12 December 2025
Introduction
In this case, the High Court considered the appropriate legal test for leaving findings of fact to juries in Article 2 inquests. Is it that such findings are arguable? Or is it that there is sufficient evidence to support them? The answer, quite firmly, is the latter.
25 July 2025
R (Ferguson) v HM Assistant Coroner for Sefton, Knowlsey and St Helens [2025] EWHC 1901 (Admin) concerned a challenge by the next of kin of Joseph Farley, who died after jumping from the fourteenth floor of a carpark. The Coroner conducting mr Farley’s inquest has determined that Article 2, ECHR, did not apply and that the inquest could be heard without a jury. Mr Ferguson challenged both of these decisions by way of judicial review.
In a thorough and detailed judgment upholding Mr Ferguson’s challenge, Mrs Justice Hill gave a useful restatement of the law on Article 2, as well as a useful illustration of how it applies if difficult and complex fact patterns. The judgment also contains helpful clarification on the different sorts of causation tests that apply to parts of the Coronial process.
18 March 2024
Anurag Deb & Colin Murray
In Dillon [2024] NIKB 11, the controversial Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 (Legacy Act) was challenged head on. The Court disapplied a number of provisions of the Act as being in breach of relevant aspects of EU law which continue to apply to Northern Ireland via the Windsor Framework. We have covered the precise EU law aspects of Dillon elsewhere and will only cover the ECHR elements of the judgment in this post. As will become clear, however, there is a critical link between these two main aspects of the judgment.
The disapplication of any part of an Act of the UK Parliament is infrequent enough to be notable. Given that Dillon marks not only some of the most extensive disapplication in history but also is the first such event after Brexit, the decision is significant. But, as we will demonstrate, the decision is not radical. Far from it, much of Mr Justice Colton’s 738-paragraph judgment is an orthodox application of the relevant law.
26 April 2021
In the News:
The Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) has found that Priti Patel breached her procedural obligations under Article 2 of the ECHR in respect of deaths in immigration detention.
The application for judicial review arose following the death of Oscar Lucky Okwurime on 12 September 2019 in his cell at IRC Harmondsworth. Mr Okwurime had tried but failed to secure healthcare at the centre. He was not provided with his obligatory ‘Rule 34’ GP appointment within 24 hours of his arrival.
Priti Patel was subject to a legal requirement to assist the coronial inquest by identifying and securing evidence from potential witnesses. Instead, she elected to continue with her plans to remove a number of potential witnesses, including the Applicant, Mr Lawal, a close friend of Mr Okwurime.
Later, the Area Coroner for West London required Mr Lawal to attend the inquest on the basis that he was “an important witness of fact.” The jury later found that “multiple failures to adhere to healthcare policy” and “neglect” contributed to Mr Okwurime’s death from coronary heart disease.
The court found that Patel acted unlawfully in deciding to remove the Applicant in that she failed to take to take reasonable steps to secure the applicant’s evidence concerning the death of Oscar Okwurime. Aditionally, the absence of a policy directing caseworkers on how to exercise immigration powers in a case concerning a witness to a death in custody was unlawful. This was contrary to her Article 2 procedural obligations.
A Home Office spokesperson has said that, in light of the judgment, its processes were being refreshed and a checklist was being introduced to ensure all potential witnesses are identified.
The decision comes as Patel faces criticism for “serious mistakes” and “fundamental failures of leadership and planning” by the Home Office in managing former military sites as makeshift accommodation for asylum seekers. The Home Office is also being sued by a female asylum seeker who claims that staff at her asylum accommodation refused to call an ambulance for three hours after she told them she was pregnant, in pain and bleeding. When she was eventually taken to a nearby hospital, she learned that her baby had died.
In Other News:
In the Courts:
On the UKHRB:
15 June 2020
Conor Monighan brings us the latest updates in human rights law
In the News:
Anti-racism protests, sparked by the death of George Floyd, continued across the world. This week much of the focus has been on statues commemorating controversial historical figures. In Bristol, campaigners toppled the statue of a 17th century slave trader called Edward Colston.
The move led to a debate about what ought to be done with such statues. The founder of the Scouts, Robert Baden-Powell, was accused of racism, homophobia, and anti-Semitism. Initially it seemed his statue would be put into storage, but following an outcry it has been boarded up instead. A number of other figures have received similar treatment, including Sir Winston Churchill.
In the US, it seems change is coming to policing. The Democratic Party is proposing a police reform bill which, if passed, would become the Justice in Policing Act of 2020. The Bill would ban chokeholds from being used, limit the use of military weapons, and restrict qualified immunity (the legal principle which has prevented many officers from being sued for alleged misconduct). President Trump confirmed that he ‘generally’ supported ending the use of chokeholds.
3 June 2019
Conor Monighan brings us the latest updates in human rights law
Credit: The Guardian
In the News:
The High Court has granted a without-notice injunction which bans protesters from gathering outside a primary school’s gates.
Protesters have been campaigning for weeks against Anderton Park Primary School’s decision to teach its pupils about LGBT issues. The activists argue that the children are ‘too young’ to understand the relationships. Some have also stated that it conflicts with Islamic teaching.
The Headteacher, Sarah Hewitt-Clarkson, told the media that she has received a number of threatening messages. The school had to close early for half-term due to the protests.
Birmingham City Council applied for the injunction last week on the basis that the protests were beginning to jeopardise the safety of staff, pupils and parents. The injunction will last until the 10th June.
In Other News….
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30 November 2018
Conway, R (on the application of) v Secretary of State for Justice [2018] – read judgment
A man suffering from motor neurone disease has been refused permission to appeal to the Supreme Court in his bid to be allowed to choose when and how to die. He is now wheelchair bound and finds it increasingly difficult to breathe without the assistance of non-invasive mechanical ventilation (NIV). His legal campaign to win such a declaration, on his own behalf and others in a similar position, has met with defeat in the courts (see our previous posts on Conway here, here and here). As the Supreme Court noted in their short decision, Mr Conway
could bring about his own death in another way, by refusing consent to the continuation of his NIV. That is his absolute right at common law. Currently, he is not dependent on continuous NIV, so could survive for around at least one hour without it. But once he becomes dependent on continuous NIV, the evidence is that withdrawal would usually lead to his death within a few minutes, although it can take a few hours or in rare cases days.
But Mr Conway doesn’t see this as a solution to his difficulties, since he cannot predict how he will feel should ventilation be withdrawn, and whether he will experience the drowning sensation of not being able to breathe. Taking lethal medicine, he argued, would avoid all these problems.
In his view, which is shared by many, it is his life and he should have the right to choose to end it in the way which he considers most consistent with his human dignity.
28 November 2018
In the latest in the protracted investigation into the death of Pearse Jordan, the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal has upheld the verdict of a Coroner who found himself unable to decide all the relevant facts – Re Theresa Jordan [2018] NICA 34. The case raises issues around the appropriate burden and standard of proof in inquests, particularly after a significant passage of time.
The Inquests
On 25 November 1992, Patrick Pearse Jordan was shot and killed at Falls Road, Belfast, by an officer of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, referred to in proceedings as “Sergeant A.” Mr Jordan was unarmed and was shot in the back. Three inquests have subsequently been held into his death.
Continue reading →
20 August 2017
The mother of a British soldier who was killed in a roadside bomb while on duty in Iraq has received an apology from Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon. Sue Smith’s son, Pte Phillip Hewett, died while travelling on patrol in a lightly armoured “snatch” Land Rover in July 2005.
Following a settlement of the case, Sir Michael has written to Ms Smith:
“I would like to express directly to you my deepest sympathies and apologise for the delay, resulting in decisions taken at the time in bringing into service alternative protected vehicles which could have saved lives.”
What did Ms Smith allege?
The circumstances around Pte Hewett’s death have been the subject of litigation for the last 6 years.
6 May 2017
R (o.t.a T) v. HM Senior Coroner for West Yorkshire [2017] EWCA 187 (Civ), 28 April 2017 – read judgment
A sad story of human frailty posed two difficult problems for the Coroner, and the Court of Appeal.
A 19-year old mother went into hospital, with a shoebox. In the shoebox was the 6-days dead body of her daughter. She told the hospital and the police that she had been raped, hence the shame about reporting the death. She had given birth in her bedroom at home, and she said that the baby had been cold when born.
Continue reading →
5 October 2016
In the news
The oversight of the conduct of British soldiers in Iraq has been subject of two recent developments. The first is political, as Prime Minister Theresa May has renewed criticism of investigations into allegations of criminal behaviour of British troops. The second is legal, with the Court of Appeal offering clarification as to the role of the ECHR in conflicts abroad. However, comments by Defence Secretary Michael Fallon have since thrown into doubt the future role of the ECHR in conflicts abroad.
12 January 2016
In the Chamber Judgment (currently available only in French) in the case of Lopes de Sousa Fernandes v. Portugal (App. No. 56080/13) decided just before Christmas, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) held that there was both a substantive (by 5 votes to 2) and a procedural (unanimous) violation of Article 2 in the case of the death of the Applicant’s husband in circumstances where there was a negligent failure to diagnose meningitis shortly after (successful) nasal polyp surgery, even though that negligent failure was not necessarily causative. This very surprising outcome is important, and may be seen as a radical departure from the established case law of the Court on the necessary threshold for establishing an Article 2 violation in State (i.e. NHS) hospital cases. It also underlines the increased importance of informed consent in clinical negligence cases when viewed from a human rights perspective.
Continue reading →
19 November 2015
Judgments in best interests cases involving children often make for heart-wrenching reading. And so it was in Bolton NHS Foundation Trust v C (by her Children’s Guardian) [2015] EWHC 2920 (Fam), a case which considered Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health guidance, affirming its approach was in conformity with Article 2 and Article 3 ECHR. It also described, in the clearest terms, the terrible challenges facing C’s treating clinicians and her parents.
Continue reading →
7 July 2015
Photo: The Guardian
In Finucane’s (Geraldine) Application [2015] NIQB 57 the Northern Ireland High Court dismissed a challenge to the decision by the British Government to carry out a ‘review’ by Sir Desmond Da Silva rather than a public inquiry into the murder of Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane on 12 February 1989.
Mr Finucane, a Belfast solicitor who had represented a number of high profile IRA and INLA members including Bobby Sands, was murdered in front of his family by loyalist paramilitaries in one of the most notorious killings of the Troubles. His death was mired in controversy due to the collusion between the security forces and his killers. Mr Justice Stephens stated at the outset of his judgment that
It is hard to express in forceful enough terms the appropriate response to the murder, the collusion associated with it, the failure to prevent the murder and the obstruction of some of the investigations into it. Individually and collectively they were abominations which amounted to the most conspicuously bad, glaring and flagrant breach of the obligation of the state to protect the life of its citizen and to ensure the rule of law. There is and can be no attempt at justification.
19 February 2015
JX MX (by her mother and litigation friend AX MX) v. Dartford & Gravesham NHS Trust [2015] EWCA Civ 96, 17 February 2015 – read judgment
Elizabeth Anne Gumbel QC and Henry Whitcomb of 1COR (instructed by Mark Bowman of Fieldfisher) all appeared pro bono for the successful appellant in this case. They have played no part in the writing of this post.
For some years there has been debate between the judges about whether anonymity orders should be made when very seriously injured people’s claims are settled and the court is asked to approve the settlement. This welcome decision of the Court of Appeal means that anonymity orders will normally be made in cases involving protected parties.
This is why the CA reached its decision.
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