situation it is often the right to autonomy that is most at risk, since what you plan for your own medical and physiological future may not square with what the authorities you decide you were capable of planning. Cobb J’s sensitive and humane judgement in this sad case is a very encouraging sign that courts are beginning to resist the tyrannous claims of Article 2 and the obligation to preserve life at all costs.
Factual and legal background
Ms X, a young woman who lives alone in a private rented bed-sit, has suffered from anorexia nervosa for the last 14 years. She also suffers an alcohol dependence syndrome which has caused chronic and, by the time of this hearing, “end-stage” and irreversible liver disease, cirrhosis; this followed many years of abuse of alcohol. The combination of anorexia nervosa and alcohol dependence syndrome is unusual, and has always been medically acutely difficult to manage. This is a vicious cycle of self destructiveness and treatment, and as Cobb J observed,
The causes of her distress are multi-factorial but include the treatment for her anorexia itself and the removal of her personal autonomy when treated
So damaging had been the previous admissions for compulsory feeding, her doctors regarded it as “clinically inappropriate, counter-productive and increasingly unethical” to cause her to be readmitted; their experience revealed that on each recent admission, she had been more and more unwell (as a result of her anxiety to reverse the weight gained in hospital during the previous visit, combined with renewed alcohol abuse). In fact Ms X had been on an ‘end of life pathway’ twice in recent months and it was said that her physical condition “is now so fragile that her life is in imminent danger.”
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21 October 2014 by Rosalind English
The news last week was that the Foreign Secretary has proposed a revival of a fourteenth century statute in order to prosecute British jihadists who travel to Iraq or Syria to fight. Cries of foul are coming from the usual quarters, and there’s even a protest that the Strasbourg Court would object, which, given the current controversy surrounding that tribunal, may be a good reason in itself for such a move.
In the current froth over the Convention versus “home grown” human rights, there is much talk of the Magna Carta. So may be of interest to some that in the opinion of one of the greatest legal scholars in history, Edward Coke, the Statute of Treason had a legal importance second only to that of the “Great Charter of the Liberties of England”, piloted by feudal barons to limit King John’s power in 1215.
Politics aside, how would this work? On the face of it, a law which has been on the statute books for centuries, and is found to be applicable to a current state of affairs, is an equum donatum whose dental health should not be examined too closely. Although the last person to be convicted under the 1351 Treason Act – the Nazi propagandist William Joyce (otherwise known as Lord Haw Haw)- was hanged, now any British citizen convicted of the offence could be given a life sentence.
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15 October 2014 by Rosalind English
A Local Authority and M (By his litigation friend via the Official Solicitor) v E and A (Respondents) [2014] EWCOP 33 (11 August 2014) – read judgment
It’s been an interesting week for the extreme fringes of maternal care. The papers report a trial where a mother is being prosecuted for administering toxic levels of medication to her daughter for “conditions that never existed” (as the court heard). Let’s see how that pans out.
And now the Court of Protection has published a ruling by Baker J that a a supporter of the discredited doctor Andrew Wakefield embarked on an odyssey of intrusive remedies and responses to her son’s disorder, fabricating claims of damage from immunisation, earning her membership of what science journalist Brian Deer calls the class of “Wakefield mothers.”
On the face of it, the detailed and lengthy judgment concerns the applicant son’s reaction to the MMR vaccination when it was administered in infancy, and whether it was the cause of his autism and a novel bowel disease, the latter being Wakefield’s brainchild. But at the heart of the case lies the phenomenon that we all used to know as Munchausen’s syndrome by proxy.
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9 October 2014 by Rosalind English
Brick Court Chambers Public Law Event 2014: Is it time for the common law to break free from Europe?
Last night’s discussion at Gray’s Inn Hall featured a panel with Dominic Grieve QC MP (formerly Attorney General), Lord Judge (formerly Lord Chief Justice), Bella Sankey (Policy Director, Liberty), Martin Howe QC (member of the Commission on a British Bill of Rights), David Anderson QC (Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation), all chaired by Shaun Ley of the BBC.
The Conservative Party’s proposal which sparked off the debate was that the UK will withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights after the 2015 election unless the European Council of Ministers accepts our proposal that our own common law and statute fulfils the UK’s international obligations.
Martin Howe, a QC most closely involved with this move, simply didn’t understand why it has caused such a “furore”. Other countries, like Canada and New Zealand, have statutes setting out human rights without having to belong to a regional system. What is so inadequate about the UK’s protection of rights that it should be shackled to Strasbourg, particularly with that court’s history of spending the past sixty years
inventing entirely new doctrines, not based on the wording of the Convention – in many respects contrary to its express wording
This is an intolerable situation, Howe believes, and it has to be resolved.
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8 October 2014 by Rosalind English
Whitston (Asbestos Victims Support Victims Support Groups Forum UK) v Secretary of State for Justice and the Association of British Insurers (Interested Party) [2014] EWHC 3044 – read judgment
Jeremy Hyam and Kate Beattie of 1 Crown Office Row acted for the Claimant in this case. They had nothing to do with the writing of this post.
In April 2013 the rules permitting recovery of success fees under Conditional Fee Agreements (CFAs) and After The Event (ATE) insurance premiums changed in response to the Jackson proposals – with one exception, namely in respect of mesothelioma claims.
This case concerns the Lord Chancellor’s intention to bring costs rules in mesothelioma claims in line with other claims.
As many of you will know, mesothelioma is an industrial disease caused by the inhalation of asbestos. It is a rare form of cancer which generally does not become apparent until many years after exposure to asbestos, a feature which at least in the past has led to real problems when mounting a claim against those responsible for the exposure. Once the cancer does become symptomatic its progression is rapid. Most sufferers survive for less than 12 months from the onset of symptoms. Yet the effects of the disease over the period from the onset of symptoms to death are hugely painful and debilitating. This combination of factors means that litigation in relation to mesothelioma is unusual in comparison with many other types of litigation involving personal injury or industrial disease. In almost every case in which a claim is made for damages for mesothelioma the effective defendant is an insurance company.
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7 October 2014 by Rosalind English
D’Arcy v Myriad Genetics Inc [2014] FCAFC 115 (5 September 2014) – read judgment The recent ruling from the Full Federal Court of Australia allowing the breast cancer gene isolated in the laboratory to be patented contrasts sharply with the ruling by the US Supreme Court last year that a naturally occurring DNA segment is a “product of nature” and therefore not patent eligible merely because it has been isolated. The implications of this ruling for gene testing and patenting of biological products have been eloquently discussed elsewhere and I will not attempt to cover the same ground – see for example the excellent discussion posted by the Enhanced Genetic Services Project. All I want to point up in this post – apart from the obvious need for intellectual property law to encompass the development of science and technology – is the Australian court’s focus on how easily misled one may be by semantics in this sort of dispute. This ruling upholds an earlier decision that gene patenting is permissible under Australian law, declaring that “the boundaries of the conception of patentability are not dictated only by deductive logic from the linguistic premises formulated in the scientific knowledge of a particular age”. The concept of patentability has been broadening since the first quarter of the 17th century, and there is no reason why it should reach an artificial wall erected by unfathomable and unexplained “laws of nature” (a premise much relied upon by the US Supreme Court). I posted last year on the decision of the US Supreme Court in Association for Molecular Pathology v Myriad Genetics Inc. It will be remembered that that Court held that a sequence of DNA mimicking the BRCA breast cancer mutation could not be patented because DNA’s information sequences and all the other processes that allow the information to manufacture bodily tissues occur naturally within human cells.
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2 October 2014 by Rosalind English
Karia, R (on the application of) v Leicester City Council (Sir Stephen Silber, acting as High Court Judge) [2014] EWHC 3105 (Admin) (30 September 2014)- read judgment
In a robust judgment Sir Stephen Silber has asserted that neither the ordinary laws of judicial review, nor the Equality Act nor the Human Rights Act require the courts to micro-manage the decisions of public authorities. Indeed the latter two statutory powers are not designed as a back door into a merits review of a decision that is restricted to the court’s review of the legality of a public sector decision.
Background facts and law
The claimant, a 101 year old woman of Gujarati descent, challenged the decision to close the care home which she has occupied since 1999. Her grounds of challenge were threefold:
1. that the Council had failed to take account of material issues of fact relating to the present and future levels of demand for residential care one provision
2. that it had reached its decision without due regard to the need under the Equality Act 2010 to avoid unlawful discrimination in the provision of services
3. and it had failed to take into account the impact of the closure on the claimant’s Article 8 rights
She also complained that she had a legitimate expectation of a home for life at Herrick Lodge and that the Council had not considered whether her needs could be met in alternative placements.
Although the judge was at pains to stress that as this was a judicial review application, it was not for him to assess the merits of the Council’s decision, merely its legality. Having done so, he concluded that the Council had not acted irrationally, nor had it paid due regard to the need to advance equality of opportunity.
It is not for the Court to determine whether proper weight has been given to a factor where as here there has been proper appreciation of the potential impact of the decision on equality issues.
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1 October 2014 by Rosalind English
Keynote speech by Lord Neuberger at 5 RB Conference on the Internet, 30 September 2014
The President of the Supreme Court has delivered a very interesting address on the protections that should be afforded to what might be termed the “new Fourth Estate” – journalism on the internet. The following summary does not do justice to his speech but is meant to act as a taster – download the full text of his talk here.
Lord Neuberger explores the interrelationship of privacy and freedom of expression, particularly in the light of developments in IT, and especially the internet. He recalls a colourful eighteenth century figure who contributed a series of letters to a widely disseminated journal under the pseudonym of “Junius”. He managed to make such effective attacks on public figures he brought about the resignation of the Prime Minister, the Duke of Grafton, in 1770. Because of his anonymity this character was able to make criticisms of the powerful for which others of his time faced prosecution.
Junius offered a voice of firm if sometimes scurrilous criticism, prompting both political and legal change. He is rightly remembered as one of the greatest political writers in an age dominated by great figures, yet his identity [still] remains a mystery.
And it is this lack of traceability that links Junius with today’s bloggers. Print journalists are – with the exception of writers for The Economist – known figures. But forty percent of the world’s population use the internet, and despite initial expectations that bloggers and tweeters could hide behind pseudonyms, it has turned out to be extremely difficult for internet writers to maintain their anonymity. The public and the courts increasingly recognise the press’ interest in publishing the names of individuals in appropriate circumstances.
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30 September 2014 by Rosalind English
Merlin Entertainments LPC, Chessington World of Adventures Operations and others v Peter Cave [2014] EWHC 3036 (QB) 25 September 2014 – read judgment
This case explores the extent to which a campaign of criticism, conducted by internet and email, can merit restraint by the civil courts. As the judge says, whatever the aims of the campaign in question, its supporters may, in the course of their activities, annoy, irritate, and upset companies and individuals. But should the courts interfere, before the question whether the campaign is justified has been decided? And to what extent is such a campaign a criminal offence?
This particular dispute concerned a series of communications by the defendant to the general public about the inadequacy of safety measures and other shortcomings of the claimants’ amusement parks. The claimants contended that Dr Cave’s communications with the public and with their employees were defamatory, and in breach of confidence, and that they were thereby entitled to stop him, before any trial, by relying on the statutory tort of harassment. They therefore applied for an interim injunction restraining the defendant from setting up websites and sending mass emails regarding the issue of safety in theme parks. The question before the judge was whether they should wait until they had established defamation and/or breach of confidence, before the court granted a remedy.
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16 September 2014 by Rosalind English
Hassan v. the United Kingdom (application no. 29750/09) ECHR 936 (16 September 2014) – read judgment
This case concerned the capture of an Iraqi national, Tarek Hassan, by the British armed forces and his detention at Camp Bucca in southeastern Iraq during the hostilities in 2003. The complaint was brought by his brother, who claimed that Tarek had been under the control of British forces, and that his dead body was subsequently found bearing marks of torture and execution. In essence, the case raised issues concerning the acts of British armed forces in Iraq, extra-territorial jurisdiction and the application of the European Convention of Human Rights in the context of an international armed conflict. This was the first case in which a contracting State had requested the Court to disapply its obligations under Article 5 or in some other way to interpret them in the light of powers of detention available to it under international humanitarian law, which allows the internment of prisoners of war at times of international conflict.
The Grand Chamber held that although Tarek Hassan had been within the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom between the time of his arrest by British troops until the moment of his release; there had been no violation of Article 5(1), (2), (3) or (4) (right to liberty and security) of the European Convention on Human Rights as concerned his actual capture and detention. The European Convention had to be interpreted in parallel with international instruments which applied in time of war. Four out of the seventeen judges dissented on this point.
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12 September 2014 by Rosalind English
In his prolific career, writer Ian McEwan has brought us into the minds of physicists, neurosurgeons, conductors, cultural and cold war spies and even stalkers. His most recent triumph is to have stepped deftly into the life of a High Court judge in the Family Division.
The Children Act is a short novel of great subtlety and tenderness. In his acknowledgements he says he has drawn on a “superbly written judgment” by Sir James Munby evaluating a child’s best interests in a dispute over ultra-orthodox education of the child of estranged Jewish parents (see Karwan Eskerie’s post on this case). One can see how McEwan was inspired by the judge’s nuanced approach, in which he sought to balance the significance of social and familial links as against an individual’s wellbeing; after all, a novelist’s job is to explore the nature of unhappiness. How irresistible then is an institutional figure whose very job it is to determine happiness and its opposite?
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11 September 2014 by Rosalind English
R (on the application of Tigere) v Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills [2014] EWCA Civ 1216 (31 July 2014) – read judgment
The United Kingdom was not in breach of the human rights of those individuals ineligible for student loans because they did not have indefinite leave to remain in the country. The relevant legislation limits eligibility for student loans to those who are “settled” in the United Kingdom (within the meaning of the Immigration Act 1971 ) and who have been ordinarily resident in the UK for three years. According to the Court of Appeal, requiring the Secretary of State to link criteria for educational eligibility to changes in immigration rules would “enmesh” him into immigration policy:
His picking and choosing candidates for settlement as eligible for student loans, while not … unconstitutional, would be a fragile and arbitrary basis for policy in an area where clarity and certainty are required.
This appeal turned on issues in relation to the right to education under Article 2 of the first protocol (A2P1) and the prohibition of discriminatory treatment under Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
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31 August 2014 by Rosalind English
Q v Q ; Re B (a child) ; Re C (a child) [2014] EWFC 31 – 6 August 2014 – read judgment
Public funding is not generally available for litigants in private-law children cases, and no expert can now be instructed in such a case unless the court is satisfied, in accordance with section 13(6) of the Children and Families Act 2014, that the expert is “necessary” to assist the court to resolve the proceedings “justly”. As the President of the Family Division observed, restrictions on legal aid in certain circumstances has led to a “drastic” reduction in the number of legally represented litigants:
The number of cases where both parties are represented has fallen very significantly, the number of cases where one party is represented has also fallen significantly and, correspondingly, the number of cases where neither party is represented has risen very significantly.
All this has led to increased calls on the Bar Pro Bono Unit, which is generally not able to meet the demand.
Sir James Munby P has therefore suggested that the cost of certain activities, such as bringing an expert to court and providing advice to parents accused of sexual offending within the family, should be borne by the Courts and Tribunals Service.
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27 August 2014 by Rosalind English
Hounga v Allen [2014] UKSC 47 – read judgment
The Supreme Court has ruled that victims may in some circumstance recover damages from their traffickers. Overturning the judgment of the Court of Appeal that the illegality of the underlying contract ruled out the claim for compensation, the majority held that to permit the trafficker to escape liability would be “an affront” to public policy. The judgment has far reaching implications in this area because, by its very nature, human trafficking often involves illegality. Both the majority and the dissenters provide an interesting analysis and refinement of the law on illegality; as Lord Hughes observes:
It is in the nature of illegality that, when it succeeds as a bar to a claim, the defendant is the unworthy beneficiary of an undeserved windfall. But this is not because the defendant has the merits on his side; it is because the law cannot support the claimant’s claim to relief.
Conversely, when the illegality is not sufficiently closely connected to the claim, and can properly be regarded as collateral, or as doing no more than providing the context for the relationship which gives rise to the claim, the bar of illegality will not fall, as was decided in this case.
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CF v The Ministry of Defence and others [2014] EWHC 3171 (QB) – read judgment
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