Category: LEGAL TOPICS
24 February 2011 by Adam Wagner
The judicial authority in Sweden -v- Julian Paul Assange – Read judgment
Julian Assange, the founder of the whistle-blowing website Wikileaks, must face charges of sexual assault and rape in Sweden, the chief magistrate Howard Riddle has ruled.
The case will almost certainly be appealed, so in reality there may not be a final decision for many months. Assange has a right of appeal on law or fact to the High Court under section 26 of the Extradition Act 2003. Assange has 7 days to appeal, but otherwise the extradition would usually take 10 days to execute.
Assange’s skeleton argument, that is a summary of his legal arguments during the hearing, can be found here. You can find my previous post on the subject here, including an explanation of the law surrounding his potential extradition. Carl Gardner, of the Head of Legal blog, also provides an excellent post here.
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24 February 2011 by Matthew Flinn
On 17 February the Home Secretary announced that the government was moving ahead with changes to the Civil Partnership Act 2004 which would allow the registration of civil partnerships to take place in religious premises.
While welcomed by many, some have voiced concerns that permission will inevitably become coercion. They fear that religious organisations may face legal action if they refuse to facilitate civil partnership ceremonies, a claim the Government denies. But will they?
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23 February 2011 by Adam Wagner
Updated | London Borough of Hounslow v Powell [2011] UKSC 8 (23 February 2011) – Read judgment / press summary
The Supreme Court has given important guidance as to when eviction from local authority housing amounts to a breach of a tenant’s human rights. It has also confirmed that courts should have the power to consider the proportionality of previously automatic possession orders relating to council properties.
The judgment forms a double act with the recent decision in Manchester City Council (Respondent) v Pinnock (Appellant), a path-breaking ruling in which the Supreme Court held that Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (the right to private and family life) requires that a court, when asked by a local authority to make an order for possession of a person’s home, must have the power to assess the proportionality of making the order (see Nearly Legal’s excellent discussion of that decision).
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23 February 2011 by Adam Wagner
Garry Norman MANN v Portugual and the United Kingdom – 360/10 [2011] ECHR 337 (1 February 2011) – Read judgment
Garry Mann, a football fan who was convicted to two years in a Portuguese jail for rioting after an England match in 2004, has lost his appeal to the European Court of Human Rights against his conviction and extradition.
Mann has always denied taking part in the riot. The full background to the case is set out here. The case has been subject to a number of court hearings in the UK, including two judicial review hearings against his proposed extradition to Portugal to serve his prison sentence. He has also already had a claim in the European court rejected.
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21 February 2011 by Isabel McArdle
Munim Abdul and Others v Director of Public Prosecutions [2011] EWHC 247 (Admin) – Read judgment
The High Court has ruled that prosecution of a group of people who had shouted slogans, including, “burn in hell”, “baby killers” and “rapists” at a parade of British soldiers, was not a breach of their right to freedom of expression, protected by Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Five men were convicted of using threatening, abusive or insulting words within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress thereby (contrary to section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986). The men launched an appeal, raising amongst other things the question of whether the decision to prosecute them for shouting slogans and waving banners close to where the soldiers and other members of the public were was compatible with Article 10.
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19 February 2011 by Rosalind English
Tovey & Ors v Ministry of Justice [2011] EWHC 271 (QB) (18 February 2011) – read judgment.
In a case heard the day before Parliament debated whether it should amend the law preventing prisoners from voting, the High Court struck out a claim for compensation by a prisoner in respect of his disenfranchisement.
Although it was “not part of the court’s function to express any view as to the nature of legislative change”, this ruling confirmed that as a matter of English law, including the Human Rights Act 1998, a prisoner will not succeed before a court in England and Wales in any claim for damages or a declaration based on his disenfranchisement while serving his sentence.
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18 February 2011 by Adam Wagner
Last night, 35 legal bloggers, tweeters and journalists descended on 1 Crown Office Row chambers to debate the future of legal blogging. Twitter was abuzz with the event, and you can read the tweets even if you are not signed up to a Twitter account.
The panel was made up legal bloggers David Allen Green (Jack of Kent / New Statesman), Carl Gardner (Head of Legal) and Adam Wagner (UK Human Rights Blog), and was chaired by Catrin Griffiths, editor of The Lawyer.
The event was a great success. I will write about it in more detail soon, as I hope will others. The one and a half hour discussion was always interesting and animated, and continued in earnest over drinks and substantial nibbles afterwards. There was also a complete reversal of the usual protocol that mobile phones should be turned off, and many people tweeted from the event. One of our editors even made a successful eBay bid.
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17 February 2011 by Guest Contributor
Updated | The Coalition Government’s Programme for Government, launched on 20th May 2010, made a number of commitments relating to information law, including issues about privacy and data protection. It also stated that the Government would introduce a Freedom Bill.
On Friday last week (11th February) the Protection of Freedoms Bill was duly published, with lengthy explanatory notes stating that it implemented 12 specific commitments in the Programme for Government.
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16 February 2011 by Adam Wagner
It is being reported this morning that sex offenders will be given the right to appeal their placement on a police register. The change follows a Supreme Court ruling that the lifelong restrictions were contrary to human rights law.
As I posted in April last year, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that lifelong requirements for sex offenders to notify the police when they move house or travel abroad are a breach of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the right to privacy and family life.
Lord Phillips, giving the leading judgment, said:
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16 February 2011 by Adam Wagner
Law by crowd
The new Protection of Freedoms Bill has become the first proposed law to be opened to public comments via the internet. This seemingly small technological advance could have very exciting effects.
The comments system works just like a blog post. Any member of the public can leave comments on any particular provision of the draft law. The deadline for comments is 7th March.
The Prime Minister says that the Public Reading Stage, which is touchingly in “beta”, will “improve the level of debate and scrutiny of bills by giving everyone the opportunity to go online and offer their views” on new laws.” “That”, he suggests “means better laws – and more trust in our politics.”
He might just be right.
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16 February 2011 by Alasdair Henderson
BA (Demonstrators in Britain – risk on return) Iran CG [2011] UKUT 36 (IAC) – read judgment – and SA (Iranian Arabs-no general risk) Iran CG [2011] UKUT 41(IAC) – read judgment.
The Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) last week allowed two asylum appeals by Iranian political activists, and laid down guidance on the factors the Home Office and immigration tribunals should take into account when deciding asylum applications and appeals based on political activities here in the UK.
In the midst of all the excitement over the events in Tunisia and Egypt, it is important to remember that most countries in the wider Middle East are still under the control of authoritarian regimes which give scant regard to basic human rights. In particular, the success of the recent protests in removing Presidents Ben Ali and Mubarak from office are a reminder of the very similar, but unsuccessful, protests in Iran following the re-election of President Ahmadinejad in June 2009. The Iranian regime brutally suppressed the protesters in 2009, and there has been a crack-down on opposition activists since. The same reaction by the regime has been evident at renewed protests yesterday and today. The Upper Tribunal had to consider the ongoing situation in Iran in two recent decisions.
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16 February 2011 by Rosalind English
The latest episode in the soap concerning our relationship with Strasbourg may end in a fizzle rather than a cliffhanger, but it has provoked some useful soul-searching about the vision of the good embodied in the ECHR, and its monopoly on the right to govern social life.
Derogating from the ECHR or even pulling out of Strasbourg altogether have ceased to be taboo subjects for discussion, but the fear seems to be that the consequence of such defection would mean reversion to selfish nationalism. Is this a bad thing?
This question is not as facetious as it seems and answering it is central to the long term maintenance of a set of principles by which states agree to live.
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15 February 2011 by Isabel McArdle
JR1, Re Judicial Review [2011] NIQB 5 – Read judgment
A decision of the Northern Ireland high court has highlighted the continued narrow definition of “standing”, or the right to bring a claim, under the Human Rights Act 1998.
An 8-year-old child applied to bring a claim, which included a challenge under Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights (the right to life), to the decision by police to introduce tasers in Northern Ireland.
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11 February 2011 by Adam Wagner
Luton Borough Council & Nottingham City Council & Ors, R (on the application of) v Secretary of State for Education [2011] EWHC 217 (Admin) (11 February 2011) – Read judgment
The high court has ruled that the coalition government’s cancellation of Labour’s school building program in 6 areas was unlawful. The full background to the ruling can be found here.
Michael Gove, the education secretary, announced in July that the £55bn scheme was to be reduced significantly, prompting five councils to challenge the decision by way of judicial review.
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10 February 2011 by Adam Wagner
Updated | Parliament is currently debating on whether prisoners should be given the vote. The motion can be found here and you can watch the debate on Parliament TV.
A Washington Post correspondent recently said US President Barack Obama had been “bounding around like a ping-pong ball in a wind tunnel” on to the situation in Egypt. In many ways, the UK government has been doing the same on the 5-year-old judgment in Hirst v UK, in which, as has been endlessly repeated in the media, the European Court of Human Rights’ grand chamber ruled that the indiscriminate ban on prisoners voting breached Article 1 of Protocol 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
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