Category: In the news
18 January 2011 by Rosalind English
IFAW Internationaler Tierschutz-Fonds gGmbH; read judgment
EU law is replete with the soaring rhetoric of rights and transparency. Indeed the very first Article of the Treaty on European Union states that ‘decisions are taken as openly as possible and as closely as possible to the citizen’ . But not, it appears, when the decision concerns the balance between short-term economic interests and those of the environment – or, in the Commission’s own words, the “Community’s natural heritage”.
Key facts and figures relating to central policy remain firmly under lock and key in the EU, as NGOs find when they try to get the Commission to enforce the various Directives against national governments and the EU institutions themselves.
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17 January 2011 by Adam Wagner
Immigration and deportation decisions are regularly used to attack the Human Rights Act, and are raised as examples of why it must be amended or replaced. But a recent deportation case shows that such decisions are often poorly reported and articles ignore crucial details.
Yesterday’s Sunday Telegraph reported on the case of a man who killed a Gurkha soldier’s son and cannot be deported because of human rights law. According to David Barrett, Home Affairs Correspondent, the controversial decision will “intensify pressure” on the prime minister “who has so far failed to deliver a Conservative promise to rip up the Human Rights Act.”
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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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13 January 2011 by Rosalind English
R (on the application of) Reetha Suppiah and others v Secretary of State for the Home Department and Interveners [2011] EWHC 2 (Admin) – Read judgment
A high court judge has ruled that two asylum seekers and their children were unlawfully detained at Yarl’s Wood immigration centre last year.
This ruling will add fuel to the flames of the debate over whether the government is truly committed to ending the detention of children in immigration centres, or whether they intend merely to “minimise” it.
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12 January 2011 by Rosalind English
C-115/09 Bund für Umwelt und Naturschutz Deutschland, Landesverband Nordrhein-Westfalen eVvBezirksregierung Arnsberg Trianel Kohlekraftwerk Lünen (intervening) – read judgment
The German system of judicial review involves a “careful and detailed” scrutiny of administrative decisions. However, admissibility criteria are such that few are able to access this system, particularly groups bringing actions alleging environmental harm.
At the centre of this case is the highly topical matter, relevant to one of the discussion threads on this site, of the trend towards a new system of environmental justice, heralded by Aarhus and the accompanying EU Directives, where national courts to are required to recognise claims brought by pressure groups alleging infringement of environmental provisions, even where there is no individual legal interest involved. The Trianel case puts into sharp focus the debate as to whether the environment should be protected not as an expression of an individual’s interest, but as a general public interest, enforceable in the courts.
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10 January 2011 by Adam Wagner
In a plot worthy of a Hollywood film, the trial of six environmental campaigners charged with conspiring to shut down a power station has apparently collapsed after an undercover police officer switched sides.
According to the BBC:
The six were charged with conspiring to shut down the Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station in Nottingham in 2009. The case was due to start on Monday, but was abandoned after Pc Mark Kennedy contacted the defence team to say he would be prepared to help them. The prosecution subsequently dropped their case. Mr Kennedy had been intimately involved in the green movement since 2000.
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9 January 2011 by Adam Wagner
Gabrielle Giffords, a Democratic US congresswoman, is in a critical condition after being shot at a public meeting in Tucson, Arizona. Six other people died in the shooting, including a federal judge and a 9-year-old child. Eighteen others suffered gunshot wounds.
Little is known as yet about the alleged shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, save that he had a troubled past and may have mental health problems. It is also possible that there was a second person involved.
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7 January 2011 by Adam Wagner
Former Member of Parliament David Chaytor has been sentenced to 18 months imprisonment by Mr Justice Saunders after pleading guilty to 3 charges of false accounting in relation to his Parliamentary expenses.
The sentence marks the end of a long legal road for Mr Chaytor, whose case – along with two others – has already reached the Supreme Court without any criminal trial taking place. In a fascinating case for those interested in the British constitution, the Supreme Court was asked to rule on whether a court could try a Member of Parliament in relation to the submission of an allegedly dishonest claim for Parliamentary expenses. The men claimed it could not, relying on Article 9 of the 1688 Bill of Rights, which states:
That the Freedome of Speech and Debates or Proceedings in Parlyament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any Court or Place out of Parlyament.
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7 January 2011 by Guest Contributor
This week 18 defendants were sentenced after being found guilty of conspiracy to commit aggravated trespass. Guest blogger Eleanor Cooombs of Wild Law reports.
Their crime was to attempt the shut-down of Ratcliffe-on-Soar, the UK’s third largest coal-fired power station. Yet, they argue that they are not criminals but defenders of the very future of the planet.
Their defence raised the argument of necessity which makes it excusable to commit an act which would otherwise be a crime, in order to prevent death and serious injury. A classic example is that it would be legal to break the window of a burning house in order to save the life of a child who was inside it. The defendants posited that they were acting to prevent the greater crimes of death and serious injury caused by climate change. They hoped their actions would prevent around 150 thousand tonnes of carbon emissions from being released into the atmosphere and would draw attention to the ‘failures of our present political system’ -the perceived lack of government action towards meeting its legal duty to cut emissions by 80% by 2050.
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7 January 2011 by Rosalind English
[Updated] In the spirit of our coverage of environmental activism in one form or another, here is the website strapline for the Campaign for Real Farming, which sets out to
achieve nothing less than the people’s takeover of the food supply
Some of the initiatives for that takeover were being aired at the CRF’s “fringe” farming conference which took place in Oxford this week, voicing polite but forceful protest against the high production objectives of the mainstream Farming Conference in the Examination Schools next door.
According to CRF founder Colin Tudge, if we are serious about feeding 9 bn people in a few decades’ time, the current food production system, which is designed to make money, has to be dismantled in favour of small scale, labour intensive farming, which is designed to feed people. Like any reform movement, this “agrarian renaissance” is about wresting power away from existing authorities and it has set its sights on, amongst other things, the constellation of laws and regulations governing the cultivation of food.
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7 January 2011 by Rosalind English
It must be something in the air. On the day the “Ratcliffe 20” were spared imprisonment for their planned attack on a power station, the Guardian published environmental lawyer Polly Higgins’ call for a new crime of ecocide and the fringe movement Campaign for Real Farming – rival to the mainstream Oxford Farming Conference – were sewing the seeds for resistance to ecologically damaging agricultural laws and practices.
The widespread perception is that the law and its custodians can no longer be trusted to safeguard the environment, or, to put it in the language of rights, that the protection that flows from current forms of rights entitlement is not only insufficient for, but positively damaging to the interests of the natural world.
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6 January 2011 by Adam Wagner
Updated | The government is soon to reveal the future of control orders, controversial anti-terrorism measure which have been repeatedly found by the courts to infringe human rights. But what are they? And why have they caused such trouble since they were introduced?
What are control orders?
Control orders are an anti-terrorism power which allows the secretary of state to impose strict conditions on a terrorist suspect (the ‘controlee’).
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5 January 2011 by Adam Wagner
Don't get fired
The future of the employment tribunal system is under review by the coalition government, and the players who are to win and lose from the changes are setting out their positions.
Depending on where you stand, the employment tribunal system is either a refuge for greedy lawyers and scurrilous claimants, or an essential bulwark against workplace abuses. In reality, like the rest of the court system, it can be both but is usually something in between. As such, the coalition should consider its options carefully, and listen to both sides of the debate, before making any decisions on reform.
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3 January 2011 by Adam Wagner
Stephen Kinzer, a New York Times journalist and author, has written a scathing article on the efforts of international human rights groups on Guardian.co.uk. The article has generated controversy but in fact keys into a long-standing debate with important implications for the future of the international human rights movement.
The Kinzer article has predictably generated significant debate, with over 300 reader comments so far. Many of the commenters are critical, as is to be expected.
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2 January 2011 by Adam Wagner
Legal blogger Charon QC has published the latest Blawg Review, a comprehensive survey of the legal blogging world.
It is a magnum opus, and in order to express just how large and comprehensive it is, I have borrowed an image from the Family Lore blog which shows the review in its entirety.
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IFAW Internationaler Tierschutz-Fonds gGmbH; read judgment 
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