Category: Inquests and Inquiries

Inquests and legal aid for relatives of the dead

11 May 2010 by Isabel McArdle

Recent weeks have seen considerable media attention paid to the role of inquests and their increasing significance for relatives of the deceased.

Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, providing legal protection for everyone’s right to life, in some circumstances requires investigation into a death such as an inquest. It places a duty upon the state to ensure the investigation is properly conducted. This may entail providing funding, such as legal aid given to relatives so they may be represented at the hearing.

On 1 May 2010, The Times published “How coroners have become the public voice of grieving relatives” which considered the trend in recent years for coroners to take a role similar to that taken by a chair of a public inquiry. Frances Gibb wrote that David Ridley, a coroner in an inquest for two soldiers killed in Afghanistan, made comments which will give some comfort to grieving relatives. Only two days earlier, another coroner, David Masters, “castigated US authorities’ failure to cooperate in an investigation into the “friendly fire” deaths of three British soldiers”.

The article goes on to note that

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Refusal to grant legal aid to mother for inquest into son’s death was unlawful

14 April 2010 by Adam Wagner

Humberstone, R (on the application of) v Legal Services Commission [2010] EWHC 760 (Admin) (13 April 2010)

Read judgment

It would seem that legal aid is the topic of the day. Mr Justice Hickinbottom in the High Court has quashed the decision of the Legal Services Commission (LSC) not to grant an applicant for Judicial Review, Mrs Humberson, legal aid for representation at the inquest enquiring into the death of her son, Dante Lee Kamara. The judge took the opportunity set out five criteria which the LSC should apply when considering future applications (listed after the page break below).

Dante died in hospital on 1 July 2008 after an asthma attack. He was aged 10. The judge criticised the LSC’s decision not to grant funding to his mother, saying:

95. I regard the failure of the Commission to take into account the true nature and seriousness of the allegations Miss Humberstone faces at the inquest as a particularly serious defect in the decision making process: one reason why this case is unusual and essentially exceptional is because of the serious allegations Miss Humberstone faces, at the instigation of the agents of state who, she suspects, may have caused or contributed to her son’s death. This case does not open up any floodgate. I do not demur from the view in the Lord Chancellor’s Guidance, which itself reflects comments in Khan, that “in the overwhelming majority of cases the coroner would be able to conduct an effective judicial investigation himself without there being any need for the family of the deceased to be represented” (paragraph 27.4.7 of the Funding Code, quoted at paragraph 37 above). Given the nature of an inquest, and the specialist nature of coroners, that must be so.

Article 2(1) of the European Convention on Human Rights provides: “Everyone’s right to life shall be protected by law“. That primary obligation includes not only a duty on the state not to take life, but also a duty on the agents of the state to take appropriate legislative and administrative steps to protect individuals from threats to life when in their care. This also encompasses a duty, in some circumstances, to investigate a death, and if necessary, provide funding so that the investigation, including an inquest, functions properly.

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Chairman of Baha Mousa Public Inquiry will not force the MoD to disclose Attorney General human rights advice

6 April 2010 by Guest Contributor

Lord Goldsmith

Sir William Gage, the Chairman of the Baha Mousa Public Inquiry, has refused an application by participants in the Inquiry to compel the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to disclose advice produced by the former Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith.

The MoD claimed legal professional privilege in respect of the Attorney-General’s Advice of 2003 on the application of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) to the British Army’s operations in Iraq during the Iraq war.

The Inquiry, which has been ongoing since July 2009, aims to investigate and report on the circumstances surrounding the death of Baha Mousa by the British Army and the treatment of those detained with him, in particular where responsibility lay for approving the practice of conditioning detainees by any members of the 1st Battalion, The Queen’s Lancashire Regiment in Iraq in 2003.

Read more:

• You can read the Chairman’s full Ruling here.
• Read coverage in The Times