Category: LEGAL TOPICS
17 September 2010 by Adam Wagner
The Ministry of Justice is a step closer to introducing specialist mental health courts, which would work within the criminal justice system to identify and assess offenders with mental health issues, and ensure that offenders received appropriate intervention.
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16 September 2010 by Adam Wagner
The UK Supreme Court Blog has posted an exclusive interview with Baroness Hale, the Supreme Court’s only female judge. The interview is worth reading in full but I would like to highlight a few of her comments which are relevant to human rights.
By way of background, Baroness Brenda Hale is the first and only woman who sits in the UK’s highest appeal court. She came to the bench after a career in academia and a post at the Law Commission. As she admits in the interview, he areas of interest – such as family law, human rights and equality law – are quite different from those of the other justices who mostly come from a commercial law background.
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16 September 2010 by Rosalind English
In the ongoing row over France’s repatriation of Roma nationals there has been little debate over precisely what power the EU Commission has to initiate legal action against the French government.
Viviane Reding, the EU Justice Commissioner, is widely reported to have declared that France faces possible infringement proceedings and a fine from the European Court of Justice in respect of its dismantling of Roma camps and repatriation of up to a thousand Bulgarian and Romanian Roma citizens since last month. It is suggested that the French government is guilty of applying the 2004 Directive of Free Movement of Persons in a “discriminatory” fashion, offending not only directive’s own provisions, but the European Treaty’s principle of non discrimination (Article 19) and also, possibly, the ban on collective expulsion of aliens under Protocol 4 Article 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
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16 September 2010 by Adam Wagner
The Pope begins a four-day visit to the UK today, the first official trip by a serving Pope for 28 years. The visit has already been controversial, and it raises some interesting questions from a human rights angle.
The leader of the Catholic church has spoken out recently on UK equality laws, complaining that they would run contrary to “natural law”. His comments were most likely directed at the effect of the new legislation on Catholic adoption agencies, making it more difficult for them to turn down gay couples. This could have been the key issue of the trip, but it has been overshadowed by a more difficult and damaging controversy.
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15 September 2010 by David Hart KC
Hard on the heels of the UN-ECE Aarhus Compliance Committee (see my previous post), Lord Justice Sullivan’s Working Party on Access to Environmental Justice has similarly condemned the current system under which judicial review claimants face an onerous costs burden when they advance claims which do not ultimately succeed.
The Working Party reported initially in May 2008 on access to justice in environmental cases, and was critical of the current costs regime. Its current focus is rather narrower that the recent conclusions of the Aarhus Compliance Committee, but potentially more effective thanks to that focus. It reviews the rather fuzzy case-law on Protective Costs Orders, fashioned by the judges to help Claimants against unlimited costs liabilities. The report can be read here.
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15 September 2010 by Adam Wagner
Eady to go
The Lord Chief Justice has announced the appointment of Mr Justice Tugendhat as Judge in charge of the Jury and Non-Jury Lists with effect from 1 October 2010. This makes him the senior ‘media judge’ in England and Wales, and he will play an important role in balancing rights to privacy against freedom of expression.
The Jury and Non-Jury lists contains general civil law, including defamation and privacy. The Judge in charge has responsibility for managing the work in the lists and assigning judges to cases.
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15 September 2010 by Adam Wagner
Updated British Foreign Policy will put more emphasis on protecting human rights, the Foreign Secretary said in a speech today at Lincoln’s Inn.
It has been widely reported this morning that Mr Hague will argue that a focus on human rights is inextricably linked to the UK’s security and standing, and in the context of the upcoming torture inquiry, “directly linked to the belief of others that we will do what we say and we will not apply double standards“.
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14 September 2010 by Adam Wagner
Dink v. Turkey (applications no. 2668/07, 6102/08, 30079/08, 7072/09 and 7124/09) – This summary is based on the European Court of Human Rights press release.
In the case of Dink v. Turkey the European Court of Human Rights concluded that the authorities failed in their duty to protect the life and freedom of expression of the journalist Firat (Hrant) Dink, a prominent member of the Armenian minority in Turkey who was murdered in 2007.
Dink was a Turkish journalist of Armenian origin, and the publication director and editor-in-chief of Agos, a Turkish-Armenian weekly newspaper.
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14 September 2010 by Matthew Hill
Keir Starmer
The Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer QC, has stated his support for a reform of the law of homicide that would see the introduction of different degrees of murder in this country.
Such a proposal was one of the principal recommendations contained in the Law Commission’s 2006 Report on Murder, Manslaughter and Infanticide (Law Com No 304). Mr Starmer’s predecessor, Sir Ken MacDonald, and the former Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Lord Blair, have also stated their support for the changes.
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13 September 2010 by Angus McCullough KC
We have highlighted the obituaries and tributes to Lord Bingham yesterday and today. For those interested in a more extensive review of his judicial contributions to the field of administrative law generally, and human rights law in particular, I would recommend an article published by Michael Fordham QC in Judicial Review last year: [2009] JR 103.
This was a paper presented to the Hart Judicial Review Conference in December 2008. As Fordham says:
There is no better way to illustrate and celebrate Lord Bingham’s contribution to administrative law than through his own words. What follows is a tapestry, no doubt just one from many, capable of being woven using strands of Lord Bingham’s judicial analysis, which will for decades to come guide and equip practitioners, academics and judges in the field of public law and human rights.
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13 September 2010 by Adam Wagner
We posted yesterday on the sad death at age 76 of Lord Bingham of Cornhill, former Lord Chief Justice, Master of the Rolls and law lord. There have been a number of tributes to the highly respected jurist:
Alex Bailin QC, on the UK Supreme Court Blog – this is well worth reading: “Despite having had a largely commercial practice at the Bar, his legal legacy will surely be grounded in the body of human rights jurisprudence which he created from 2000 until his retirement in 2008… Although his Opinions in human rights cases were generally measured in tone, he was undeniably a passionate supporter of the Human Rights Act. In his address (when he was Lord Chief Justice) to the House of Lords during the passage of the Human Rights Bill, he famously quoted Milton’s Areopagitica in support of the proposed progressive reform: “Let not England forget her precedence of teaching nations how to live.”
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10 September 2010 by Rosalind English
A district court in California has ruled that the Pentagon’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy is unconstitutional, and has awarded the plaintiffs a permanent injunction barring further enforcement of the statute embodying the policy. Read judgment.
The Times reports today that Judge Virginia Philips found that the policy violated the plaintiffs’ rights to substantive due process guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, and their rights of freedom of speech, association, and to petition the government, guaranteed by the First Amendment.
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10 September 2010 by Adam Wagner
Tomorrow is the 9th anniversary of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks, and it is worth considering some of the after effects which are still being felt in the UK courts.
Our posts on the human rights law relating to terrorism can be found here. The fact that it is the blog’s largest legal category is a reflection on the difficulties which the court have found in approaching anti-terrorism law. This relates to the previous government’s often controversial anti-terrorism policies, many of which have been successfully challenged in the courts, as well as the effects of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Particular posts of interest are:
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9 September 2010 by Guest Contributor
The Queen on the application of Arvdas Klimas v. Prosecutors General Office of Lithuania [2010] EWHC 2076 – Read judgment
We welcome this guest post by Michal Jorek
Will a court execute an extradition request if the prison conditions and treatment of prisoners in the requesting State are such that detention there would constitute torture, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment?
This question was recently considered by the High Court in The Queen on the application of Arvdas Klimas v. Prosecutors General Office of Lithuania. Although the Court was clear in its pronouncement, it is arguable that aspects of its reasoning are at the very least questionable.
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7 September 2010 by Adam Wagner
This week sees the launch of the Halsbury’s Law Exchange, a new independent legal think-tank funded by LexisNexis.
The new organisation describes itself as “an independent and politically neutral think tank which contributes to the development of law and the legal sector“, aiming to “promote debate through papers, reports, events and media pieces.” The think-tank is chaired by legal journalist Joshua Rozenberg, who is joined by a number of eminent barristers and solicitors.
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