Category: Case summaries
17 January 2011 by Alasdair Henderson
R (Ali Zaki Mousa) v. Secretary of State for Defence [2010] EWHC 3304 (Admin) (21 December 2010) – read judgment
The High Court has dismissed a challenge to the government’s decision to ‘wait and see’ if another public inquiry into abuse of Iraqi detainees is necessary, pending the outcome of internal Ministry of Defence investigations. The court looked in detail at the obligation on states under Article 3 to conduct an independent and effective investigation into allegations of torture, before concluding that what is required by Article 3 essentially depends on the facts of any given case.
The judicial review application was brought on behalf of some 127 Iraqis who claimed that they were tortured and ill-treated by members of the British Armed Forces while being held in detention in Iraq. They demanded that the Secretary of State order an immediate public inquiry, and said that only a public inquiry would effectively investigate both their individual allegations and any wider systemic issues arising out of the individual claims (the background to the claim and a short summary of the permission stage can be found here).
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14 January 2011 by Rosalind English
Bank Mellat v HM Treasury [2011] EWCA Civ 1: read judgment.
Financial restrictions imposed in 2009 on an Iranian Bank which effectively excluded it from the UK financial market did not breach common law or ECHR principles of fairness, said the Court of Appeal on Thursday.
The Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 conferred powers on the Treasury to restrict persons operating in the financial sector from entering or participating in any transaction or business relationship with the appellant Bank Mellat (BM). The Order, which was subject to the affirmative resolution procedure and reviewable on limited grounds (Section 63(2) CTA) was justified by a Ministerial Statement which declared that the direction to cease business would
reduce the risk of the UK financial sector being used, unknowingly or otherwise, to facilitate Iran’s proliferation sensitive activities.
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11 January 2011 by Isabel McArdle
Twaite, Re Appeal against conviction [2010] EWCA Crim 2973 – Read judgment
In an interesting decision on fair trial rights under article 6 of the European Convention, the Court of Appeal been ruled that a court martial conviction by majority neither not inherently unsafe or in breach of human rights.
Mr Twaite had been accused fraud while serving in the armed forces. He and his fiancée had been given particular military accommodation on the basis that they were getting married on 28 August 2008. In a form which Mr Twaite submitted he had allegedly been dishonest by stating that he was getting married on that date. In fact he did not marry until a year later.
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31 December 2010 by Matthew Hill
November saw the publication of the report of the Redfern Inquiry into human tissue analysis in UK nuclear facilities (read the report, here).
The inquiry was the latest in a number of investigations looking at the post mortem removal, retention and disposal of human body parts by medical and other bodies, and the extent to which the families of the deceased knew of and consented to such practices. The Inquiry chairman, Michael Redfern QC, also chaired the Royal Liverpool Children’s Hospital (Alder Hay) Inquiry.
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24 December 2010 by Adam Wagner
With the Pope giving his first “thought for the day” on this morning’s Today program, it seems a good opportunity to revisit the European Court of Human Right’s recent decision on abortion in Ireland. The emerging consensus is that the European court went no further than it needed to, and did little more than reasserting the status quo in Irish law.
The Pope, and the Roman Catholic Church which he heads, is against abortion. One of the effects of this is that states in which the Church is influential tend to have less liberal abortion laws. Ireland is such a state, and abortion is mostly illegal, except in certain very limited circumstances where the mother’s life is threatened.
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24 December 2010 by Guest Contributor
Don't step on them
Last year I blogged about Mrs Clift winning a claim for defamation against Slough Borough Council. The facts are in the earlier post. Slough’s appeal was rejected by the Court of Appeal in Clift v Slough Borough Council [2010] EWCA Civ 1171.
While the point in issue was whether Slough could rely on a defence of qualified privilege against Mrs Clift’s claim, I think the decision has wider implications and is therefore relevant to housing practice. The court’s reasoning on Article 8 of the ECHR should be familiar to housing lawyers. In the court’s view, the publication of damaging allegations about Mrs Clift interfered with her rights under Article 8(1) and the council was therefore bound not to pass those allegations on unless in doing so Article 8(2) was satisfied – which it manifestly was not in Mrs Clift’s case. Via some relatively complex reasoning related to the ways in which qualified privilege has been analysed by the courts, this meant the council could not raise the defence and so their appeal was lost.
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24 December 2010 by Isabel McArdle
Stellato v Ministry of Justice [2010] EWCA Civ 1435 – Read judgment
The court of appeal has ruled that when a court set a deadline for a prisoner’s release, that deadline could was not lawfully extended simply because a court needed time to hear an appeal against the decision to release him.
In other words, prisoners must be released on time unless a court explicitly rules otherwise. Absent such a ruling, any additional time spent in custody waiting for a hearing will be unlawful detention and could trigger damages.
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22 December 2010 by Adam Wagner
Lots of judgements are being released this week as judges tie up their business in time for the holidays. Here is a quick roundup of human rights cases.
More trouble for the LSC tender process
- Hereward & Foster Llp & Anor v The Legal Services Commission [2010] EWHC 3370 (Admin) (21 December 2010) A number of different organisations have attempted to judicially review the much criticised Legal Services Commission tender of publicly funded work, initially the Community Law Partnership and most notably (and successfully), the Law Society. In this case a solicitor has had its permission application refused regarding the LSC’s immigration tender as it was out of time, but the court did find that the “supervisor attendance criteria” imposed by the LSC indirectly discriminated against women as in privileging round-the-clock service, it prejudiced part-time over full-time workers (see para 62 for a summary of the judge’s conclusions). So a partial (moral) victory for the solicitors, with the immigration tender process looking in trouble and vulnerable to future challenges on indirect discrimination grounds.
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21 December 2010 by David Hart KC
Smartsource v Information Commissioner + 19 other parties [2010] UKUT 415 (AAC) 23rd November 2010 – read judgment
Ibsen’s Enemy of the People has Dr Stockmann complaining to his Norwegian municipality about contamination of its water supply. We think that these sorts of disputes are part of a modern problem, so it is striking to find Ibsen being invoked, judicially, in this far from 19th century fight about environmental information.
The question was the less than dramatic one as to whether information about water and wastewater billing etc was environmental information, and that in turn involved deciding whether water companies and sewage undertakers were “public authorities”. Ibsen might not have found that answer too difficult to provide: what local authorities used to do in the 19th century and much of the 20th century, here, in Norway, and elsewhere, included supplying you with clean water and taking away your foul water.
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21 December 2010 by Matthew Flinn
R (on the application of Daniel Faulkner) v Secretary of State for Justice and Anor [2010] EWCA Civ 1434 – Read Judgment
The Court of Appeal has upheld the appeal of prisoner who spent 10 more months in prison than he should have, due to unjustified delay in having his case heard by the Parole Board. The court found that there had been an infringement of his rights under Article 5(4) of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
In 2001 Daniel Faulkner was convicted of causing grievous bodily harm with intent (an offence under section 18 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861). As this was his second offence of this nature, he was sentenced to custody for life, with the minimum period he had to spend in custody being set at two years, eight and a half months. That period expired on 18th April 2004 and he became eligible for parole.
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17 December 2010 by Adam Wagner
Chester v Secretary of State for Justice & Anor [2010] EWCA Civ 1439 (17 December 2010) – Read judgment
The Court of Appeal has rejected a claim by a man convicted of raping and murdering a seven-year-old girl that the court should grant him the right to vote. Meanwhile, following the judgment the government has announced that it plans to allow all prisoners less than four years to vote.
Mr Chester’s case is interesting from a constitutional perspective, although the decision is not too surprising, as I will explain. But it does highlight the complex and sometimes unsatisfactory manner in which human rights are protected in the UK.
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17 December 2010 by Catriona Murdoch
Secretary of State for the Home Department v DD (Afghanistan) [2010] EWCA Civ 1407 (10 December 2010) – Read judgment
It is a sometimes controversial aspect of immigration law that asylum seekers facing a real risk of persecution will nevertheless be denied the protection of the Refugee Convention, through the application of Article 1F of that Convention. One of the bases for exclusion from protection is Article 1F(c), which applies where a person “has been guilty of acts contrary to the principles of the United Nations”. How does a court decide such cases?
The Court of Appeal has reversed the decision of the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal (AIT) in a case involving an Afghani asylum seeker. The AIT had ruled that Article 1F did not apply, and so DD was entitled to refugee status. The AIT’s conclusion was reached despite DD admitting a history of involvement with organisations engaged in violent activities against the Afghan Goverment and UN-mandated forces: Jamiat-e-Islami, the Taliban, and Hizb-e-Islami. The Home Secretary’s appeal was allowed and the case was remitted to the AIT for a limited reconsideration.
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16 December 2010 by Rosalind English
Ofulue v United Kingdom, Application no. 52512/09 – read judgment
The Strasbourg Court has confirmed that the inadmissibility of a “without prejudice” letter neither interferes with an applicant’s fair trial rights under Article 6 nor does it prejudice their rights to enjoyment of property under Article 1 Protocol 1 where the production of such a letter might have proved their title in proceedings challenging adverse possession.
The applicant was the registered owner of a property in London which became subject to adverse possession. In the dispute over whether or not her title had been extinguished she sought permission to produce a “without prejudice” letter from the tenants which had been written some years before making an offer on the house.
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16 December 2010 by Adam Wagner
CASE OF A, B AND C v. IRELAND (Application no. 25579/05) – Read judgment / press release
The Grand Chamber of European Court of Human Rights has ruled unanimously that abortion must be more accessible in Ireland for women whose lives are at risk. It rejected applications that abortion must be more widely available in other circumstances.
The ruling does not represent a significant departure from the current state of Irish law – in that it does not require the state to legalise abortion more than it technically already has done – but the probable changes in the law may result in a general softening towards abortion in general, as, in theory at least, it will be much easier for women in life threatening situations to obtain an abortion. Up until now, the law has made it practically impossible to do so.
Moreover, the recognition that abortion falls under article 8 (the right to private and family life) may also lead in future to more wide-ranging judgments, along the lines of Roe v Wade in the United States.
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16 December 2010 by Rosalind English
O’Donoghue and Others v. the United Kingdom(application no. 34848/07):
The government’s system for preventing sham marriages as an entry ploy for immigrants breached the right to marry and was discriminatory – read judgment.
By the time this case was lodged the Certificate of Approval Scheme had been much diluted by a series of amendments, but even so the Court found itself to be “gravely concerned” with the policy. This, along with the surprisingly lenient approach to the applicants’ failure to exhaust local remedies, suggests that the Court was anxious to address what it sees as endemic problems in the UK’s border control policy. If states want to use impediments to marriage as an entry deterrent, it says, then they must face being rapped with the Article 12 stick.
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R (Ali Zaki Mousa) v. Secretary of State for Defence [2010] EWHC 3304 (Admin) (21 December 2010) – read judgment
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