By: Wessen Jazrawi
13 May 2012 by Wessen Jazrawi
Welcome back to the UK Human Rights Roundup, your weekly bulletin of human rights news. The full list of links can be found here. You can also find our table of human rights cases here and previous roundups here.
This week saw the Queen’s Speech set out a number of legislative reforms, the veto of the release of the NHS risk register and the latest instalment in the Abu Qatada saga after the European Court of Human Rights declared his appeal was within time but nonetheless declined to hear it.
by Wessen Jazrawi
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30 April 2012 by Wessen Jazrawi
Welcome back to the UK Human Rights Roundup, your weekly buffet of human rights news. The full list of links can be found here. You can also find our table of human rights cases here and previous roundups here.
In the news
A mixed bag this week: Theresa May remained in the news over Abu Qatada, a number of people blogged on the Brighton Declaration, and the issue of cameras and tweeting in court was high on the agenda. Closer to home, a team from 1 Crown Office Row is walking the London Legal Walk to raise funds for the London Legal Support Trust, the Free Representation Unit and the Bar Pro Bono Unit, so if you like the UKHRB, please sponsor them here.
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20 April 2012 by Wessen Jazrawi
Who should decide questions of human rights, Parliament or the courts? Is there a democratic deficit in human rights? If so, how do we go about addressing it? These are just some of the many questions asked at the conference hosted by the Arts and Humanities Council on Redressing the Democratic Deficit in Human Rights.
This conference took place on 17 and 18 April and was timed to coincide with the Brighton Conference. It was also timed to coincide with the launch of “Parliament and Human Rights”, research undertaken by Paul Yowell and Hayley Hooper, both of Oxford, and Murray Hunt, legal advisor to the Joint Committee on Human Rights (“JCHR”).
The conference featured a variety of eminent speakers and some lively debate took place over the two days. David Feldman, first legal advisor to the JCHR, kicked off events yesterday with the quote (I paraphrase): “there is nothing so dangerous in Parliament as when everyone agrees”, indicating that this is what took place following 9/11, and it was due to this that the JCHR’s mission became clear.
by Wessen Jazrawi
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16 April 2012 by Wessen Jazrawi
Welcome back to the UK Human Rights Roundup, your weekly dose of human rights news. The full list of links can be found here. You can also find our table of human rights cases here and previous roundups here.
In the news
This week, the debate about extradition rages on following the Strasbourg Court’s decision in the Abu Hamza case,which raises a number of interesting legal and political questions. Also in the news this week, the issue of access to information has arisen in a variety of forms. And the flagship event of the UK’s chairmanship of the Council of Europe is about to begin in Brighton, with the future of the European Court of Human Rights at stake.
Brighton Conference begins
The Brighton Conference on European Court of Human Rights reform, due to take place on 18-20 April, begins on Wednesday. As noted by the ECHR blog, its program is now available online here, although it is of limited interest given that it sheds little light on what will be discussed. Meanwhile, a group of 11 Non Governmental Organisations have released a joint statement welcoming positive reforms of the Court but urging “all delegations to the negotiations to refrain from endorsing measures which would amend the Convention so as to codify, or seek to prioritise, the principles of subsidiarity and the margin of appreciation or to add new admissibility requirements.”
by Wessen Jazrawi
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10 April 2012 by Wessen Jazrawi
Welcome back to the UK Human Rights Roundup, your weekly helping of human rights news. The full list of links can be found here. You can also find our table of human rights cases here and previous roundups here.
In the news
The big news of today is that Abu Hamza, Babar Ahmad and 3 others are highly likely to be extradited to the USA to face terrorism charges, following a ruling in the European Court of Human Rights – see Isabel McArdle’s post on the ruling. This aside, the main topics in the news this week have been the response by the Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights (the Joint Committee on Human Rights or the “JCHR”) to the Government’s Justice and Security Green Paper and the leaks that the Government plans to introduce “real time” monitoring of how we use the internet in the interests of national security.
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26 March 2012 by Wessen Jazrawi
Welcome back to the UK Human Rights Roundup, your weekly bulletin of human rights news. The full list of links can be found here. You can also find our table of human rights cases here and previous roundups here.
In the news
It’s been an interesting week for freedom of expression issues, and its Article 10 ECHR counterpart, freedom of information, with judgments from the Court of Appeal and the High Court. The Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation has also produced his first (and last) report on the operation of Control Orders. In other news, the NGO community commented on the UK’s Draft Brighton Declaration on reform of the European Court of Human Rights, the closed-material procedures received a rare show of support and the Government issued a consultation on same-sex marriage.
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4 March 2012 by Wessen Jazrawi
Welcome back to your weekly helping of human rights news. The full list of links can be found here. You can also find our table of human rights cases here and previous roundups here.
In the news
The biggest news of the week was the leak of the Draft Brighton declaration, the UK’s proposals for the reform of the European Court of Human Rights. In other news, a spotlight finally began to shine on the Government’s Justice and Security Green Paper, with the Daily Mail suggesting that it might do anything but promote justice and security.
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20 February 2012 by Wessen Jazrawi
Welcome back to the human rights roundup, your recommended weekly dose of human rights news. The full list of links can be found here. You can also find our table of human rights cases here and previous roundups here.
In the news
Religion and the State
Following on from last week’s ruling from the High Court that Christian prayers held before a council meeting were unlawful, the Court of Appeal this week upheld a ruling that two Christian hotel owners had discriminated against gay clients by not offering them a double room.
In yet other news, the Education Secretary Michael Gove is embroiled in a row concerning the distribution in schools of a booklet containing homophobic material. In response to complaints, Gove has insisted that the education provisions of the Equality Act 2010 do not extend to the content of the curriculum. For an analysis of why Gove is incorrect on this score, see Adam Wagner’s post.
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13 February 2012 by Wessen Jazrawi
Sanade, Harrison & Walker v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2012] UKUT 00048(IAC) – Read judgment.
This case concerns the application of human rights exceptions to the deportation of individuals who were married to British citizens or who had British children.
The Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) (the “Tribunal”) noted that in Mr. Walker’s case, it was accepted before the Court of Appeal that there was an error of law by reason of the failure of the Tribunal to examine the interests of British national children as a primary consideration in light of the guidance in (ZH) Tanzania v SSHD [2011] UKSC 4. It found that similar errors existed in the other two cases and, as such, it would set aside and re-make the decisions.
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29 January 2012 by Wessen Jazrawi
Updated | Welcome back to the human rights roundup, your regular human rights bullet. The full list of links can be found here. You can also find our table of human rights cases here and previous roundups here.
by Wessen Jazrawi
In the news
Mr Cameron goes to Strasbourg
This week, the European Court of Human Rights released its 2011 annual report and Prime Minister David Cameron paid Strasbourg a visit, where (amongst other things) he accused the Court of having become a “small claims court”.
Unsurprisingly, this has been heavily commented on in the press. Adam Wagner posted on the build-up, Professor Francesca Klug minced no words in the follow-up and Joshua Rozenberg reported on the ensuing discussion between Cameron and the secretary-general of the Council of Europe – see also Deciding the future of human rights court … in Brighton. Also worth reading is The Small Places heartfelt and insightful defence of human rights, Obiter J’s excellent post and Beyond Abu Qatada: Why The UK Shouldn’t Split From the European Court of Human Rights in the Huffington Post (UK edition).
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23 January 2012 by Wessen Jazrawi
Welcome back to the human rights roundup, a regular bulletin of all the law we haven’t quite managed to feature in full blog posts. The full list of links can be found here. You can also find our table of human rights cases here and previous roundups here.
by Wessen Jazrawi
In the news
BAILII
First, a plea from the Pink Tape family law blog to donate to BAILII, particularly if you run a blog that links to BAILII or if you are a lawyer who relies on BAILII for transcripts, or to simply do their online survey: BAILII – Pink Tape. This blog would not exist without the excellent service provided by BAILII – please help them by donating and doing the survey.
Wilton Park
The report from the Wilton Park conference, where the good and great of Europe met to discuss the future of the European Court of Human Rights, has been published. Suggestions included requiring individuals to show that non-examination of the case would cause a “significant disadvantage” and introducing a “universal periodic review” procedure, such as that used by the UN. It was recognised that national implementation was by far the biggest challenge that the system faced. The full report can be found here.
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19 January 2012 by Wessen Jazrawi
R (on the application of Hannah McClure and Joshua Moos) v The Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis [2012] EWCA Civ 12 – Read judgment
The Metropolitan Police has succeeded in its appeal against a Divisional Court ruling (see previous post) that the use of crowd control measures – in this case, containment or “kettling” – against Climate Camp protesters did not constitute “lawful police operations”.
In reaching its decision, the Court of Appeal considered three issues: (i) whether the Divisional Court adopted the wrong approach to the question of whether a breach of the peace was imminent, (ii) whether Chief Superintendent Mr. Johnson’s apprehension that there was an imminent breach of the peace was reasonable, and (iii) whether, on Mr. Johnson’s own evidence, he should not have ordered containment of the Climate Camp.
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