Category: In the news
24 January 2014 by Rosalind English
Pike and Doyle v Indian Hotel Companies Ltd [2013] EWHC 4096 (QB) – read judgment
Philip Havers QC and Peter Skelton of 1 Crown Office Row represented the claimants in this case. They have nothing to do with the writing of this post.
This sad case arose out of the 2006 terrorist attack on the Taj Mahal Palace, Mumbai, India. The claimants, who had spent 15 days backpacking around Goa, decided to treat themselves to one night of luxury at the hotel before they were due to fly home from Mumbai. Shortly after the attack began the claimants hid in their room, locked the door and turned off the lights. Some hours later they tried to escape through the window. Their room was on the third floor of the tower part of the hotel. They tied together sheets, curtains and towels to make a rope. They hung it outside their room and the first claimant went first. The “rope” came apart and he fell to the ground suffering serious spinal injuries which have left him paraplegic. The second claimant was rescued subsequently. She did not suffer physical injuries but claims for continuing psychiatric consequences.
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22 January 2014 by David Hart KC
R (o.t.a HS2AA, Buckingham County Council and others) v. Secretary of State for Transport, [2014] UKSC 3 – read judgments
So the challenge to the way in which the Government wished to push the HS2 project through Parliament has failed before the Supreme Court, though not without clarifying the way in which key EU environmental provisions are meant to work. And we will also see a further flexing of the Court’s muscles against a too straightforward reading of the supremacy of EU law when seen against our constitutional principles.
The objectors said the command paper which preceded the Parliamentary hybrid bill, in which the Government set out its proposals for HS2, fell within the scope of the Strategic Environmental Assessment Directive 2001/42/EC and that an SEA ought therefore to have been carried out. The directive applies to plans or programmes which set a “framework” (Art.3(2)(a)) for future decisions whether to grant development consent for projects, and it was said that the command paper set the framework for the decision whether to grant consent for HS2.
Secondly, the objectors said that the legislative procedure in Parliament does not meet the requirements of the Environmental Impact Assessment Directive 2011/92/EU. The EU Court of Justice has interpreted that directive as imposing a number of requirements, including that the legislature must have available to it the information required by the directive, and a requirement that national courts must be able to verify that the requirements of the directive have been satisfied, taking account of the entire legislative process, including the preparatory documents and the parliamentary debates.
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20 January 2014 by Sarina Kidd
Welcome back to the UK Human Rights Roundup, your regular bustling bonanza of human rights news and views. The full list of links can be found here. You can find previous roundups here. Links compiled by Adam Wagner, post by Sarina Kidd.
After a long wait, the European Court of Human Rights delivered its judgment on state immunity in civil proceedings in Jones and Others v UK. Meanwhile, an atheist has been granted asylum on religious grounds and the Supreme Court ruled that a child’s views are relevant to the evaluation of their habitual residence.
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18 January 2014 by Rosalind English
Jones and Others v. the United Kingdom (application nos. 34356/06 and 40528/06) – read judgement
The Strasbourg Court has ruled that the inability of four men to bring torture compensation claims against Saudi Arabia in UK courts did not breach the Convention. The Court held that a “grant of immunity to the state officials in the present case reflected generally recognised rules of public international law” and that there had been no violation of Article 6 (right of access to court).
The claimants argued that there there was emerging support for a special exception to this immunity in cases concerning civil claims for torture lodged against foreign State officials. But the Court took the view that the bulk of the authority was to the effect that the State’s right to immunity may not be circumvented by suing its servants or agents instead. The fact that conduct was unlawful or objectionable was not, of itself, a ground for refusing immunity.
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17 January 2014 by Guest Contributor
The President of the Family Division, Sir James Munby, has today issued important new guidance on “Transparency in the Family Courts: Publication of Judgments” [pdf] and “Transparency in the Court of Protection: Publication of Judgments” [pdf].
These two documents are intended “to bring about an immediate and significant change in practice in relation to the publication of judgments in family courts and the Court of Protection”.
Both documents say that:
In both courts there is a need for greater transparency in order to improve public understanding of the court process and confidence in the court system. At present too few judgments are made available to the public, which has a legitimate interest in being able to read what is being done by the judges in its name. The Guidance will have the effect of increasing the number of judgments available for publication (even if they will often need to be published in appropriately anonymised form [2].
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14 January 2014 by Rosalind English
Belhaj and another v Straw and Others [2013] EWHC 4111 (QB) 20 December 2013 – read judgment
Peter Skelton of 1 Crown Office Row acted for the defendants in this case. He has nothing to do with the writing of this post.
The High Court has struck out claims against British establishment defendants for “unlawful rendition”. The doctrine of immunity attaching to an act of state is total bar to that such claims and is not limited by the gravity of the alleged violation of rights.
Factual background
The first claimant, an opponent of the Gaddafi regime, and his wife, the second claimant, had been apprehended in Bangkok in 2004 whilst trying to travel from Beijing to the UK to claim asylum. They were held in a detention centre in Kuala Lumpur for two weeks and whilst they were there the UK authorities, along with the US, the Malaysians and the Chinese, worked together to secure their extradition to Libya (this was a time when friendly relations were maintained between the UK and the Libyan government). After another journey to Bangkok, where they were detained in a US “black site”, they were flown to Tripoli and transported to Tajoura prison, a detention facility operated by the Libyan intelligence services. The second claimant was released later in 2004, but the first claimant was transferred to another prison and held until 2010.
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13 January 2014 by Celia Rooney
Welcome back to the UK Human Rights Roundup, your regular delectable dossier of human rights news and views. The full list of links can be found here. You can find previous roundups here. Links compiled by Adam Wagner, post by Celia Rooney.
This week, the International Criminal Court has received a dossier detailing the UK’s involvement in abuse in Iraq. Meanwhile, the House of Lords has put up a fight over the so-called ‘annoyance injunctions’, while the Government has sought to find a solution to the European Court of Human Rights’ ruling on whole life tariffs.
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9 January 2014 by Guest Contributor
The glass foyer of the Palais de Droits de l’Homme in Strasbourg (pictured) is not to everyone’s taste. Some find it inspiring, others – often advocates appearing for the first time – are simply too nervous to notice. Typically, Rumpole on his triumphant visit takes a much more down-to-earth approach, comparing the building to the boiler of a ship.
Whatever one makes of it, the foyer of the Court is designed to remind visitors of two things: the Court’s accessibility and its openness. That is not always apparent from the Court’s procedures or from the language it sometimes uses to express itself, but it is beyond question that the Court is open to the different legal traditions of its member States. Most influential among those traditions must surely be the common law.
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6 January 2014 by Sarina Kidd
Welcome back to the UK Human Rights Roundup, your regular wholesome takeaway of human rights news and views. The full list of links can be found here. You can find previous roundups here. Links compiled by Adam Wagner, post by Sarina Kidd.
Welcome to 2014 and Santa has brought us the Defamation Act 2013, which aims to reduce the ‘chilling effect’ of previous libel laws . But as we enter 2014, not all is new. The Conservative Party continues to complain about European human rights. They seek to challenge the ECtHR ban on prison life sentences. How to deal with this? With hundreds of years of imprisonment instead. Meanwhile, today criminal lawyers will refuse to appear at court in order to protest against legal aid and criminal barrister fee cuts.
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30 December 2013 by Celia Rooney
Welcome back to the UK Human Rights Roundup, your regular fluttering confetti of human rights news and views. The full list of links can be found here. You can find previous roundups here. Links compiled by Adam Wagner, post by Celia Rooney.
This week, amidst the festive cheer, controversy over European human rights rages on, in relation to both the Charter and the Convention. In other news, the posthumous pardon of Alan Turing sparks debate over the use and abuse of the royal prerogative.
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23 December 2013 by Adam Wagner
Retailer Marks & Spencer is in the news again, and not this time for its Christmas advert. The ad was, incidentally, filmed in Temple – perhaps M&S bigwigs were on their way to getting some advice on how to deal with Muslim employees who didn’t want to serve pork and alcohol?
Anyway, the retailer has allowed Muslim employees to opt out of the requirement to serve pork and alcohol, both of which their religion prohibits – although it is not clear whether they are also prohibited from serving the products to other Muslims/non-Muslims. If Islam is anything like Judaism, which I am more familiar with, I imagine the practice may vary according to communities.
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23 December 2013 by Sarina Kidd
Welcome back to the UK Human Rights Roundup, your regular raging winter storm of human rights news and views. The full list of links can be found here. You can find previous roundups here. Links compiled by Adam Wagner, post by Sarina Kidd.
The Government received an unwelcome early christmas present this week, with the Joint Parliamentary Committee reporting that a blanket ban on prisoner enfranchisement had no rational basis. Meanwhile, Britain’s potentially unlawful treatment of detainees with regard to rendition and torture are coming to light with the Gibson Inquiry, and a senior judge has announced that perhaps, after the ‘forced Caesarean’ escalation, there needs to be more transparency in the family courts and Court of Protection.
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19 December 2013 by Adam Wagner
1 Crown Office Row’s Philippa Whipple QC and Matthew Hill were counsel to the Detainee Inquiry. They are not the writers of this post.
On 6 July 2010, in the first innocent days of the Coalition Government, former appeal judge Sir Peter Gibson was asked by the Prime Minister to enquire into “whether Britain was implicated in the improper treatment of detainees, held by other countries, that may have occurred in the aftermath of 9/11.” Almost 3 1/2 years later, the Detainee Inquiry has produced a report (it was originally presented to the Government on 27 June 2012 but there have been heavy negotiations about sensitive material in the public version).
The report makes clear at the outset that it “does not, and cannot, make findings as to what happened”. Why so? Because the Inquiry was scrapped before it heard evidence from any witnesses, so it couldn’t test any conclusions reached purely on the basis of documentary evidence. The reason given at the time by Sir Peter was that “it is not practical for the Inquiry to continue for an indefinite period to wait for the conclusion of the police investigations“. The “investigations” are those into claims of collusion by the intelligence services with torture in Libya (see this Q&A for more).
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19 December 2013 by Rosalind English
JXMX (A Child) v Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust [2013] EWHC 3956 (QB) – read judgment
Elizabeth-Anne Gumbel QC of 1 Crown Office Row represented the claimant in this case. She has nothing to do with the writing of this post.
In Part 1 on this subject, I discussed medical confidentiality and/or legal restrictions designed to protect the privacy of a mother and child. This case raises the question in a slightly different guise, namely whether the court should make an order that the claimant be identified by letters of the alphabet, and whether there should be other derogations from open justice in the guise of an anonymity order, in a claim for personal injuries by a child or protected party which comes before the court for the approval of a settlement.
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18 December 2013 by Rosalind English
AA, Re (Including: note by Mr Justice Mostyn) 4 December 2013 [2013] EWHC B24 (COP) – read note and judgment
In the matter of P (a child) 13 December 2013 [2013] EWHC 4048 (Fam) – read judgment
The full story of the “forced caesarean” that went viral a few weeks ago has been set out by Adam Wagner and others in his post “Lessons learned”. In order to set the record straight, Mostyn J has now authorised the 2012 judgment to be released, together with the verbatim transcript of the proceedings and the order made. Far from the baby being snatched from the womb of its unwilling mother at the behest of interfering social services, this is what took place:
… it was an urgent application first made at 16:16 on 23 August 2012 by the NHS Trust [not social services], supported by the clear evidence of a consultant obstetrician and the patient’s own treating consultant psychiatrist, seeking a declaration and order that it would be in the medical best interests of this seriously mentally ill and incapacitated patient, who had undergone two previous elective caesarean sections, to have this birth, the due date of which was imminent (she was 39 weeks pregnant), in the same manner.
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Pike and Doyle v Indian Hotel Companies Ltd [2013] EWHC 4096 (QB) – read judgment
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