By: Rosalind English
31 May 2012 by Rosalind English
Catt v Commissioner of the Police of the Metropolis [2012] EWHC 1471 (Admin) – read judgment
Retention of data on a national database of material relating to a protester’s attendance at demonstrations by a group that had a history of violence, criminality and disorder, did not engage Article 8 of the Human Rights Convention.
The claimant, now aged 87, applied for judicial review of the decision of the defendants to retain data, seeking an order that, as he had not himself been engaged in criminality, any reference to him should be deleted from the allegedly unlawfully retained material.
Background
The data in issue was essentially comprised of records (or reports) made by police officers overtly policing demonstrations of a group known as “Smash EDO”, which carried out a long-running campaign calling for the closure of a US owned arms company carrying on a lawful business in the United Kingdom. Disorder and criminality had been a feature of a number of the protests along with harassment of the company’s staff. The defendant authority had retained data relating to the claimant’s attendance at various political protests on the National Domestic Extremism Database, and maintained by the National Public Order Intelligence Unit.
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31 May 2012 by Rosalind English
Mohammed Othman v Secretary of State for the Home Department, 28 May 2012 – read judgment
This was a further application for bail to the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) after the appellant had failed in his application to the Grand Chamber of the Strasbourg Court earlier this month, but had launched an appeal to be heard by SIAC, against the Home Secretary’s refusal to revoke his deportation order.
Angus McCullough QC appeared for Abu Qatada as his Special Advocate in these proceedings before SIAC. He is not the author of this post.
A full hearing will take place in October. Until then, bail has been refused and Abu Qatada will remain in detention.
Given the evidence before him, Mitting J had to base his judgment on the assumption that the Secretary of State would not have maintained the deportation order unless convinced that she was in possession of material which could support her resistance to the appellant’s appeal and which could satisfy “the cogently expressed reservations of the Strasbourg Court about the fairness of the retrial”which the appellant would face in Jordan.
Two consequences flowed from these developments, according to the judge. One is that SIAC’s final decision in October is likely to put an end to this litigation. The second is that the risk of Qatada absconding has increased, if he assumes, in the light of the expressed determination of the Secretary of State, that he would not avoid deportation to Jordan by litigation in and from the United Kingdom.
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30 May 2012 by Rosalind English
R(on the application of Yunus Bakhsh) v Northumberland Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust [2012] EWHC 1445 (Admin) – read judgment
This fascinating short judgment explores the extent to which a judicial review claim, or a free-standing claim under the Human Rights Act, may be precluded by a statute covering the same issue.
If Parliament has decided on a particular avenue of appeal in a certain context, and settled upon a sum in compensation, do the courts have any room for manoeuvre outside those statutory limits? There is very strong authority to the effect that the courts have no discretion to grant any relief going beyond the remedy which Parliament has seen fit to provide (see Johnson v Unisys Ltd [2003] 1 AC 518). But on arguability grounds at least, this short permission decision by Foskett J suggests that public law must attend to the policy behind the statute. If the redress provided by the legislation does not fully serve the aims of that policy, it may be that public law has to come to the rescue.
Background
In essence the claimant, a former mental nurse who had been sacked because of his trade union activities and not granted reinstatement, was seeking to challenge the decision by his employer, a public NHS trust, not re-engage him after it had been ordered to do so by an Employment Tribunal in 2010. The reason they failed to do so was not put forward but was probably because of his anticipated continued trade union militancy.
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29 May 2012 by Rosalind English
Monsters are born, not made: the latest round in the debate about criminal responsibility questions the very existence of intuitive morality.
US neuroscientist Sam Harris claims in a new book that free will is such a misleading illusion that we need to rethink our criminal justice system on the basis of discoveries coming from the neurological wards and MRI scans of the human brain in action.
The physiologist Benjamin Libet famously demonstrated in the 1980s that activity in the brain’s motor regions can be detected some 300 milliseconds before a person feels that he has decided to move. Subjects were hooked up to an EEG machine and were asked to move their left or right hand at a time of their choosing. They watched a specially designed clock to notice what time it was when they were finally committed to moving left or right hand. Libet measured the electrical potentials of their brains and discovered that nearly half a second before they were aware of what they were going to do, he was aware of their intentions. Libet’s findings have been borne out more recently in direct recordings of the cortex from neurological patients. With contemporary brain scanning technology, other scientists in 2008 were able to predict with 60% accuracy whether subjects would press a button with their left or right hand up to 10 seconds before the subject became aware of having made that choice (long before the preparatory motor activity detected by Libet).
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24 May 2012 by Rosalind English
BSkyB and another, R(on the application of) v Chelmsford Crown Court [2012] EWHC 1295 (Admin) – read judgment
The police failed to satisfy the court that their need for footage taken by TV organisations was likely to be of substantial value to criminal investigations and therefore would be a justified interference with the rights of a free press under Article 10 of the Human Rights Convention.
Sky, BBC, ITN etc. succeeded in quashing an order to produce of 100+ hours of video footage to Essex Police of the Dale Farm protesters on the grounds that there were no “reasonable grounds” for believing that the footage of over 100 hours included material likely to be of substantial value to the investigation.
Background facts
After the Dale Farm evictions and the disorder that ensued, the police sought an order for the recordings taken by the claimant organisations to help identify those who had committed indictable offences when attempting to prevent the eviction. They submitted that it was necessary, not least for the prevention of similar disorder on future occasions, to identify as many as possible of those who committed indictable offences in attempting to frustrate the lawful enforcement procedures. Production orders were duly made by Chelmsford Crown Court, defendant in this action.
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23 May 2012 by Rosalind English
Lukaszewski and others, R (on the application of Halligen) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2012] UKSC 20 – read judgement
The Supreme Court has ruled that there should be a discretion in exceptional circumstances for judges to extend time for service of appeals against extradition, where the statutory time limits would otherwise operate to prevent an appeal in a manner conflicting with the right of access to an appeal process under Article 6(1) of the Human Rights Convention
The following report is based on the Supreme Court’s press summary. A full analysis of the case will follow shortly.
Background facts
Lukaszewski (“L”), Pomiechowski (“P”) and Rozanski (“R”) are Polish citizens who are each the subject of a European Arrest Warrant (“EAW”) issued by the Polish court. Each is wanted in order to serve an existing sentence. L is wanted, in addition, to stand trial on ten charges of fraud. The fourth appellant, Halligen (“H”), is a British citizen whose extradition is sought to the USA under Part 2 of the Extradition Act 2003 (the “Act”) to face allegations of wire fraud and money laundering. All four appellants were arrested and brought before Westminster Magistrates’ Court.
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21 May 2012 by Rosalind English
MM and AO (a child), R(on the application of) v Secretary of state for the Home Department [2012] EWCA Civ 668 (18 May 2012) – read judgment
The Court of Appeal has confirmed that the Secretary of State acted lawfully in not ordering independent inquiry into a 2009 protest at an Immigration Detention Centre.
This interesting case explores the scope of the investigative duty under Article 3 of the Convention and its limited nature when compared to the analogous duty under Article 2, where the victim is no longer around to take action for him or herself. On the facts of this case, where there was no allegation of systemic failings, there was no obligation under Article 3 to arrange such an inquiry and the claim for psychiatric damage by the children who became separated from their parents during the protest was dismissed.
Background
The claimants, an adult and child respectively, had been detained amongst others at a removal centre. In 2009 there as a protest by some of the detainees after which the United Kingdom Borders Agency (UKBA) which ran the centre intervened, attempting amongst other things to remove the children from the fray by gathering them in a classroom. Afterwards, there was a dispute as to the degree of force used during the intervention and the distress caused to the children. An investigation by UKBA’s own Professional Standards Unit concluded that the intervention had been necessary. However, it was claimants’ case that an independent investigation was required to comply with the procedural obligations under the prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment under Article 3. When dealing with a mass protest involved careful planning and execution, the claimants submitted that it was particularly important that lessons be learned by the state from events as serious as these.
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20 May 2012 by Rosalind English
The recent standoff between two leading judicial lights, Jonathan Sumption and Stephen Sedley, may make for entertaining reading, but don’t be fooled.
Like the heated question of whether a non-entrenchment clause could be dug into our law to protect UK parliamentary sovereignty, this one wasn’t about law, or even constitutional theory; it was essentially about differing ideological positions vis a vis judicial power.
Joshua Rozenberg welcomes Sumption’s latest speech as indicative of his supportive stance on judicial activism, particularly in the foreign policy sphere. I don’t agree. In his FA Mann Lecture last November Sumption pinned his colours to the mast on judicial activism in general, and this latest fascinating survey of foreign policy case law illustrating the retreat of judicial deference must be read in that light.
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17 May 2012 by Rosalind English
Humphreys (FC) (Appellant) v The Commissioners for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (Respondent) [2012] UKSC 18 On appeal from the Court of Appeal [2010] EWCA Civ 56 – read judgment
A person’s entitlement to Child Tax Credit (CTC) is a “possession” for the purposes of article 1 of the First Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights.
It has been accepted for some time that the rule discriminates indirectly against fathers, because experience shows that they are far more likely than mothers to be looking after the child for the smaller number of days in the week. The question before the Supreme Court in this case was whether this discrimination is justified or whether the refusal of CTC to a father who looks after his children for three days a week is incompatible with his Convention rights. The Court ruled that in the light of the policy behind CTC, the reduction of child poverty, the discrimination was justified.
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16 May 2012 by Rosalind English
Mcgrath v Dawkins, Amazon and others [2012] EWHC B3 (QB) -read judgment
In an interesting ruling on a strike-out action against a libel claim, a High Court judge has delineated the scope for defamation in blog posts and discussion threads where the audience is small and the libel limited.
Background
The claimant, C, is the author of a book entitled “The Attempted Murder of God: Hidden Science You Really Need To Know”. Published at the same time on the same general topic, but taking the opposite side, was “The Grand Design: New Answers to the Ultimate Questions of Life” by the very well-known scientist Professor Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow. Both books were available for purchase through the Amazon UK website run by the third defendant.
Amazon includes an online public-access facility, through which any member of the public may publish their own review of a book for sale on the site, and others may post comments on that review, or on previous comments, so creating a “thread” which may be read by any internet user worldwide. Since Prof. Hawking’s book was likely to attract far more interest among readers than C’s, he decided to raise the profile of his own work. In September 2010 he posted a purported review of the Hawking book, signed by “Scrooby”, which began by giving the details of his own book, and then went on to claim that this book “answered all doubts raised in [Hawking’s] book” and was an “antidote to this misguided book”. As the judgment continues
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14 May 2012 by Rosalind English
South African Litigation Centre and Zimbabwe Exiles Forum v. National Director of Public Prosecutions and other governmental units – read judgment
South Africa’s North Gauteng High Court has just ruled that South African prosecutors and police illegally refused to proceed with an investigation of systematic torture in Zimbabwe.
South Africa, like many countries, has adopted the international crime prosecution Treaty (“the Rome Statute”). This means that under ordinary domestic law (the ICC Act) the South African investigative authorities have the power to prosecute anyone who has committed torture, or a crime against humanity anywhere in the world, if the perpetrator is in the country (at any time when investigation is contemplated). Jurisdiction is also vested irrespective of the perpetrator’s whereabouts if the victim is a South African citizen.
Of course this burden of responsibility teems with diplomatic difficulties, but generally it has been discharged with the convenient prosecutions of has-beens like Charles Taylor and Slobodan Milošević.
As Naomi Roht-Arriaza points out in her fascinating post on the subject, this particular case of South Africa v Zimbabwe illustrates the strain put on governments by the principle of complementarity under the 1998 Rome Statute, which puts pressure on implicated states to investigate these major crimes on their threshold, too close to home. It should come as no surprise that South African prosecutors are reluctant to investigate allegations of torture committed in Zimbabwe –
One of the critiques of transnational prosecutions based on universal jurisdiction is that they are a new brand of neo-colonialism, with former colonial powers seeking to bring into court disgraced leaders of their former colonies.
Now the tables are turning, and this universal jurisdiction is not being universally welcomed.
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9 May 2012 by Rosalind English
The late US law Professor Paul Miller reflected recently that Beethoven, Stephen Hawking and Elton John were examples of individuals whom, if they had been tested for serious genetic conditions at the start of their careers, may have been denied employment in the fields in which they later came to excel.
Earlier this month the Association of British Insurers announced the latest extension on the moratorium on the use of genetic test results for insurance purposes. But is this “Concordat” sufficient protection? Genetic technologies are becoming increasingly available and profound questions are arising in relation to life and health insurance and employability as genetic screening becomes cheaper and widespread.
According to the Human Genetics Commission (HGC)
The advent of cheap whole-genome sequencing, and greatly reduced costs for genetic tests in general, will provide the platform for genetic testing to be used for novel and unpredicted purposes. (Report on The Concept of Genetic Discrimination, Aril 2011)
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3 May 2012 by Rosalind English
M.S. v United Kingdom, 3 May 2012 – read judgment
In a ruling revealing stark differences between the UK courts and the Strasbourg court’s approach to the threshold for Article 3 treatment, Strasbourg has ruled that the detention of a mentally ill man in police custody for more than three days breached his rights under that provision
The Court held in particular that the applicant’s prolonged detention without appropriate psychiatric treatment had diminished his human dignity, although there had been no intentional neglect on the part of the police.
The following details are taken from the Strasbourg Court’s press release:
The applicant was arrested in Birmingham in the early morning of 6 December 2004, after the police had been called to deal with him because, highly agitated, he was sitting in a car sounding its horn continuously. His detention at a police station was authorised under the 1983 Mental Health Act, which allows the detention of a person suffering from a mental disorder for up to 72 hours for the purpose of being examined by a doctor and receiving treatment. The police subsequently found the applicant’s aunt at his address, seriously injured by him.
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1 May 2012 by Rosalind English
A High Court judge has raised the prospect that national security implications may necessitate the closed material procedure (CMP) in a case being brought against the Foreign Office by the son of a drone strike victim, the Telegraph reports today.
Mitting J has made a “rare order” that a two-day High Court hearing must take place in which both sides tackle the issue of whether the full case could go ahead in public, or whether it would require a CMP.
Background
On 12 March legal proceedings were issued against the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, on behalf of Noor Khan, whose father was killed last year in a drone strike on a Jirga – or council of elders – in North West Pakistan. The case is highly sensitive because it would involve the disclosure of information supplied by British intelligence agencies to the CIA on the whereabouts of alleged Pakistani militants.
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24 April 2012 by Rosalind English
London Christian Radio Ltd and Anor v Radio Advertising Clearance Centre (RACC) and Secretary of State for Culture – read judgment
The High Court has upheld the refusal of the broadcasting regulator to clear an advertisement for transmission on the grounds that it offended the prohibition on political advertising.
This restriction, said Silber J, was a necessary one for the purposes of Article 10(2) of the European Convention. The purpose of the ban on political advertising was to protect the public from the potential mischief of partial political advertising, and the views of the advertiser, as to whether an advertisement was political, were irrelevant.
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Catt v Commissioner of the Police of the Metropolis [2012] EWHC 1471 (Admin) – read judgment
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