Category: In the news
20 November 2014 by Rosalind English
M.R. and D.R.(suing by their father and next friend O.R.) & ors -v- An t-Ard-Chláraitheoir & ors [2014] IESC 60 (7 November 2014) – read judgment
The definition of a mother, whether she is “genetic” or “gestational” for the purpose of registration laws was a matter for parliament, not the courts, the Irish Supreme Court has ruled.
At the core of the case was the question whether a mother whose donated ova had resulted in twin children born by a surrogacy arrangement should be registered as their parent, as opposed to the gestational mother who had borne the twins.
The genetic mother and father sought her registration as “mother” under the Civil Registration Act, 2004, along with a declaration that she was entitled to have the particulars of her maternity entered on the Certificate of Birth, and that the twins were entitled to have their relationship to the fourth named respondent recorded on their Certificates of Birth.
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19 November 2014 by David Hart KC
R (ClientEarth) v Secretary of State for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs , CJEU, 19 November 2014 – read C404-13
In May 2013, the UK Supreme Court (here) was sufficiently concerned about the UK’s lack of compliance with EU legislation, Directive 2008/50 (nitrogen dioxide etc in air) to refer various issues to the CJEU in Luxembourg.
The UK has been in breach of Article 13 the Directive since 1 January 2010, because 40 “zones and agglomerations” had nitrogen dioxide at concentrations greater than the limit values set out in the Directive. ClientEarth, an environmental NGO, sought to enforce the Directive in the national courts. Defra admitted breach of Article 13 and, given the admission, the first instance judge and the Court of Appeal said that there was no point in granting any declaratory relief. It was for the EU Commission, if it wished, to take infraction proceedings. And those lower courts disagreed with ClientEarth’s interpretation of the Directive, which, as we shall see, has now for the first time been upheld by the CJEU.
The Supreme Court went rather further; it granted a declaration that the UK was in breach of Article 13, and posed various questions about the meaning of the Directive to the CJEU.
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19 November 2014 by Guest Contributor
This post is adapted from a speech given by Judge Robert Spano of the European Court of Human Rights at Chatham House on 13 October 2014. It is reproduced here with permission and thanks.
There is currently a vigorous debate in the UK on the status and future of the European Convention on Human Rights in national law and also on the relationship between my Court, the Strasbourg Court (ECtHR), the UK Parliament and the domestic judiciary.
In principle, democratic debates on such fundamental issues should always be welcome. Indeed, discussions on the role and functions of institutions of public power lie at the core of the democratic concept. It is therefore essential for the Court and its judges to engage in reasoned and informed debate about their work and its wider European implications.
How Does the ECtHR Discharge Its Mandate?
I have been asked to discuss the question of how the Strasbourg Court discharges its mandate. To give an answer, one must first respond to the fundamental question: What is the Court‘s mandate?
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18 November 2014 by Rosalind English
Justice for Families Ltd v Secretary of State for Justice [2014] EWCA Civ 1477 – read judgment
An application for habeas corpus by a pressure group was completely “hopeless” and “entirely misconceived”. The appellant’s challenge to the decision of the judge below was equally devoid of merit. Third party applications are only appropriate where the prisoner is incommunicado or where the impediment preventing the prisoner from acting is ignorance or disability. It was entirely inappropriate in these circumstances, where the prisoner had been represented by counsel throughout the proceedings which resulted in her imprisonment, or where her detention had already ended before the application for habeas corpus was made.
The principle of “habeas corpus”
The right of a stranger to apply for habeas corpus is a rather singular thing since it does not depend on that third party to be instructed by the prisoner on behalf of whom the application is being made, nor even on the knowledge of the prisoner that someone has decided to act in his/her interest in such a way.
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12 November 2014 by Rosalind English
R (on the application of Lord Carlile of Berriew QC and others) (Appellants) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (Respondent) [2014] UKSC 60 – read judgment
The exclusion of a dissident Iranian from the UK, on grounds that her presence would have a damaging impact on our interests in relation to Iran, has been upheld by the Supreme Court. (My post on the Court of Appeal’s ruling is here).
At the heart of the case lies the question of institutional competence of the executive to determine the balance between the relative significance of national security and freedom of speech. The exclusion order was imposed and maintained because the Home Office is is concerned with the actual consequences of Mrs Rajavi’s admission, not with the democratic credentials of those responsible for bringing them about. The decision-maker is not required by the Convention or anything else to ignore or downplay real risks to national security where they originate from people acting for motives which are contrary to the values of this country.
The following summary of the facts is partly based on the Court’s press release. References in square brackets are to the paragraphs in the judgment.
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10 November 2014 by Rosalind English
In his lecture to the Administrative Law Bar Association earlier this month, Lord Sumption surveys the concept of “anxious scrutiny” – a judicial method which he characterises as a forerunner to the principle of proportionality. The term was actually coined by Lord Bridge in Bugdaycay (1986), and was meant to apply where the rights engaged in a case were sufficiently fundamental, and stretched the traditional “Wednesbury” test to public authority decisions or actions which were not, on the face of it, irrational. (The citation given in the PDF of the speech incidentally is incorrect). The same way of thinking had been arrived at in the US courts a few years earlier, with their “hard look” doctrine, but to Lord Sumption there was something peculiarly English about the “crab-like” way in which our courts approached and eventually acknowledged this doctrine, hitherto alien to the judicial toolbox.
But if we apply anxious scrutiny to the doctrine itself, Sumption suggests, it raises more questions than it answers.
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7 November 2014 by David Hart KC
R (o.t.a Joicey) v. Northumberland County Council , 7 November 2014, Cranston J read judgment
An interesting decision about a Council not supplying some key information about a wind turbine project to the public until very late in the day. Can an objector apply to set the grant of permission aside? Answer: yes, unless the Council can show that it would have inevitably have come to the same conclusion, even if the information had been made public earlier.
Mr Barber, a farmer, wanted to put up one turbine (47m to tip) on his land. The claimant was an objector, another farmer who lives 4km away, and who campaigns about subsidies for renewables – it is him in the pic. The planning application was complicated by the fact that an application for 6 turbines at Barmoor nearby had already been approved (where Mr Joicey is standing), and the rules on noise from wind turbines looks at the total noise affecting local people, not just from Mr Barber’s turbine.
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7 November 2014 by Rosalind English
Dillon v United Kingdom (no. 32621/11) – read judgment and David Thomas v United Kingdom (no. 55863/11) – read judgment
Two prisoners have failed in their human rights protest against prison rehabilitation courses in the United Kingdom.
Dillon
The applicant Dillon, currently detained in HMP Whatton, had been given an indeterminate sentence following his conviction for sexual assault. He was given a tariff period of four years. His release after the expiry of this tariff period was subject to the approval of the Parole Board.
He completed the core Sex Offenders Treatment Programme (“SOTP”) in March 2009 and had been assessed as suitable for the extended SOTP in 2010. But then the prison authorities concluded that he was insufficiently motivated to undertake the extended course. He complained that the only way that he could address the risk he presented to the public was by completing the extended SOTP, but his access to this course had been delayed.
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7 November 2014 by Michael Deacon
R (on the application of FI) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2014] EWCA Civ 1272 – read judgment
The Court of Appeal has held that the physical restraint of persons being removed from the UK by aircraft is subject to a sufficient framework of safeguards to fulfil the state’s obligations under Articles 2 and 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Further, the decision of the Home Secretary not to publish aspects of the applicable policy on the use of such control and restraint is lawful.
FI was restrained by detainee custody officers during an attempt to remove her from the UK in 2011, though the issues on this appeal did not turn on the specific circumstances of her case. In issue was the sufficiency of the framework of safeguards on the use of such restraint as contained predominantly within the Use of Force Training Manual (the “Manual”).
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5 November 2014 by David Hart KC
Bank Mellat v HM Treasury [2014] EWHC 3631 (Admin), Collins J, 5 November 2014 – read judgment UPDATED POST
Fireworks here from Collins J in making sure that Bank Mellat got some disclosure of information in its fight to discharge a financial restriction order against it.
Bank Mellat is an Iranian bank, initially singled out by an 2009 order which prohibited anybody from dealing with it. The order was part of sanctions against Iran in respect of its nuclear and ballistic missiles programme. However, it bit the dust, thanks to the Supreme Court: see judgment. I did a post on that decision, and followed it up with one (here) on the (dis)proportionality arguments which led to the order’s downfall.
However the Bank was subject to two further orders, made in 2011 and 2012. They led to the freezing of €183m held by it in London. The 2012 order has since been revoked, but the 2011 one remains. This is the subject of the Bank’s application to set it aside. On any view, as Collins J recognised, it had caused very serious damage to the Bank’s business.
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4 November 2014 by David Hart KC
R (o.t.a. Badger Trust) v. SoS for Environment and Rural Affairs, CA, 29 October 2014, read judgment, on appeal from Kenneth Parker J, Admin Ct, 29 August 2014 read judgment
The Court of Appeal has dismissed an attempt by the Badger Trust to quash Defra’s unwillingness to retain an Independent Expert Panel on future badger culls. The arguments mirrored those before the judge (summarised in my previous post here), and were dismissed for pretty much the same reasons.
The background was the pilot cull in Somerset and Gloucester in 2013-14. It sought to remove at least 70% of the badger population in the area. The Panel reviewed its results, and concluded that in terms of effectiveness, shooting badgers removed less than 24.8% in Somerset and less than 37.1% in Gloucestershire. It decided that in terms of humaneness, something between 7.4% and 22.8% of badgers shot were still alive after 5 min. Not quite what had been promised for shooting.
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29 October 2014 by David Hart KC
Moseley R (ota) v. London Borough of Haringey [2014] UK 56 – read judgment
Lord Wilson posed the question, answered today by the Supreme Court, with concision. When Parliament requires a local authority to consult interested persons before making a decision which would potentially affect all of its inhabitants, what are the ingredients of the requisite consultation?
The judgments reveal the surprising fact that the core principles of consultation (named after Gunning, as public lawyers will know) have never been approved by the Supreme Court or its predecessor, the House of Lords. The Court was happy to endorse them as embodiments of fairness. But it went on to consider the duty to consult on rejected alternatives – as very recently debated by the Court of Appeal in the Rusal case – see my post here.
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29 October 2014 by Rosalind English
Cotton and others, (R on the application of) v Minister for Work and Pensions and others, 15 October 2014 [2014] EWHC 3437 (Admin) – read judgment
Whether you call it the “spare room subsidy” or the “bedroom tax”, the removal of this type of housing benefit has been nothing short of controversial. There have been several previous legal challenges to the Regulations, as well as to the benefit cap introduced as part of the same package of welfare changes. The outcome of these cases was not promising for these claimants, in particular the decision of the Court of Appeal in R (MA) v Secretary of State for Work & Pensions [2014] EWCA Civ 13. Another important case is R (SG (previously JS)) v Secretary of State for Work & Pensions [2014] EWCA Civ 156.
Now the High Court has settled one aspect of the matter by ruling that these amendments did not breach the rights of singe parents under Article 8 ECHR who looked after their children under shared care arrangements where they received discretionary housing payments to make up the shortfall.
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28 October 2014 by Guest Contributor
Lords Pannick and Faulks
Last night saw the important Report Stage consideration of Part 4 of the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill in the House of Lords. Angela Patrick, Director of Human Rights Policy at JUSTICE provides a summary.
Widely – and quickly – reported as a “crushing” or an “emphatic” defeat – in a rare turn – the Government was last night defeated in three consecutive votes on its proposals to restrict access to judicial review. With a ‘hat-trick’ of blows, on three crucial issues, votes on amendments tabled by Lords Pannick, Woolf, Carlile and Beecham were decisive. On the proposal to amend the materiality test – the Government lost by 66. On the compulsory disclosure of financial information for all judicial review applicants, and again on the costs rules applicable to interveners, the Government lost by margins on both counts by 33. A fourth amendment to the Government proposals on Protective Costs Orders – which would maintain the ability of the Court to make costs capping orders before permission is granted – was called after the dinner break, and lost.
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27 October 2014 by Rosalind English
CF v The Ministry of Defence and others [2014] EWHC 3171 (QB) – read judgment
Angus McCullough QC of 1 Crown Office Row acted as Special Advocate in this case. He has nothing to do with the writing of this post.
The High Court has ruled that in a case against the state which did not directly affect the liberty of the subject, there was no irreducible minimum of disclosure of the state’s case which the court would require. The consequences of such disclosure for national security prevailed.
Factual and legal background
The claimant, Mohammed Ahmed Mohamed, had made a number of claims against various government departments, alleging complicity in unlawful and arbitrary detention and inhuman and degrading treatment and torture on the part of British authorities in Somaliland. He also sought damages for trespass, breach of the Human Rights Act 1998, and misfeasance in public office. As Irwin J said,
The remedy sought is not confined to ordinary compensation, but extends to damages for breach of the Convention and to declaratory relief, which in the context of this case, and if the Claimant succeeded, would represent an important marking of unlawful behaviour: a matter in which there is a legitimate public interest.
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