Category: Case comments

Wind farms, birds, and that pesky thing called the rule of law

28 October 2013 by David Hart KC

Sustainable Shetland, Re Judicial Review, 24 September 2013, Lady Clark of Calton  read judgment

The current storms brought down a turbine in Teignmouth: see here for good pics of this and other mayhem. And the rule of law recently brought down a massive wind farm proposed for Shetland. The Scottish Ministers had waved aside a request for a public inquiry, and ended up drafting reasons which ignored the obligations in the Wild Birds Directive in respect of this bird – the whimbrel. Lady Clark quashed the consent on this ground, and also decided that the wind farmer could not apply for the consent anyway because it had not got the requisite licence which she concluded was a pre-condition for such an application. 

And there is a very good chance that the NGO which brought this challenge would not be entitled to do so if Mr Grayling gets his way, because it might well not have been held to have “standing”. Such a change he would regard as “firmly in the national interest”: see my post of last week on proposed reforms to judicial review rules. There are, to say the least, two sides to that argument about national interest, hence the importance of responding to his consultation paper, with its closing date of 1 November 2013.

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When a decision-maker gives retro-reasons

25 October 2013 by David Hart KC

Lanner Parish Council (R ota) v. the Cornwall Council [2013] EWCA Civ 1290 read judgment

This planning judicial review tackles the problem posed by an authority who says one thing in its formal reasons granting planning permission, and another thing in the court proceedings when the grant is challenged.

Coastline wanted to construct 25 affordable dwellings in Lanner. The Parish in Lanner objected, on the basis that 25 was too many. It referred to a local planning policy (H20) which said that there should be no more than “about 12” houses on any new development in a large village such as Lanner.

The planning officer supported the grant of planning permission, and the Council agreed. The Council’s reasons for grant said that the proposal “accords with” policy H20. But it didn’t, because the policy referred to 12 houses, and the proposal was for 25 houses, and this error in the reasons was one of the Parish’s main points on the judicial review.

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Richard III on the move again – pitched into the current judicial review debate

23 October 2013 by David Hart KC

The Plantagenet Alliance Ltd (R o.t.a) v. Secretary of State for Justice and others, Haddon-Cave J, 18 October 2013 (PCO) read judgment, and on permission, 15 August 2013  read judgment

I posted here on the original judgment giving the Plantagenet Alliance permission to seek judicial review of the Secretary of State’s decision to re-bury Richard III in Leicester. At the time, the judge had made a full Protective Costs Order in favour of the Alliance, so that it would not have to pay costs if it lost. The judge had also ordered what he envisaged to be a short hearing to determine in what sum the Alliance’s costs should be capped. if it won. 

The judge was then somewhat surprised to be faced by a full-blown attempt by MoJ (Chris Grayling) to discharge the PCO, and seek an order for security of costs against the Alliance. The written argument in support was signed by the top barrister doing work for the Government, and the hearing about it took a day (think of the costs of that).

The application was conspicuously unsuccessful, as we shall see, but what was all this about?  Something to do with proposed judicial review changes, I suspect – for reasons which will become evident.

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The latest prisoner votes judgment may be our Marbury v Madison – Jamie Fletcher & Charlie Eastaugh

20 October 2013 by Guest Contributor

At first glance, prisoner voting proponents may interpret the Supreme Court’s R (Chester) v Justice Secretary decision (see Adam Wagner’s previous post)  as a defeat for advancing prisoner voting rights in the UK. This blog post offers a different perspective. By comparing Chester to the seminal US Supreme Court case of Marbury v. Madison, we summarise that such proponents should take a step back and see the wood, rather than merely the trees. This is because Lord Mance’s Chester judgment offers human rights advocates, and therefore supporters of prisoner voting rights, an unequivocal foundation from which to defend future human rights claims.

Chester does not achieve the same ends as Marbury. Marbury established the institution of judicial review in the United States, against Congressional legislation. Chester does not disturb the supremacy of the UK Parliament. Comparison arises within the strategies of the leading judgments in each case. Chief Justice Marshall’s judgment in Marbury is celebrated not only for its conclusion, that the Constitution of the United States is the highest form of law and therefore “it is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is”, but also for how it reached that conclusion.

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This Supreme Court prisoner voting decision really is a victory for common sense

16 October 2013 by Adam Wagner

R (on the application of Chester) (Appellant) v Secretary of State for Justice (Respondent), McGeoch (AP) (Appellant) v The Lord President of the Council and another (Respondents) (Scotland) [2013] UKSC 63  – read judgment / press summary

The Lord Chancellor Chris Grayling recently told The Spectator that he wants “to see our Supreme Court being supreme again“. In light of his respect for the court, he should read today’s judgment on prisoner votes very carefully indeed, as should David Cameron who has already endorsed the decision as a “great victory for common sense”.

The Supreme Court dismissed two claims by prisoners who argued their European Convention (Chester) and European Union (McGeogh) rights were being breached because they weren’t allowed to vote in various elections. I won’t summarise the detail of their arguments, which can be found in our previous posts on the Court of Appeal and Scottish Outer House Court of Session decisions.

We will aim to cover the substance of the decisions in due course. But what I find really interesting was the Justices’ views on the European Court’s various decisions on prisoner votes, which the Government argued were poorly reasoned.

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EU employment rights law trumps diplomatic immunity – what next?

15 October 2013 by Rosalind English

Benkharbouche v Embassy of the Republic of Sudan (Jurisdictional Points: State Immunity) [2013] UKEAT 0401_12_0410 4 October 2013 – read judgment

These appeals, heard at the same time, raise the question whether someone employed in the UK by a foreign diplomatic mission as a member of its domestic staff may bring a claim to assert employment rights against the country whose mission it is, despite being met by an assertion of State Immunity under the State Immunity Act 1978. The EAT regarded itself bound by the supremacy of EU law to disapply the SIA, despite the fact that it had no jurisdiction to do so under the 1998 Human Rights Act.

This is the first time that the full force of the rights contained in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms has made itself felt in a domestic dispute between private parties (although the embassies themselves are state institutions, as an employment dispute the matter is one of private law only). If upheld on appeal, this ruling will have consequences that extend far beyond the somewhat esoteric area of the immunity of diplomatic missions, and will make the effect of the Human Rights Act look puny by comparison (as pointed out by Joshua Rozenberg  in his post on this case).
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Internet trolls and why Strasbourg doesn’t want to get involved

14 October 2013 by Rosalind English

Delfi AS v Estonia (Application no. 64569/09)  10 October 2013 – read judgment

This case concerned the liability of an Internet news portal for offensive comments that were posted by readers below one of its online news articles. The following summary is based on the Strasbourg Court’s press release.

The applicant company owns one of the largest internet news sites in Estonia. In January 2006, Delfi published an article on its webpage about a ferry company. It discussed the company’s decision to change the route its ferries took to certain islands. This had caused ice to break where ice roads could have been made in the near future. As a result, the opening of these roads – a cheaper and faster connection to the islands compared to the ferry services – was postponed for several weeks. Below the article, readers were able to access the comments of other users of the site. Many readers had written highly offensive or threatening posts about the ferry operator and its owner.
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Man cannot be stripped of British citizenship, rules Supreme Court

14 October 2013 by Isabel McArdle

Secretary of State for the Home Department v Al -Jedda [2013] UKSC 62 – Read judgment / press summary

In late 2007, the Secretary of State for the Home Department made an order depriving Mr Al Jedda, who had been granted British citizenship in 2000, of his citizenship, under the British Nationality Act 1981. Section 40(4) of the Act prohibits the deprivation of nationality where the effect would be to render the person stateless.

Not being a citizen of any state can have profound effects on a person’s ability to live a normal life, including being unable to obtain travel documents and facing difficulty settling and obtaining work, education and healthcare. However, the Secretary of State considered that taking away Mr Al Jedda’s nationality was conducive to the public good.

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The Supreme Court’s curious constitutional U turn over prisoner rights – Richard A. Edwards

13 October 2013 by Guest Contributor

Osborn v The Parole Board [2013] UKSC 61 – Read judgment / Press summary

1 Crown Office Row’s David Manknell acted as junior counsel to the Parole Board in this case. He had no involvement in the writing of this post.

Writing in his magisterial new work, Human Rights and the UK Supreme Court, Professor Brice Dickson noted that the Human Rights Act had created ‘an internationalized system of human rights protection rather than a constitutional one.’ Indeed, there had been a marked resistance on the part of the Supreme Court to use the common law to achieve the same goal of human rights protection. In Osborn v The Parole Board the Supreme Court seemed to resile from this position.

Osborn, and the co-joined appeals, concerned the circumstances in which the Parole Board is required to hold oral hearings. Osborn had been recalled to prison after an immediate breach of his licence conditions. Booth and Reilly had been sentenced to life imprisonment, and in both cases the minimum term had expired. The appellants sought early release and had been denied an oral hearing by the Parole Board under the operation of the statutory regime (detailed in paras 3-17). Instead their cases had been decided on paper by a single anonymous member of the Board.

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Challenging adoption order using human rights

2 October 2013 by Martin Downs

The recently released statistics from the Department for Education showing an increase of 15% in the adoption of looked after children in the last year further highlights the government’s preferred strategy for ensuring the welfare of children in care.

In my recent post, I considered the main thrust of the decision of the Court of Appeal in Re B-S which concerned the rigour which was expected of evidence, hearings and Judgments before a Placement Order was made.

However, the Court also dealt with the issue which had concerned Lord Justice McFarlane  when he gave permission to appeal  namely, where a Court has already made an order that a child may be placed for adoption and that has happened and the prospective adopter has applied for an Adoption Order, in what circumstances can a parent seek to stop it going ahead?

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Surrogacy and maternity rights

2 October 2013 by Rosalind English

C-363/12: A Government Department and the Board of Management of a Community School – read AG Wahl’s opinion

Case C‑167/12 : C.D. v S.T. – read AG Kokott’s opinion 

Two opinions from Luxembourg on exactly the same issue, with diametrically opposed conclusions. AG Wahl (male) says, in brief, that the Pregnancy Workers Directive does what it says on the tin. It does not apply to non-pregnant employees, even though one of these might be an “intended mother” i.e. a woman who for medical reasons cannot carry a pregnancy to term, who has commissioned a surrogacy.  AG Kokott (female)  concludes firmly that the Pregnancy Workers Directive was designed to protect the relationship between mothers and their unborn or newborn, whether naturally produced or arranged by surrogacy.  These opinions were published on the same day, with no mention in either of the other case. We can only conclude that the AGs read each other’s drafts, and decided to go to press with them together, leaving the CJEU to reconcile them in some way or another.

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When adoption without parental consent breaches human rights

1 October 2013 by Martin Downs

Re B-S (Children) [2013] EWCA Civ 1146 – Read judgment 

is the latest Judgment of the Court of Appeal on non-consensual adoption since the Supreme Court authorized a closer scrutiny of first instance decisions In re B (A Child) (Care Proceedings: Threshold Criteria) [2013] UKSC 33, [2013] 1 WLR 1911 (see comment by Rosalind English here)

It is also the most authoritative (the case was allocated to Lord Dyson MR, the President of the Family Division and Black LJ) and uses to strong language about the current inattention to Human Rights in care and adoption proceedings.

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General Medical Council too late with child sex abuse complaint, rules High Court – Robert Kellar

26 September 2013 by Guest Contributor

Robert Kellar appeared for D in these proceedings

D, R (on the application of) v The General Medical Council [2013] EWHC 2839 (Admin) – Read judgment

The High Court has strongly affirmed the prohibition against the pursuit of long delayed complaints against doctors in regulatory proceedings. The prohibition arose from the General Medical Council’s own procedural rules. It applied even where the allegations were of the most serious kind, including sexual misconduct, and could only be waived in exceptional circumstances and where the public interest demanded. The burden was upon the GMC to establish a sufficiently compelling public interest where allegations had already been thoroughly investigated by the competent authorities such as the police and social services.

Although the Court’s robust approach is to be welcomed, an opportunity to clarify the relevance of Article 6 ECHR in this context was not taken. The author suggests that Article 6 ECHR has an important part to play in protecting the rights of practitioners facing long delayed complaints.

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Judge quashes “exclusive” golf course decision- and why we need judicial review

24 September 2013 by David Hart KC

Cherkley Campaign Ltd, (R o.t.a ) v. Longshot Cherkley Court Ltd, Haddon-Cave J, 22 August 2013 read judgment

This is a successful judicial review of the grant of planning permission to a proposed new golf club in leafy Surrey – where one central issue was whether, in planning policy terms, there was a “need” for the club. The local planning officers had advised the council against the proposal, but the members voted in favour of it (just), hence this challenge. It succeeded on grounds including perversity, which is pretty rare, especially in the planning context, but, when one looks at the judgment, you can readily see why the judge concluded as he did. 

The judgment contains some pungently expressed reminders that the planning system is not just about facilitating “business” but requires a proper assessment of the public interest. And dressing up the provision of very very expensive golf to a few very very rich people as “need” does not wash.

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What is a “public authority” for the purposes of environmental information?

17 September 2013 by Rosalind English

Fish Legal v The Information Commissioner, United Utilities, Yorkshire Water and Southern Water (Case C-279/12) – read Opinion of AG Cruz Villalon

In this most recent case concerning access by private individuals to environmental information held by public authorities,  the AG grasps the nettlish question of what precisely a public authority is. The issue was a subject of debate because the request for information had  been addressed to private companies which manage a public service relating to the environment.  The question therefore was whether, even though the companies concerned are private, they may be regarded as “public authorities” for the purposes of the Directive governing access to environmental information (Directive 2003/4).

Clearly the definition of the concept of “public authority” is an issue of importance not just in relation to access to information, but across the board, whether involving EU law or the application of the Human Rights Act 1998 and judicial review in domestic law.
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