Category: CONVENTION RIGHTS
19 January 2012 by Isabel McArdle
HARKINS AND EDWARDS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM – 9146/07 [2012] ECHR 45 – Read judgment
The European Court of Human Rights has found that there would be no breach of Article 3 ECHR (prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment) in extraditing two men accused of murder to the US.
The men argued that they face the death penalty or life imprisonment without parole if found guilty. The US had given assurances to the UK government that the death penalty would not be sought. The following summary is based on the Court’s press release (my abridgement):
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19 January 2012 by Guest Contributor
OTHMAN (ABU QATADA) v. THE UNITED KINGDOM – 8139/09 [2012] ECHR 56 – Read judgment – updated (7/2/2012): Abu Qatada is expected to be released from Long Lartin maximum security jail within days. the special immigration appeals commission (Siac) ruled on Monday that Qatada should be freed, despite the Home Office saying he continued to pose a risk to national security.
Angus McCullough QC appeared for Abu Qatada as his Special Advocate in the domestic proceedings before SIAC, the Court of Appeal and the House of Lords. He is not the author of this post.
On 17 January 2012 the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) handed down its judgment in Othman (Abu Qatada) v UK. In a unanimous ruling the Court held that the UK could not lawfully deport Abu Qatada to his native Jordan, overturning the House of Lords (who had unanimously come to the opposite conclusion in RB (Algeria) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2009] UKHL 10, [2010] 2 AC 110).
The House of Lords had themselves overruled the Court of Appeal; and the Court of Appeal had overruled the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC). Thus, the Court of Appeal and the ECtHR ruled in Abu Qatada’s favour; whereas SIAC and the House of Lords ruled against him. As all of this suggests, the matter of law at the heart of the case is not an easy one.
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19 January 2012 by Wessen Jazrawi
R (on the application of Hannah McClure and Joshua Moos) v The Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis [2012] EWCA Civ 12 – Read judgment
The Metropolitan Police has succeeded in its appeal against a Divisional Court ruling (see previous post) that the use of crowd control measures – in this case, containment or “kettling” – against Climate Camp protesters did not constitute “lawful police operations”.
In reaching its decision, the Court of Appeal considered three issues: (i) whether the Divisional Court adopted the wrong approach to the question of whether a breach of the peace was imminent, (ii) whether Chief Superintendent Mr. Johnson’s apprehension that there was an imminent breach of the peace was reasonable, and (iii) whether, on Mr. Johnson’s own evidence, he should not have ordered containment of the Climate Camp.
by Wessen Jazrawi
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18 January 2012 by Adam Wagner
The City of London has succeeded in its court High Court battle against the Occupy London movement which is currently occupying an area close to St Paul’s Cathedral. As things stand, subject to any appeals, the movement has been evicted.
The Judiciary website will be publishing the full judgment tomorrow morning, but for those seeking it before then, I have uploaded it here. Below is the very helpful summary of the judgment sent to me by the Judicial Office (with apologies for the numbering, which is a quirk of the blog formatting, not the summary).
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18 January 2012 by Isabel McArdle
The Government of the United States of America -v- O’Dwyer, Westminster Magistrates’ Court – Read judgment
It seems appropriate, on the day when Wikipedia shut down for 24 hours to protest against US anti-piracy legislation, to talk about piracy (in the copyright sense) and what role human rights law has to play in the perpetual battle against it.
It is a topic that polarises, with some considering piracy to be no more moral than any other theft, and others seeing those who commit piracy offences as fighting for freedom of expression and liberal copyright laws. In the case of Richard O’Dwyer, a young man who is accused of setting up a website which breaches US copyright law and who is facing extradition to the US for trial, he attempted to block his extradition by relying on a combination of human rights and other objections relating to the manner and circumstances surrounding the request.
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18 January 2012 by Rosalind English
Joseph Lennox Holmes (Appellant) v Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (Respondent) [2011] UKPC 48 – read judgment
The disciplinary procedures of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons did not give rise to any appearance of bias so as to breach a practitioner’s right to a fair trial under Article 6.
Despite the fact that the membership of the committee dealing with the prosecution of charges was drawn from the College’s governing body, in whose name any charges were brought, and that the body dealing with the determination of charges was also drawn from the College’s governing body, in practice their procedures were fair.
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18 January 2012 by Adam Wagner
Canned
1 Crown Office Row’s Philippa Whipple QC was leading counsel to the Gibson Inquiry. She is not the writer of this post
The Justice Secretary has told Parliament that the Gibson Inquiry tasked with considering whether Britain was “implicated in the improper treatment of detainees, held by other countries, that may have occurred in the aftermath of 9/11” has been scrapped.
Ken Clarke announced that the police investigations into rendition, which were always to come before the formal start of the inquiry’s hearings, would take so long that the current inquiry could not continue. He said the Government remained committed to a judge-led inquiry, but presumably the current inquiry team could not be kept twiddling their collective thumbs for years longer.
The Crown Prosecution Service announced last week that it would not be bringing charges in relation to some of the historic allegations – particularly in relation to Binyam Mohammed and a 2002 incident at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. It would, however, begin to investigate more recent allegations in relation to Libya and “a number of further specific allegations of ill-treatment“.
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18 January 2012 by Adam Wagner
A bit like news of a wayward celebrity, judgments from the European Court of Human Rights are now awaited with a mixture of trepidation and excitement. Whatever are those crazy unelected judges going to do next? Will this be the latest “Judgment day” for the enfant terrible of Strasbourg?
Yesterday the court released three judgments involving the United Kingdom. All three were about controversial issues: extradition, murder sentencing and terrorist deportation. The UK triumphed in the first two but failed in the third, although for surprising reasons. None of the judgments are “final”, in that the parties can still attempt an appeal to the court’s Grand Chamber if they wish. The rulings were:
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17 January 2012 by Rosalind English
Othman (Abu Qatada) v United Kingdom – read judgment | updated (7/2/2012): Abu Qatada is expected to be released from Long Lartin maximum security jail within days. the special immigration appeals commission (Siac) ruled on Monday that Qatada should be freed, despite the Home Office saying he continued to pose a risk to national security.
Angus McCullough QC appeared for Abu Qatada as his Special Advocate in the domestic proceedings before SIAC, the Court of Appeal and the House of Lords. He is not the author of this post.
The Strasbourg Court has ruled today that whilst diplomatic assurances may protect a suspected terrorist from torture, he cannot be deported to Jordan while there remains a real risk that evidence obtained by torture will be used against him.
The following summary is based on the Court’s press release.
The applicant, Omar Othman (Abu Qatada), is a Jordanian national, currently detained in Long Lartin prison. He is suspected of having links with al-Qaeda.He arrived in the United Kingdom in September 1993 and made a successful application for asylum, in particular on the basis that he had been detained and tortured by the Jordanian authorities in 1988 and 1990-1. He was recognised as a refugee in 1994, being granted leave to remain until June 1998.
While his subsequent application for indefinite leave to remain was pending, he was detained in October 2002 under the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act. When that Act was repealed in March 2005, he was released on bail and made subject to a control order under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. While his appeal against the control order was still pending, in August 2005 he was served with a notice of intention to deport him to Jordan.
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16 January 2012 by Rosalind English
The Children’s Rights Alliance for England (CRAE) v Secretary of State for Justice and G4S Care and Justice Services (UK) Ltd and Serco plc [2012] EWHC 8 (Admin) – read judgment
Although certain restraining measures had been taken unlawfully against young people in secure training centres for a number of years, the court had no jurisdiction to grant an order that the victims of this activity be identified and advised of their rights.
The claimant charity alleged that children and young persons held in one or other of the four Secure Training Centres in the UK had been unlawfully restrained under rules which approved certain techniques of discipline. It sought an order requiring the defendant to provide information, to the victims or their carers on the unlawful nature of restraint techniques used in Secure Training Centres (“STCs”) and their consequential legal rights.
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15 January 2012 by Karwan Eskerie
British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) & Anor, R (on the application of) v Ahmad (Rev 1) [2012] EWHC 13 (Admin) – Read judgment
The High Court ruled that the Justice Secretary’s refusal to grant the BBC permission to have and to broadcast a face-to-face interview with terrorism suspect Babar Ahmad was unlawful.
The BBC and one of its home affairs correspondents, Dominic Casciani, had applied for permission to conduct the interview with Mr Ahmad, who is currently detained at HMP Long Lartin, and is fighting extradition to the USA. The BBC also wished to broadcast the interview. The Justice Secretary refused the permission, which refusal the BBC challenged in a judicial review claim.
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12 January 2012 by Rosalind English
AMP v Persons unknown – read judgment
If you lose your mobile phone with highly confidential and private information on it, all may not be lost. The unscrupulous finder may be prevented from blurting its contents all over the web, even if the identity of that person is unknown to you or the court. It requires considerable input of computer expertise, but it is possible, as this case (cleverly taken in the Technology and Construction Court) illustrates.
The applicant’s mobile phone was reported to the police as stolen after she lost it at university in 2008. It contained digital images of an explicit sexual nature which were taken for the personal use of her boyfriend at the time. The applicant was alone in the photos and her face was clearly visible.
Invoking the right to privacy under Article 8, and the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, she applied for an interim injunction to prevent transmission, storage and indexing of any part or parts of certain photographic images taken from the phone, and an anonymity order under CPR r.39.2(4), which meant that the application, which was heard in private on the basis that publicity would defeat the object of the hearing, would preserve the anonymity of the applicant. Both applications were granted.
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11 January 2012 by Adam Wagner
A recent United Nations Human Rights Council report examined the important question of whether internet access is a human right.
Whilst the Special Rapporteur’s conclusions are nuanced in respect of blocking sites or providing limited access, he is clear that restricting access completely will always be a breach of article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the right to freedom of expression.
But not everyone agrees with the United Nations’ conclusion. Vinton Cerf, a so-called “father of the internet” and a Vice-President at Google, argued in a New York Times editorial that internet access is not a human right:
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9 January 2012 by Guest Contributor
On Friday 6 January 2012, a historic case came to a conclusion in Courtroom 7 of Southwark Crown Court. Michael Peacock was unanimously acquitted, after a four-day trial that saw the outdated obscenity law of England and Wales in the dock.
Peacock had been charged under the Obscene Publications Act 1959 for allegedly distributing ‘obscene’ ‘gay’ DVDs, which featured fisting, urolagnia (‘watersports’) and BDSM.
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9 January 2012 by Rachit Buch
Mr Abdullah Manuwar and Secretary of State for the Home Department IA26/543/2010 – Read decision
We have posted on this blog previously on some of the poor reporting of human rights cases. Alarm bells were ringing as the Sunday Telegraph reported student Abdullah Munawar’s appeal on human rights grounds against a refusal to grant him leave to stay in the UK, citing his playing cricket as a reason he had a private life under Article 8 of the ECHR.
However, considering the judgment, the Telegraph article makes a valid point on the limits provided by human rights on immigration decisions, and shows that not all journalism critical of the Human Rights Act is inaccurate.
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