Category: BLOG POSTS
13 September 2015 by Guest Contributor
In the news
Comparisons to Orwell’s dystopia have inevitably been drawn with the drone strikes recently carried out by the UK in Syria that killed two British IS fighters, Reyaad Khan and Ruhul Amin. Amnesty reacted with alarm at the news that remote control drones had been used as vehicles of execution – action they say “is difficult to conceive as being a feature of the present” – but particularly against a country with which we are not at war.
Controversy is certainly brewing over what Michael Fallon’s critics have termed a US-style “kill-list” and the legality of the government’s action, which David Cameron initially justified as an act of UK self-defence in his address to the Commons last Monday, necessary to protect the UK from an “imminent threat” – action which is permitted under Article 51 of the UN Charter.
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11 September 2015 by Rosalind English
A and others (In the matter of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008) – read judgment
This case is best summed up in Sir James Munby’s own words:
This judgment relates to a number of cases where much joy but also, sadly, much misery has been caused by the medical brilliance, unhappily allied with the administrative incompetence, of various fertility clinics. The cases I have before me are, there is every reason to fear, only the small tip of a much larger problem.
These cumulative cases
must raise questions as to the adequacy if not of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority’s regulation then of the extent of its regulatory powers. That the incompetence to which I refer is, as I have already indicated, administrative rather than medical is only slight consolation, given the profound implications of the parenthood which in far too many cases has been thrown into doubt. This is a matter I shall return to at the end of this judgment.
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10 September 2015 by Adam Wagner
Have you seen 11KBW’s Sean Jones’ brilliant (and extremely successful) “Billable Hour” appeal?
He has already exceeded his target by about a million percent but the target was pretty modest so please consider donating. The idea is that you donate the equivalent of what you charge for one hour of your time.
You can donate find his Just Giving page by clicking here. All money goes to Save The Children.
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8 September 2015 by Rosalind English
Parrillo v Italy (application no. 46470/11) Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights, [2015] ECHR 755 (27 August 2015) – read judgment
The Grand Chamber of the Strasbourg Court has ruled that the Italian ban on the donation of embryos obtained by IVF procedures to scientific research was within Italy’s margin of appreciation and therefore not in breach of the applicant’s right of private life and autonomy, even though she was willing to give the embryos to scientific research, since she no longer wanted to proceed with pregnancy after her partner was killed covering the war in Iraq. By donating these cryopreserved embryos to research she would, she argued, make an important contribution to research into medical therapies and cures.
A strong dissent to the majority judgment is worth pointing up at the outset. The Hungarian judge, Andras Sajó, found Italy’s general ban quite out of order. Not only did it disregard the applicant’s right to self-determination with respect to an important private decision, it did so in an absolute and unforeseeable manner.
The law contains no transitional rules which would have enabled the proper authority to take into consideration the specific situation of the applicant, whose embryos obtained from the IVF treatment were placed in cryopreservation in 2002 and whose husband passed away in 2003, three months before the law entered into force.
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8 September 2015 by Thomas Raine
The Christian Institute (and others) v Scottish Ministers [2015] CSIH 64, 3rd September 2015 – read judgment
The Court of Session’s appeal chamber – the Inner House – has unanimously rejected challenges to the Scottish government’s controversial named person scheme. Three individual petitioners, as well as The Christian Institute, Family Education Trust, The Tymes Trust, and Christian Action Research and Education (CARE), contested the appointment of named persons and the scheme’s provisions for data sharing.
The Named Person Scheme
The named person scheme is part of a package of measures introduced by the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014. According to the Scottish government, the aim of the legislation is to ensure that the rights of children are respected across the public sector.
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31 August 2015 by Hannah Lynes
Photo Credit: The Guardian
In the news
Immigration Minister James Brokenshire has announced proposals to make Britain “tougher on those with no right to be here’. The new measures are to be included in an Immigration Bill due this Autumn. Working illegally in England and Wales is set to be an offence punishable by a sentence of up to six months in prison and an unlimited fine. In addition, businesses suspected of failing to comply with immigration rules could face closure for up to 48 hours.
Policy Director at Focus on Labour Exploitation, Caroline Robinson, is critical of plans for a “labour market enforcement agency”. Far from preventing illegal working, “policies and practices putting immigration control above all else will result in increased forced labour and modern-day slavery in the UK”. Forthcoming research by the organisation highlights the dangers of blurring lines between immigration enforcement and labour inspection, with victims of labour exploitation more likely to avoid inspectors where they fear being reported to immigration officials.
The current system of immigration detention in the UK has also come under close scrutiny this week. Writing for Halsbury’s Law Exchange, Mark Lilley-Tams and Stewart MacLachlan identify potential opportunities for reform. Noting that the UK is unique within Europe in that an individual may be detained under the Immigration Acts for an indefinite period, the authors suggest a review of current government policy “to avoid unnecessary suffering to those being detained, and unnecessary use of public resources where detention is being used”.
Other news
Law Society Gazette: A Home Office report has highlighted ‘significant shortcomings’ in the provision of appropriate adults for vulnerable people in custody, putting them at risk of miscarriages of justice and lengthening custody times. Solicitors have called for urgent action to be made on the report’s recommendations.
A leading disability charity has been notified that the UN will be conducting an investigation into whether the UK government’s welfare reforms have caused “grave or systematic violations” of disabled people’s human rights. Figures released by the Department for Work and Pensions have revealed that between 2011 and 2014, 2,380 people have died within six weeks of being found ‘fit to work’. The Independent reports.
The Guardian: The newly appointed UN special rapporteur on privacy, Joseph Cannataci, has called for a universal law on internet surveillance. Cannataci has singled out the oversight mechanism in the UK as being one of the weakest in the western world, describing it as “a rather bad joke at its citizens’ expense”.
Local Government Lawyer: The Court of Appeal has rejected an appeal brought by Unison against rulings of the Divisional Court that the Government’s introduction of employment tribunal fees had not been unlawful. The union has applied for permission to take its legal challenge to the Supreme Court.
Sir John Chilcot is facing legal action to compel publication of his long-delayed report into the Iraq war. A statement by Sir John has attributed the delay in part to the ‘Maxwellisation’ process, in which individuals are given the opportunity to respond to criticism made against them. The BBC reports here.
UK HRB posts
Passports at the junction of international and domestic law – Richard Alton
ISIL child brides: a big care problem for the Family Court? – Rosalind English
Does Article 5 apply to extended sentences? – David Scott
Human Rights Conventions: when some are more equal than others? – Emily Thornberry MP
Events
The Liberty Human Rights Awards will take place on 7 September at London’s Southbank Centre. Tickets for the ceremony can be booked here.
If you would like your event to be mentioned on the Blog, please email the details to Jim Duffy, at jim.duffy@1cor.com.
Hannah Lynes
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30 August 2015 by Guest Contributor
Western governments are increasingly concerned to establish that they have the power to prevent individuals from traveling to the Middle East to engage in terrorism-related activity (see Rosalind English’s recent post on Jihadi Brides). This has resulted in a spike in passport seizures, especially on the domestic level. Under Chapter 1 of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 the UK government has the authority to seize UK passports
where a person is suspected of intending to leave Great Britain or the United Kingdom in connection with terrorism-related activity.
These events encouraged me to revisit a 2010 publication I co-authored with my colleague Jason Reed Struble, entitled ‘The Nature of a Passport at the Intersection of Customary International Law and American Judicial Practice’ (16 Ann. Surv. Int’l & Comp. L. 9 (2010)). In that piece we discussed the very nature of a passport and its role in both international and United States domestic law. This article focussed on the seizure of foreign passports by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the subsequent tribulations that follow. Thus, the work focused on a different spectrum of passport seizures, i.e. a government seizing another government’s passport, as opposed to a government seizing passports of its own nationals.
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27 August 2015 by Rosalind English
London Borough Tower of Hamlets v B [2015] EWHC 2491 (Fam) 21 August 2015 – read judgment
When a judge waxes lyrical about a child, garlanded with starred GCSEs, their intelligence, their medical school ambitions, you wonder what is coming. It’s the judicial equivalent of those blurred reproductions in the press of murder victims’ graduate portraits. In this case, a sixteen year old girl “B”, the subject of a careful but nevertheless alarming judgment in the Family Division, turned out to be one of the many girls groomed by their family for exodus to Syria; all of whom appear to be:
intelligent young girls, highly motivated academically, each of whom has, to some and greatly varying degrees, been either radicalised or exposed to extreme ideology promulgated by those subscribing to the values of the self-styled Islamic State.
B herself seemed unoppressed by the situation she was in and indeed wrote to the judge in those terms. She and her family refused to give evidence and sat impassively whilst Heydon J gave judgment.
They have betrayed no emotion; they have been impassive and inscrutable as I have faced the challenge of deciding whether their family should be fragmented and their children removed. Their self discipline is striking. They have listened carefully. The mother has taken careful notes. They have revealed nothing in their responses.
These cases differ from the common run of family abuse cases in that these young women, in the judge’s words, have “boundless opportunities, comfortable homes and carers who undoubtedly love them”. But they have been seduced by a belief that travelling to Syria to become what is known as ‘Jihadi brides’ is somehow romantic and honourable both to them and to their families.
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25 August 2015 by Rosalind English
A hand of applause for our Chief Ed Adam Wagner who’s just been shortlisted for the 2015 Liberty Human Rights Lawyer of the Year Award in recognition of his innovative efforts to bring human rights to life by correcting misinformation and explaining why human rights matter for everyone – the full list of nominees is here.
Adam Wagner founded the UK Human Rights Blog five years ago and more recently the new human rights information project RightsInfo, indefatigably combining all this writing and editing with his busy career as a barrister.
As Liberty’s press release says,
The barrister and campaigner has devoted his time and energy to debunking the myths which have grown up around our Human Rights Act, making the law more accessible to all in the process.
The Liberty Human Rights Awards celebrate the achievements of organisations and individuals from all walks of life who have worked tirelessly to protect and promote fundamental freedoms at a time when the post-war human rights consensus faces an unprecedented attack.
The award ceremony is open to the public (you can get tickets here) and will take place on 7 September at London’s Southbank Centre. It will be hosted by writer, actor and comedian Jo Brand.
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24 August 2015 by David Scott
Photo credit: The Guardian
Brown v Parole Board for Scotland, [2015] CSIH 59 – read judgment
Scotland’s civil appeal court, the Inner House of the Court of Session, has refused a prisoner’s appeal for damages resulting from an alleged failure to afford him a reasonable opportunity to rehabilitate himself during his extended sentence.
by David Scott
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24 August 2015 by Guest Contributor
When a legal challenge to one of the coalition Government’s flagship welfare reforms – an overall cap of £26,000 per year on the amount any family could receive in benefits – was reviewed by the Supreme Court earlier this year, the resulting judgment left many observers scratching their heads. Had the Court declared the cap unlawful or not? The answer seemed to be a mixture of yes and no.
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24 August 2015 by acwessely
Photo credit: Guardian
Alex Wessely brings you the latest Round-up.
In the news
Guantanamo Bay was back in the headlines this week, after the Obama administration responded to a legal request to free a hunger-striking detainee “entirely in secret”. Tariq Ba Odah has refused to eat voluntarily since 2007, and now weighs a “shockingly frail” 74.5 pounds (33.8kg).
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17 August 2015 by Laura Profumo
Laura Profumo serves us the latest human rights happenings.
In the news:
Lurid show-trial of a vulnerable man, the timely vindication of justice being done, and being seen to be done, a CPS volte-face.
Whatever you think of the Janner trial, it’s now in full swing. The former Labour Peer made his first appearance in court on Friday, facing 22 historic child sex abuse charges. The 87 year old’s committal hearing lasted some 59 seconds, after weeks of legal grappling with his defence lawyers. Any doubt over Janner’s dementia was “dispersed instantly” by his arrival, writes The Telegraph’s Martin Evans: flanked by his daughter and carer, Janner appeared frail and “confused”, cooing “ooh, this is wonderful” as he entered the courtroom. The case will now pass to the Crown Court, with the next hearing due on September 1, where a judge will decide whether the octogenarian is fit to stand trial, or whether a trial of fact is a suitable alternative. If the latter course is taken, a jury will decide if Janner was responsible for his charged actions – no verdict of guilt will be found, and no punishment will be handed down.
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14 August 2015 by Adam Wagner
I am are delighted to announce the launch of RightsInfo’s new infographic project:
The European Court of Human Rights Uncovered: What it does, who it protects, why it matters
If you care about spreading accurate information on human rights, then please share the infographic and individual cards as widely as possible.
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10 August 2015 by Hannah Lynes
Photo credit: The Guardian
In the news
The Howard League for Penal Reform has called for a review of the “unfair and unrealistic” Criminal Courts Charge, which “ penalises the poor and encourages the innocent to plead guilty”. The mandatory charge of up to £1,200 is imposed on those who admit committing minor misdemeanours, regardless of their circumstances.
The charity has compiled a list of cases where heavy financial charges have been demanded of people convicted of low-level offences. These include the case of a 38-year-old homeless man who admitted persistently begging in Oxford, and breaching an Asbo prohibiting him from sitting within 10 metres of a cash machine. He was jailed for 30 days and ordered to pay a £150 criminal courts charge.
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