Category: Article 2 | Right to life

Anonymity order compatible with Convention and common law – Supreme Court

9 May 2014 by Rosalind English

A (Respondent) v British Broadcasting Corporation (Appellant) (Scotland)  [2014] UKSC 25 – read judgment

This appeal related to whether the Scottish Courts took the correct approach to prohibit the publication of a name or other matter in connection with court proceedings under section 11 of the Contempt of Court Act 1981, and whether the court’s discretion was properly exercised in this case.  The Supreme Court unanimously dismissed the appeal by the BBC.

The following report is based on the Supreme Court’s Press Summary.   References in square brackets are to paragraphs in the judgment.

Background 

A, a foreign national, arrived in the UK in 1991. He was later granted indefinite leave to remain, but in 1996 was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment for sexual offences against a child. In 1998, he was served by the Home Secretary with a notice to make a deportation order [4]. He appealed against the decision and protracted proceedings followed in which A cited risks due to his status as a known sex offender of death or ill-treatment (contrary to Articles 2 and 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights  should he be deported. A’s identity was withheld in the proceedings from 2001 onwards [5]-[9].
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How not to get a pre-inquest review wrong

25 February 2014 by David Hart KC

Brown v. HM Coroner for Norfolk [2014] EWHC 187 (Admin) – read judgment

This is the sad tale of a young woman aged 31 dying in mysterious circumstances where the inquest went off entirely on the wrong footing. Joanne Foreman was not a diabetic but lived with a young boy who was. It was suspected that on the night before she died she had drunk heavily and then injected herself with insulin. The inquest proceeded on this basis. Nobody told the expert that the paramedics had taken a blood glucose from Joanne, which was entirely normal.  Once this was known, it was obvious that the court would quash the findings at inquest and order a new inquest.

But the case contains powerful guidance from the Chief Coroner (sitting as a judge on this decision) about how to conduct the pre-inquest review.

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How to be fair about transfer to Broadmoor

23 February 2014 by David Hart KC

R (L) v West London Mental Health Trust; (2) Partnership in Care (3) Secretary of State for Health [2014] EWCA Civ 47 read judgment

Jeremy Hyam of 1 Crown Office Row was for the Trust. He was not involved in the writing of this post.

L, aged 26, was in a medium security hospital for his serious mental health problems. Concerns about his animus towards another patient arose, and the Admissions Panel of Broadmoor (a high security hospital) agreed to his transfer. It did so without allowing his solicitor to attend and without giving him the gist of why his transfer was to be made.

So far, so unfair, you might think, as a breach of the common law duty to come up with a fair procedure.

But the next bit is the difficult bit. How does a court fashion a fair procedure without it becoming like a mini-court case, which may be entirely unsuitable for the issue at hand? This is the tricky job facing the Court of Appeal. And I can strongly recommend Beatson LJ’s thoughtful grappling with the problem, and his rejection of the “elaborate, detailed and rather prescriptive list of twelve requirements” devised by the judge, Stadlen J.

Note, though L eventually lost, the CA considered that proceedings were justified because of their wider public interest. Something for Parliament to deliberate upon when it debates Grayling’s proposed reforms for judicial review: see my recent post.

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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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Supreme Court weighs in on patient’s best interests and the meaning of futility

3 November 2013 by Kate Beattie

Aintree University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (Respondent) v James (Appellant) [2013] UKSC 67 – Read judgment / press summary

The Supreme Court has given judgment in the first case to come before it under the Mental Capacity Act 2005.  The sole judgment was given by Lady Hale (Deputy President of the Court), with whom Lord Neuberger, Lord Clarke, Lord Carnwath and Lord Hughes.

The case concerned best interests decisions in the case of a patient lacking capacity.  The patient, David James, had been admitted to hospital in May 2012 aged around 68 because of a problem with a stoma he had had fitted in 2001 during successful treatment for cancer of the colon. The problem was soon solved but he acquired an infection which was complicated by the development of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, an acute kidney injury and persistent low blood pressure.  He was admitted to the critical care unit and placed on a ventilator.

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You can’t be disabled when you’re dead – a footnote to R (Antoniou)

31 October 2013 by

A somewhat curious additional point arises out of the case of R (Antoniou) – see my earlier post for the main issue – in which the court decided that Article 2 ECHR does not require an independent investigation into deaths in state detention prior to a coroner’s inquest. There was therefore no obligation to ensure that there was an independent investigation into the suicide, or death resulting from self-harm, of a mentally ill person detained under Section 3 of the Mental Health Act 1983. There is such an investigation when a prisoner commits suicide. The Claimant thought this smacked of discrimination against the mentally disabled. The Court disagreed – on the somewhat surprising ground that you can’t be disabled once you’re dead.

Where a prisoner commits suicide, or dies as a result of self-harm, there will be an independent investigation from the outset. Any death in prison or in probation custody is automatically referred immediately to the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman for independent investigation. The Independent Police Complaints Commission performs a similar role for deaths in police, immigration or Customs & Excise detention. There is no equivalent independent investigator of deaths in mental health detention, which are investigated by the hospital where they occurred. The Claimant said this distinction discriminates between people who are mentally disabled and those of sound mind.

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1940 Soviet massacre outside reach of European Convention, rules Strasbourg

29 October 2013 by Dominic Ruck Keene

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Human rights – coming to a private care home near you?

28 October 2013 by Kate Beattie

Winterbourne View

Human rights protection for residents in private care homes could be a step closer after the House of Lords passed an amendment to the Care Bill.

The amendment, moved by Lord Low of Dalston and supported by Lord Lester of Herne Hill QC and Lord Pannick QC, makes clear that a person who provides regulated “social care” is to be taken for the purposes of subsection 6(3)(b) of the Human Rights Act 1998 to be exercising a function of a public nature.

It is the latest development in a long-running battle to secure human rights protection for service users who are not in local authority-run care homes.

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Coroners inquest enough to satisfy Article 2 in mental health suicide case

22 October 2013 by

R (Antoniou) v (1) Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust; (2) Secretary of State for Health; (3) NHS England [2013] EWHC 3055 (Admin) – read judgment

Where a patient, detained in hospital under Section 3 of the Mental Health Act 1983, takes their own life, Article 2 imposes procedural obligations on the State to investigate the circumstances of the death. These obligations are fulfilled by a coroner’s inquest. Unlike in prison and police station deaths, there need not be any independent investigation system prior to the inquest stage, and nor does Article 2 require one.

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Is complicity with the death penalty illegal? – Dr Bharat Malkani

17 July 2013 by Guest Contributor

In a previous blog post on these pages, the case of Lindsay Sandiford was examined. Sandiford – a British citizen facing the death penalty in Indonesia – had asked the UK Government for funding to help her appeal, but was refused financial help. The Court of Appeal ruled in favour of the Government, stating that the decision to provide legal aid to a British citizen abroad is a discretionary matter for the executive.

Regardless of whether one agrees with the decisions of the Government and the Court, the case raises interesting questions about the obligations that are imposed on states that have abolished the death penalty. The primary duty on states is to simply refrain from imposing the death penalty, but it is possible to detect an emerging secondary obligation to refrain from facilitating the use of the death penalty elsewhere. This issue is particularly relevant to the UK, because although the UK takes a leading role internationally in campaigning for the abolition of the death penalty, there is evidence that the UK has on occasion aided the use of capital punishment elsewhere.

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Damning indictment of police actions surrounding death of Azelle Rodney

10 July 2013 by Sarabjit Singh

On 5^th July 2013, the report of the inquiry into the death of Azelle Rodney was published. Mr Rodney was a 24-year-old man who was shot dead by a Metropolitan Police officer on 30^th April 2005. Mr Rodney was the rear seat passenger in a vehicle driven by an acquaintance of his and was unarmed.

After the Metropolitan Police had brought the vehicle to a halt, a firearms officer, described as ‘E7’ in the inquiry’s report, shot Mr Rodney 6 times without warning with a Heckler & Koch assault rifle. The fifth and sixth of these shots were a military-style ‘double tap’ to Mr Rodney’s head and would have been fatal. E7 then briefly paused before shooting Mr Rodney a further two times in the head. These shots would also have been fatal.

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Brain-damaged claimant fails in Article 8 claim against Council

2 July 2013 by David Hart KC

Bedford v. Bedfordshire County Council, 21 June 2013, Jay J – read judgment

On 29 May 2004, Bradley Bedford, then aged 13, was beaten senseless by one AH, then 15, whom he had the misfortune to encounter entirely by chance near the seaside in Torbay. AH was in a children’s home there which was contracted to the Defendant Council; AH was a “looked after” child under section 20 of the Children Act 1989. Bradley sued the Council for failing to protect him. His claim was limited to one under the Human Rights Act, and Article 8 ECHR in particular.

Jay J dismissed the claim on the grounds that (a) it was brought too late; (b) there was not a real and immediate risk of harm to Bradley of which the Council should have been aware; (c) even if there was, the local authority took reasonable steps to eliminate or substantially reduce any risk. All these rulings are of some interest.

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“Snatch Rover” case – inviting judges into the theatre of war?

20 June 2013 by Rosalind English

Smith and Others (Appellants) v The Ministry of Defence (Respondent) and other appeals – read judgment and our previous post for summary of the facts

So, the Supreme Court has refused to allow these claims to be struck out on the principle of combat immunity. It has also asserted that jurisdiction for the purpose of an Article 2 right to life claim can extend to non-Convention countries, and that the state can owe a positive duty to protect life, even in a situation of armed combat.

This ruling deserves close attention not least because it takes common law negligence and Article 2 into an area which is very largely uncharted by previous authority. Lord Mance does not mince his words in his dissent, predicting that yesterday’s ruling will lead, inevitably, to the “judicialisation of war”. Lord Carnwath is similarly minded; in this case, he says, the Court is being asked to authorise an extension of the law of negligence (as indeed of Article 2), into a new field, without guidance from “any authority in the higher courts, in this country or any comparable jurisdiction, in which the state has been held liable for injuries sustained by its own soldiers in the course of active hostilities.” Lord Wilson also dissented on this point.
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Court lifts anonymity order in David McGreavy case

3 June 2013 by Rosalind English

M, R(on the application of) v The Parole Board and another [2013] EWHC 1360 (Admin) – read judgment

Reporting restrictions on proceedings concerning a life prisoner should be discharged since the public interest in allowing media organisations to publish reports outweighed the prisoner’s human rights.

The claimant had been convicted of the brutal murder of three infant children in 1973. Subsequent to his incarceration in open prison, his movements had come to the attention of the press. Inmates made threats and the claimant was moved to secure conditions.  When he sought judicial review of a decision by the parole board in 2011 (declining his return to open conditions), the judge granted an order restricting reporting of  the claimant’s identity, the details of his offences and his current location.  In this hearing, various media organisations intervened to request the discharge this order.
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Death penalty legal funding refusal: Appeal court confirms limits of Human Rights Act

29 May 2013 by Matthew Flinn

R (on the application of Sandiford) v Secretary of State for Foreign & Commonwealth Affairs [2013] 168 (Admin) – read judgment

On 22 April 2013 the Court of Appeal upheld the decision of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in refusing to pay for a lawyer to assist Lindsay Sandiford as she faces the death penalty for drug offences in Indonesia. Last Wednesday, they handed down the reasons for their decision.

On 19 May 2012 Lindsay Sandiford was arrested at Ngurah Rai International Airport in Bali following the discovery of almost five kilograms of cocaine in the lining of her suitcase. A number of southeast Asian countries take a notoriously hard line on drugs offences, and following her conviction on 19 December 2012, Ms Sandiford was sentenced to death. Many media outlets have reported that in Indonesia, death sentences are generally carried out by a firing squad.

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