By: Rosalind English
8 August 2012 by Rosalind English
In his recent book Harvard philosopher Michael Rosen poses the question: what is dignity, exactly, and do we know it when we see it? We are all familiar with the mantra that all humans are endowed with equal dignity, but do we really understand what it means? Since it is a formulation that is increasingly advanced in justifying universal human rights, we should try to get to grips with it, rather than reversing into circularities such as defining it as an intrinsic quality from birth. What makes it intrinsic? And at what point is it acquired? And why do we owe the dead a duty of dignity when they have no rationality and make no choices, autonomous or otherwise?
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4 August 2012 by Rosalind English
A fascinating article by SOAS EU law specialist Dr Gunner Beck lays bare some of the important problems created by British hostility to Germany, which, by contrast to the profound social and economic changes that have taken place in both countries in the seven decades since WWII, appears “timeless and unchanging.”
In a wide ranging analysis of the abiding obsession with Nazi Germany in the British media and elsewhere, as well as the “strange sado-masochism” of Germany itself, Gunner Beck demonstrates how effectively this prejudice creates and fosters confusion about the current crisis in the Eurozone and the reaction of some of its members to German demands for closer scrutiny. He asks us to question why German history
is still largely reduced to the twelve years from 1933 to 1945, and why it still seems impossible in Britain to criticise any aspect of German economic or foreign policy, especially on EU matters, without some kind of Nazi connotation or similar historical insinuation lurking somewhere in the background… Why has nearly a lifetime of peaceful and liberal-democratic development in Germany done so little to put the Third Reich into some kind of historical perspective?
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25 July 2012 by Rosalind English
RT (Zimbabwe) and others (Respondents) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2012] UKSC 38 – read judgment
It is no answer to a refugee claim to say that the individual concerned should avoid persecution by lying and feigning loyalty to a regime which he does not support.
So the Supreme Court has ruled today, considering the relevance to political beliefs of the so-called “HJ(Iran) principle” which was formulated in a case where it was held that it was no answer to an asylum claim by a gay man that he should conceal his sexual identity in order to avoid the persecution that would follow if he did not do so.
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22 July 2012 by Rosalind English
Updated | Mouvement Raëlien Suisse v Switzerland [2012] ECHR 1598 (13 July 2012) – read judgment
This case concerned the Swiss authorities’ refusal to allow an association to put up posters featuring extraterrestrials and a flying saucer on the ground that it engaged in activities that were considered immoral.
The association complained it had suffered a violation of its right to freedom of expression. The Grand Chamber did not agree, ruling that the refusal had met a “pressing social need” and that the authorities had not overstepped the broad margin of appreciation given to them in view of the non-political dimension of the poster campaign.
At first blush there is nothing remarkable about this ruling. But it was a narrow majority (nine votes to eight) and a brief reading of the dissenting opinions gives pause for thought: does the slightly loony nature of a message justify its suppression? Lurking behind the authorities’ refusal to allow the association’s advertising campaign is a sense of disapproval vis a vis their anti-Christian message; one of the campaigns the association wished to conduct featured a poster stating “God does not exist”, and on another, below the association’s website, ran the message “Science at last replaces religion”.
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21 July 2012 by Rosalind English
.. has been discovered and we’ve removed the post. As I observed, there was no link to the Mississippi law online, so this was a prank to stir up momentary fervour in the blogosphere.
In fact, religious sensitivities have a much more insidious role to play in lawmaking, as I discuss in my post on a recent Strasbourg Grand Chamber case on free speech.
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16 July 2012 by Rosalind English
JEG v The Trustees of the Portsmouth Roman Catholic Diocesan [2012] EWCA Civ 938
Elizabeth Anne-Gumbel QCand Justin Levinson of One Crown Office Row acted for the claimant in this case. They did not write this post.
The Court of Appeal has now confirmed that the church can be held liable for the negligent acts of a priest it has appointed. Permission to appeal to the Supreme Court has been refused.
This appeal was another preliminary stage in the main action between the claimant’s action for damages following the alleged sexual abuse and assault by a parish priest (now deceased), and the trustees of the diocesan where he served. The Court of Appeal has now confirmed that the defendants can held to account, even though there was no formal employment relationship between Father Baldwin and the Diocesan – see Rachit Buch’s post for an excellent analysis of the issues and summary of the facts.
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11 July 2012 by Rosalind English
Medhanye, R(on the application of ) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2012] EWHC 1799 (Admin) (02 July 2012) – read judgment
EU law is based on a central principle of mutual confidence. It therefore flies in the face of this trust to impose a legal duty on one member state to monitor whether another Member State was complying with its obligations under that law, including its obligation to respect fundamental human rights.
Background facts
The claimant, an Eritrean national, sought asylum in the UK, having previously claimed asylum in Italy. The secretary of state decided to remove him to Italy under Regulation 343/2003 (Dublin II). The claimant challenged the Secretary of State’s decision to certify as “clearly unfounded” his claim that removing him to Italy would breach his rights under the European Convention on Human Rights (“ECHR”). His application for judicial review was refused.
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10 July 2012 by Rosalind English
Transpetrol v Slovakia, Application no. 28502/08 – read judgment
The facts of this case can be stated very briefly, since the main (and most interesting) question before the Curt was whether the applicant company constituted a “victim” of a human rights violation under the Convention.
The applicant s a joint-stock company trading in oil. In the past, including at the time of the contested judgment of the Constitutional Court, the state owned 51% of the shares in the applicant company. The remaining shares were owned by private parties. At present all of the shares in the company are owned by the state.
The application before the Court concerned the fairness of proceedings before the Constitutional Court regarding the ownership of shares in the company. The applicant company complained that the proceedings were contrary to its rights under Article 6(1) (fair trial) of the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (peaceful enjoyment of possessions). The complaint was dismissed under Article 34 as being inadmissible (incompatible ratione personae, i.e. the status of the applicant). For the purposes of clarity, here is the relevant text of Article 34:
The Court may receive applications from any person, non-governmental organisation or group of individuals claiming to be the victim of a violation by one of the High Contracting Parties of the rights set forth in the Convention or the Protocols thereto.
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6 July 2012 by Rosalind English
R(on the application of S and KF) v Secretary of State for Justice [2012] EWHC 1810 (Admin)- read judgment
This case about prisoner’s pay provides an interesting up to date analysis of the role of the doctrine of “margin of appreciation” and its applicability in domestic courts.
Margin of appreciation is a doctrine of an international court: it recognises a certain distance of judgment between the Strasbourg court’s overall apprehension of the Convention principles and their application in practice by the national authorities. In theory it has no application in domestic disputes but ever since the Human Rights Act introduced Convention rights into domestic law there has been an ongoing debate about its applicability at a local level. This case demonstrates the importance of its role in the assessment, by the courts, of the compatibility of laws and rules with Convention rights.
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5 July 2012 by Rosalind English
SK (Zimbabwe) v Secretary of State for the Home Office 19 June 2012 – read judgment
This case raises the interesting question whether someone who was involved as a member of the ruling Zimbabwe Zanu PF party with farm invasions can be eligible for refugee status. The answer is a definite no: the High Court held that the Upper Tribunal had been entirely correct in finding that a Zimbabwean national, who had beaten farm workers in farm invasions intended to drive farmers and farm workers away from their farms, had committed inhumane acts amounting to crimes against humanity under the Rome Statute art.7(1)(k) and therefore by virtue of the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees 1951 (United Nations) art.1F(a) was excluded from refugee status.
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4 July 2012 by Rosalind English
Herrmann v Germany (Application no. 9300/07) 26 June 2012 – read judgment
The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights has ruled that the obligation of a landowner to allow hunting on his property violated his Convention rights. Although the majority based their conclusion on his right to peaceful enjoyment of possessions, the partially concurring and dissenting opinions and the judgment as a whole provide an interesting insight into the way freedom of conscience challenges are to be approached in a secular society where religion holds less sway than individual ethical positions on certain issues.
Background
In 2002 the Federal Constitutional Court in Germany ruled that the granting of exceptional authorisation for the slaughter of animals without previous stunning, on religious grounds, did not breach the German Basic Law Schächt-Entscheidung (BVerfGE 99, 1, 15 January 2002). The social uproar that followed the ruling led to the German constitutional legislature taking a significant step aimed at protecting animal welfare with the 2002 constitutional reform, by including Article 20a in the Basic Law:
“Mindful also of its responsibility toward future generations, the State shall protect the natural foundations of life and animals through legislation…”
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28 June 2012 by Rosalind English
Omar & Ors, R (on the application of) v Secretary of State for Foreign & Commonwealth Affairs [2012] EWHC 1737 (Admin) (26 June 2012) – read judgment
The Divisional Court has ruled that common law principles cannot be used to obtain evidence from the Foreign Secretary for use in a foreign court.
Angus McCullough QC of 1 Crown Office Row appeared as a special advocate in the closed proceedings in this case. He is not the author of this post.
“Norwich Pharmacal” orders are sometimes granted to obtain information from third parties to help the court establish whether unlawful conduct has taken place. A court can in such a case compel the third party to assist the person suffering damage by giving them that information. In the cases of Binyan Mohamad and Shakar Aamer the courts extended the application of these orders to foreign cases. Now it appears that both may have been wrongly decided.
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21 June 2012 by Rosalind English
HH (Appellant) v Deputy Prosecutor of the Italian Republic, Genoa (Respondent); PH (Appellant) v Deputy Prosecutor of the Italian Republic, Genoa (Respondent) [2012] UKSC 25 – read judgment
These appeals concern requests for extradition in the form of European Arrest Warrants (EAWs) issued, in the joined cases of HH and PH, by the Italian courts, and in the case of FK, a Polish court. The issue in all three was whether extradition would be incompatible with the rights of the appellants’ children to respect for private and family life under Article 8 of the ECHR.
Put very briefly, HH and PH had been arrested in Italy on suspicion of drug trafficking. They left Italy in breach of their bail conditions and went to the United Kingdom. They were convicted in their absence. European arrest warrants were later issued. They challenged their extradition on the basis of the effect that it would have on their three children, the youngest of whom was 3 years old.
FK was accused of offences of dishonesty alleged to have occurred in 2000 and 2001. She had left Poland for the UK in 2002 and European arrest warrants had been issued in 2006 and 2007. F had five children, the youngest of whom were aged eight and three. She has not been tried or convicted of the alleged offences yet.
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21 June 2012 by Rosalind English
Lee Carter, Hollis Johnson, Dr. William Shoichet, The British Columbia Civil Liberties Association and Gloria Taylor v Attorney General of Canada (2012 BCSC 886) 15 June 2012 – read judgment
Interest in the “locked-in syndrome” cases currently before the High Court runs high. We posted here on the permission granted to locked-in sufferer Tony Nicklinson to seek an advance order from the court that would allow doctors to assist him to die under the common law defence of necessity.
He is also arguing that the current law criminalising assisted suicide is incompatible with his Article 8 rights of autonomy and dignity. The other case before the three judge court involves another stroke victim who is unable to move, is able to communicate only by moving his eyes, requires constant care and is entirely dependent on others for every aspect of his life. (Philip Havers QC of 1 Crown Office Row is acting for him)
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12 June 2012 by Rosalind English
Preliminary reference in the case of Łukasz Marcin Bonda – Case C-489/10 – read judgment
Fraud is wrong, right? In most countries with more or less sophisticated criminal codes, it is an offence to obtain money by false representations, just as it is to thump an old lady over her head and grab her handbag.
In law, these two somewhat disparate actions add up to the same thing: theft, punishable by fines or imprisonment. It is not sufficient, in the latter case to return the poor old party’s handbag, even with the wallet intact. There has to be something more to discourage privateering of this sort. Punitive measures usually follow restitution in such cases. So why is Luxembourg telling us that theft in the form of subsidy fraud is an administrative matter, not a criminal one? And if it isn’t criminal, why don’t we all do it (those of us with sufficient agricultural land to qualify, that is)
This was a reference from the national court to the Court of European Union (CJEU) for a preliminary reference in relation to criminal proceedings against Mr Bonda for fraud in his declaration of the agricultural area eligible for the single area payment.
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In his recent book Harvard philosopher Michael Rosen poses the question: what is dignity, exactly, and do we know it when we see it? We are all familiar with the mantra that all humans are endowed with equal dignity, but do we really understand what it means? Since it is a formulation that is increasingly advanced in justifying universal human rights, we should try to get to grips with it, rather than reversing into circularities such as defining it as an intrinsic quality from birth. What makes it intrinsic? And at what point is it acquired? And why do we owe the dead a duty of dignity when they have no rationality and make no choices, autonomous or otherwise? 
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