Category: BLOG POSTS

Caesarean Escalation, Judges on Human Rights and Happy Birthday – the Human Rights Roundup

8 December 2013 by Sarina Kidd

Welcome back to the UK Human Rights Roundup, your regular seasonal sack-load 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. 

This week, bloggers tried to get to the bottom of the ‘forced caesarian’ case, a Supreme Court judge weighed in on the relationship between the UK and European law, and on Tuesday it’s the 65th birthday of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

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Continued detention pending removal of failed asylum seeker on hunger strike not unlawful

6 December 2013 by Rosalind English

IM (Nigeria) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2013] EWCA Civ 1561 (25 November 2013) – read judgement

The Court of Appeal has ruled that the secretary of state for the Home Department had the power to detain an immigration detainee in hospital to ensure that he received appropriate medical treatment pending his removal from the United Kingdom.

This was an appeal by a failed asylum seeker against the ruling by Ouseley J that his continued immigration detention was lawful ([2013] EWHC 3764 (Admin)).

Factual backgound

The appellant, a Nigerian national, had been refused asylum and leave to remain and was detained pending removal. He refused food and most fluids, stating further that he did not want medical treatment. His capacity to understand the significance or consequences of his decision had been tested on a number of occasions and was not in issue. An end-of-life plan had been prepared by nursing staff at the immigration removal centre. He had refused transfers to hospital, insisting on a condition of release from detention. His release had been refused despite referrals stating that he was unfit for detention at the IRC. The secretary of state had made a direction under the  Immigration Act 1971 Sch.2 para.18(1)  in relation to the appellant’s continued detention.
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Christian care worker loses Sunday working discrimination appeal – Richard Wayman

5 December 2013 by Guest Contributor

Mba v London Borough Of Merton [2013] EWCA Civ 1562 – Read judgment

The Court of Appeal has dismissed the appeal of a Christian care worker against the decision of the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) that a requirement that she work on Sundays indirectly discriminated against her on the grounds of religion or belief.

The Court unanimously found that although both the EAT and the Employment Tribunal (ET) had erred in law, the ET’s decision was ‘plainly and unarguably right’ [24], and applying the principle in Dobie v Burns International Security (UK) Limited [1984] ICR 812, the errors did not make any difference to the outcome.

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National Security trumps disclosure of Litvinenko secret documents, rules High Court

5 December 2013 by Dominic Ruck Keene

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Human rights for homo sapiens’ closest relatives?

4 December 2013 by Rosalind English

On Monday at 10.00 Eastern Time, the Nonhuman Rights Project filed suit in Fulton County Court in the state of New York on behalf of Tommy, a chimpanzee, who is being held captive in a cage in a shed at a used trailer lot in Gloversville.

According to the NRP, this is the first of three suits they are filing this week. The second was filed on Tuesday in Niagara Falls on behalf of Kiko, a chimpanzee who is deaf and living in a private home. And the third will be filed on Thursday on behalf of Hercules and Leo, who are owned by a research center and are being used in locomotion experiments at Stony Brook University on Long Island.

The organisation, led by the animal-rights lawyer Steven Wise, is using the writ of habeas corpus on behalf of the animals to ask the judge to grant the chimpanzees the right to bodily liberty and to order that they be moved to a sanctuary where they can live out their days with others of their kind in an environment as close to the wild as is possible in North America.

| Updated (10 December)|: The judge has declined the application for habeas corpus.  According to Steven Wise, Judge Boniello said  “that ‘I’m not going to be the one to make that leap of faith.’” Yet Boniello, who decided that chimpanzee personhood is ultimately a matter for legislatures to decide, was also “unexpectedly sympathetic”, calling their arguments sound and wishing them luck. “I’ve been in a lot of cases, and there’s not been many where the judge says, ‘Good luck.’ Usually they just say, ‘denied’.

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“Imprecise” injunctions against Facebook unenforceable, says NI judge

3 December 2013 by Rosalind English

J19 and Another v Facebook Ireland [2013] NIQB 113 – read judgment

The High Court in Northern Ireland has chosen to depart from the “robust” Strasbourg approach to service providers and their liability for comments hosted on their sites. Such liability, said the judge, was not consonant with the EC Directive on E-Commerce.

This was an application on behalf of the defendant to vary and discharge orders of injunction dated 27 September 2013 made in the case of both plaintiffs. One of the injunctions  restrained “the defendant from placing on its website photographs of the plaintiff, his name, address or any like personal details until further order.” These interim injunctions were awarded pursuant to writs issued by the plaintiffs for damages by reason of  the publication of photographs, information and comments on the Facebook webpages entitled “Irish Blessings”, “Ardoyne under Siege” and “Irish Banter” on 11 September 2013 and on subsequent dates.
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Lessons learned from the ‘Forced C-section’ case

3 December 2013 by Adam Wagner

Updated x 2 | Journalist Christopher Booker reported in Saturday’s Telegraph that an Italian woman was forced by Essex County Council social services to have a cesarean section, and then had her baby taken away from her – all sanctioned by the Court of Protection.

The story has become international news. I was going to write in detail on this, but family law barrister Lucy Reed has done a much better job than I would have been able to do. Her blog is here. Essex County Council have also released a statement of facts, which is here. I also recommend Elizabeth Prochaska and Suesspicious Minds.

I will keep this very simple. It was pretty obvious, based on Christopher Booker and John Hemming’s form (see my blog from 2011), that we were only getting a partial view of the story.

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CJEU sets itself against secret “nod and a wink” justice

2 December 2013 by David Hart KC

Fulmen & Mahmoudian v. Council of the European Union,28 November 2013,  read judgment

I posted last year on a decision by the General Court in Luxembourg, in which Fulmen successfully challenged sanctions taken against it as part of EU policy to apply pressure on Iran to end nuclear proliferation.

 Fulmen was said to have supplied electrical equipment on the Qom/Fordoo nuclear site and Mr Mahmoudian was said to be a director of Fulmen. Hence all of their assets were frozen by the EU.

The CJEU has now roundly dismissed the appeal by the EU Council from the ruling of the General Court. The sanctions order has been annulled – over 3 years after it was made. The Council has been told that if it wants to uphold such orders, it must adduce evidence to the Court, however sensitive the subject matter, and even if not all of that evidence is passed on to those affected.

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Equality, Christianity and Who Decides on Human Rights – the Human Rights Roundup

2 December 2013 by Celia Rooney

Welcome back to the UK Human Rights Roundup, your regular winter wonderland 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, equality issues dominate the headlines, while elsewhere judicial heavyweights throw their views into the ring on the institutional question of who should have the final say on issues involving human rights. 

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Welfare of child not a trump card against deportation

29 November 2013 by Rosalind English

 Zoumbas (Appellant) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (Respondent) On appeal from the Inner House of the Court of Session, [2012] CSIH 87 [2013] UKSC 74 – read judgment

The Supreme Court has clarified the principles to be applied when considering the welfare of children in deportation cases. The following summary is based on the Supreme Court’s Press Summary.

The appellant (Mr Z) and his wife (Mrs Z) are nationals of the Republic of Congo currently living in Glasgow with their three children, now aged 9, 5 and 2. Mr Z entered the UK illegally in May 2001 using a French passport that did not belong to him. He married Mrs Z in November 2003 after she had entered the previous year using a forged French passport and both their asylum claims had been refused. Their appeals were unsuccessful . In October 2005 Mrs Z and the couple’s daughter (A) were detained and removed to Congo. For the following ten months, Mr Z was treated as an absconder having failed to report to the authorities.

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South African Supreme Court orders police to investigate Zimbabwe torture allegations

28 November 2013 by Rosalind English

National Commissioner of the South African Police Service v Southern African Human Rights Litigation Centre (485/2012) [2013] ZASCA 168 (27 November 2013) – read judgment.

In what appears to be the first case where the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) has had to consider the investigation of crimes committed extraterritorially, the Court has made it clear that the perpetrators of systematic torture – as was alleged in this case – can be held accountable in South Africa regardless of where the offending acts took place.

It had been alleged that Zimbabwean officials had on a widespread scale tortured opponents of the ruling party. The Gauteng high court had ordered the SAPS to initiate an investigation under the Implementation of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Act 27 of 2002 (the ICC Act) into the alleged offences (see my previous post on that ruling).  
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Plebgate and costs budgets – The Sun off the hook for big bucks

27 November 2013 by David Hart KC

Mitchell v. News Group Newspapers 27 November 2013, CA  read judgment

We all know the story about how Andrew Mitchell MP may, or may not, have tried to barge past policeman in Downing Street with the memorable phrase “you’re f…ing plebs”. Like a lot of good stories, it may not be true, and like a lot of good stories it was picked up by The Sun. So Mr Mitchell sues The Sun in libel on the basis that it is untrue.

But this decision of the Court of Appeal is all about the reforms initiated by the man to my left, Sir Rupert Jackson, also a judge in the CA, who has shaken up the whole system of legal costs in civil litigation. And one of the major steps he has taken is to compel litigants to say what they intend to spend on a case early on – the costs budget – so that the judges can make some assessment of whether the thing is to be run sensibly or extravagantly.

Cue the present argument, where our MP’s lawyers do not file their costs budget on time, which is 7 days before the relevant hearing. So the parties go before the court, and The Sun says – we did our bit on time but we only got their budget yesterday, and we are not ready. To cut a long story short, The Sun now stand to recover a budgeted figure of £589,555 if they win, but our hapless MP (or his lawyers) will only recover his court fees if he wins.

How so?

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The latest challenge to the badger cull extension

27 November 2013 by Rosalind English

Updated: The extended badger cull has been called off after Natural England revoked licence over failure to meet greatly reduced targets (November 28). Experts say that the failed cull may have increased TB risk for cattle.

A new challenge was filed yesterday to the badger cull extension presently under way in the South West of England.

An eight week extension to the Gloucestershire pilot cull was granted by Natural England after the initial trial period failed to reach its 70% target, and began on 23 October.  Brian May’s Save Me organisation, represented by John Cooper QC, has put in an “exceptionally urgent” application for judicial review of the extension of the licence for the cull in Gloucestershire. The Secretary of State For Environment Food and Rural Affairs, DEFRA, and Natural England are named as defendants. Other interested parties are the National Farmers Union and the Badger Trust.

According to the Save Me organisation, the call for an urgent review is based on the reasoning that with the Gloucestershire extension already operative, and unless this is urgently addressed the period of the extension might elapse before a formal review can be applied.
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Supreme Court upholds gay discrimination ruling in hotel case

27 November 2013 by Rosalind English

Bull and another (Appellants) v Hall and another (Respondents) [2013] UKSC 73 (27 November 2013) – read judgment

This appeal concerned the law on discrimination. Mr and Mrs Bull, the appellants, own a private hotel in Cornwall. They are committed Christians, who sincerely believe that sexual intercourse outside traditional marriage is sinful. They operate a policy at their hotel, stated on their on-line booking form, that double bedrooms are available only to “heterosexual married couples”.

The following summary is taken from the Supreme Court’s press report. See Marina Wheeler’s post on the ruling by the Court of Appeal in this case. A full analysis of the case will follow shortly.

References in square brackets are to paragraphs in the judgment.

The respondents, Mr Hall and Mr Preddy, are a homosexual couple in a civil partnership. On 4 September 2008 Mr Preddy booked, by telephone, a double room at the appellants’ hotel for the nights of 5 and 6 September. By an oversight, Mrs Bull did not inform him of the appellants’ policy. On arrival at the hotel, Mr Hall and Mr Preddy were informed that they could not stay in a double bedroom. They found this “very hurtful”, protested, and left to find alternative accommodation.
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Strasbourg: defaming the dead, football and historical revisionism

26 November 2013 by David Hart KC

Putistin v. Ukraine, ECtHR, 21 November 2013  read judgment

An extraordinary story, with a twist, and an interesting decision by the Strasbourg Court that lack of respect for the honour and dignity of a dead relative may give rise to a breach of Article 8 and its right to family life.

In 1942 various professional footballers who had previously played for FC Dynamo Kyiv but who were now working in a bakery, ran out in the strip of FC Start. Their opponents (Flakelf) were pilots from the German Luftwaffe, air defence soldiers and airport technicians.

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