27 January 2015
Some exciting news.
I have a new project. The aim is to change the face of human rights.
As readers of this blog will know, I often complain about bad human rights journalism. But inadequate reporting is a symptom of a deeper problem: poor public understanding of human rights.
It is time to do something about it. Introducing the Human Rights Information Project (HRIP).
23 January 2015
Last week, on 15 January 2015, TTIP was debated in the House of Commons – see here. It is important for us all, but why?
TTIP stands for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, a proposed trade agreement between the US, the EU, and various members of the EU including the UK. A sober account of its history and scope was produced for the HoC debate (here), and a rather less polite view is here from George Monbiot.
Now, TTIP contains the usual things which one might expect to see in a trade agreement, such as the reduction or removal of tariffs between the respective trading blocs. And it comes with the usual accompanying material suggesting that all parties will benefit massively from the deal to the tune of billions of euros.
So what is there not to like?
Well, one part of the concern is that it will confer on investors (think multi-nationals) the right to sue governments for regulatory regimes causing loss of profits to those investors. This ability to sue is known as Investor-State Dispute Settlement or ISDS. And the suing does not happen in domestic courts, but in a special international law tribunal consisting of corporate lawyers drawn from the world over. I shall give some examples below of the sort of litigation engendered in the past by ISDS, so you can assess what this means in practice.
TTIP with ISDS is being enthusiastically backed by the present Government – not hitherto a fan of foreign judges taking charge of how our laws comply with external standards.
23 January 2015
Thursday 5 February 2015 marks the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta as well as the 50th anniversary of the School of Law at Queen Mary University of London. To commemorate both of these milestones, the Human Rights Collegium at Queen Mary University of London will be hosting this special event.
Paul Mahoney has been the UK judge on the European Court of Human Rights (Strasbourg) since November 2012. Before this, he spent the greater part of his career in the Registry of the Strasbourg Court, beginning as a case-lawyer in 1974 working on the case of Golder v. United Kingdom and ending as Registrar of the Court from 2001-05, with a three-year break in the 1990s as Head of Personnel of the Council of Europe (Strasbourg).
This event will be chaired by Professor Geraldine Van Bueren QC, and Lady Justice Arden will deliver the response.
The lecture will take place between 18.30 – 20.30 on Thursday 5 February at the Arts 2 Lecture Theatre, Queen Mary University of London, Mile End Road, London E1 4NS.
Book your tickets here.
22 January 2015
Essex County Council v RF and Others (deprivation of liberty and damages) [2015] EWCOP 1 – read judgment
The Court of Protection has castigated the actions of a County Council in depriving an old person of his liberty and dignity in their overreaction to reports that he might be subjected to financial exploitation. This, said the judge, amounted to punishing the victim for the acts of the perpetrators.
Factual background
The facts of this case can be summarised very shortly. P, a 91 year old gentleman, is a retired civil servant and WWII veteran, and until February 2013, has lived in his own home for fifty years. He has been alone with his companion cat since the death of his sister in 1998. He is described as being a very generous man ready to help others financially if he believed they needed it, as well as making donations to various charities.
Continue reading →
19 January 2015
I took part in a debate on the BBC World News today on some of the anti-terrorism law proposals and the impact on human rights. We only covered one aspect of the raft of anti-terrorism laws which are currently making their way through Parliament – see Angela Patrick’s detailed post from last week, which is highly recommended.
You can watch the five-minute debate below.
19 January 2015
Photo credit: guardian.co.uk
Chief Constable of Greater Manchester v Calder [2015] EWHC B11 – Read judgment
Adam Wagner represented Scott Calder in this case. He is not the writer of this post.
The Greater Manchester Police (‘GMP’) have been unsuccessful in an attempt to obtain an Injunction to Prevent Gang-Related Violence (‘IPGV’ or ‘Gangbo‘) against Scott Calder. The application was based on police intelligence and the lyrics of Mr Calder’s YouTube Grime Rap videos. On 14 January 2015, Mr Justice Blake dismissed the GMP’s appeal to the High Court, and in doing so laid out guidance on the purpose and ambit of the IPGV legislation, which is currently being substantially amended by Parliament.
The below is based on the Judge’s ex tempore judgment (i.e. given at the hearing). We will post the full judgment when it is available.
18 January 2015
B and G (Children) (No.2) [2015] EWFC 3 – read judgment
Contemplating the details of different forms of female genital mutilation is not for the faint hearted. But that is what the courts and the relevant experts have to do, not only to protected alleged victims but to defend the interests of those suspected of perpetuating the procedure, whether it is a question of criminal liability under the FGM Act 2003, or determining that a threshold of harm has been passed so as to initiate care proceedings if the victim is a child.
This case concerned the latter; although in the end the court was not satisfied that the evidence was sufficient to satisfy the “significant harm” requirement under the Children Act 1989, Sir James Munby P considered the case sufficiently important to explore the inclusion of FGM, and, more controversially, male circumcision, in the array of cultural and religious rituals that can trigger the state’s intervention in family life.
These were “deep waters” which the judge was “hesitant to enter”, yet, enter them he did, all the better for the clarification of this difficult issue in care proceedings.
Continue reading →
8 January 2015
I will keep this short. David Davies MP (not David Davis MP) has posted on his official blog that the Paris attacks show that the Human Rights Act should be repealed. His reasoning is spurious. He does not understand the law. He misrepresents the Human Rights Act. I will explain why below. But first, here is his post in full:
Continue reading →
8 January 2015
Last night I tweeted that none of the UK newspapers has dared to show a single cartoon from the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine on today’s front pages. This has been retweeted over 1,500 times and counting. For the Twitter-unitiated, that is a lot. My tweet hit a nerve and I want to explain why I think that is.
The Charlie Hebdo massacre was, for me, even more affecting that the usual indiscriminate Islamist terror attacks. The gunmen targeted political satirists and cartoonists – they killed the clowns. At base it was, as has been said a million times already, an attack on freedom.
Charlie Hebdo is a left-wing satirical magazine. Safe to say it is anti-religious, amongst other things. It has printed many cartoons of religious leaders including of Mohammed. The magazine’s offices were firebombed in 2011 after it changed its title to Charia Hebdo (a play on Sharia, the Islamic system of law). Its staff were under constant threat but remained unbowed.
Continue reading →
7 January 2015
M, R (on the application of) v Hampshire Constabulary and another (18 December 2014) [2014] EWCA Civ 1651 – read judgment
The law governing the monitoring of sex offenders, allowing police officers to visit the homes of registered offenders, did not constitute an unlawful interference with the offenders’ privacy rights under Article 8 of the ECHR.
This was an appeal against a decision by the appellant (M) against a decision by Hallett LJ and Collins J in the Administrative Court that the practice of police officers making visits to the homes of registered sex offenders for the purpose of monitoring their behaviour did not violate the Convention.
Continue reading →
5 January 2015
Re K and H (Children: unrepresented father: cross-examination of child) [2015] EWFC 1, HHJ Bellamy – read judgment
Philippa Whipple QC of 1 COR appeared for the Lord Chancellor in this case. She has played no part in the writing of this post.
This case raises a very stark problem. A father wants to see his children aged 5 and 4. The mother has an elder daughter, Y, aged 17. Y told her teacher that the father sexually abused her. The truth or otherwise of this allegation is relevant to whether there should be contact between father and his children.
The father is a litigant in person, and unsurprisingly (whatever the status of her allegations) Y does not to be cross-examined by the father, nor, equally understandably, does the father wish to do so himself.
So who should? And does the court have the power to order Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS) to pay for legal representation for the father limited to that cross-examination of Y? So the Lord Chancellor was allowed to intervene – he had been invited to do so in a previous case (Q v. Q – here, and our post here, to which we will come), but had been unwilling to do so – not perhaps tactful to the judges but then he still seems to be learning the ropes in that respect – see here.
1 January 2015
Like lots of things to do with the ECHR, the idea seems to have been British. As Simpson put it in his magnificent history of the Convention, Human Rights and the End of Empire (OUP, 2001), Our Man (Jebb), in early 1949, appears to have suggested the site of the Council of Europe should be Strasbourg
not for its architectural or gastronomic qualities, much less for its geese, but because of its symbolic significance for Franco-German reconciliation
Quite obvious, when you think about it. I was spurred into this by my winter festival reading, Neil MacGregor’s Germany.
Strasbourg commands a chapter, Floating City. Floating, because it swapped between Germany and France regularly, with increasing rapidity in the run up to the ECHR in 1950. Formerly known as Strassburg, it had been emphatically part of the Holy Roman Empire, an Imperial city, a bishopric and German-speaking, until Louis XIV nicked it in 1681 – in war. The French were wise enough to administer it with a light touch – German remaining the predominant language – so it remained nominally French until 1871. Indeed, Goethe (and Metternich) studied there, and Goethe lauded the Gothic mediaeval cathedral (see pics) as reflecting supremely German architecture (Von Deutscher Baukunst) – which of course it wasn’t, given that Gothic architecture derives from France.
Continue reading →
31 December 2014
The multiple sclerosis sufferer Debbie Purdy died in the Marie Curie hospice in Bradford on December 23 2014. Having been denied her right to travel to Dignitas in Switzerland, which would have exposed her husband to the risk of prosecution under the 1961 Suicide Act, she took the only option available to her – refusing food. Death by starvation is not pleasant. The relevant Wikipedia entry describes some of the symptoms:
The body breaks down its own muscles and other tissues in order to keep vital systems such as the nervous system and the heart muscle functioning.
… Early symptoms include impulsivity, irritability, hyperactivity, and other symptoms. Atrophy (wasting away) of the stomach weakens the perception of hunger, since the perception is controlled by the percentage of the stomach that is empty. Victims of starvation are often too weak to sense thirst, and therefore become dehydrated.All movements become painful due to muscle atrophy and dry, cracked skin that is caused by severe dehydration. With a weakened body, diseases are commonplace. Fungi, for example, often grow under the esophagus, making swallowing painful.
I apologise for introducing such a gloomy subject into the dying embers of 2014, but it is too important to pass by.
29 December 2014
WordPress.com, the blogging software we use to make the blog, prepared a 2014 annual report. We had almost a million hits and have crashed through the 2,000 post barrier since our launch in 2010. Thanks for reading and here is for a very interesting 2015. Adam Wagner
Here’s an excerpt:
The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 890,000 times in 2014. If it were an exhibit at the Louvre Museum, it would take about 38 days for that many people to see it.
Click here to see the complete report.
28 December 2014
Greater Glasgow Health Board v. Doogan and Wood [2014] UKSC 68 – read judgment here.
The Supreme Court recently handed down its judgment in an interesting and potentially controversial case concerning the interpretation of the conscientious objection clause in the Abortion Act 1967. Overturning the Inner House of the Court of Session’s ruling, the Court held that two Catholic midwives could be required by their employer to delegate to, supervise and support other staff who were involved in carrying out abortion procedures, as part of their roles as Labour Ward Co-ordinators at the Southern General Hospital in Glasgow.
We set out the background to the case and explained the earlier rulings and their ramifications on this blog here and here. The key question the Supreme Court had to grapple with the meaning of the words “to participate in any treatment authorised by this Act to which he has a conscientious objection” in section 4 of the 1967 Act.
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