6 March 2015 by Dominic Ruck Keene
John Catt. Photo credit: The Guardian
R (Catt) and R (T) v Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis [2015] UKSC 9
A majority of the Supreme Court has held that the retention by police of information on the Domestic Extremism Database about a 91 year-old activist’s presence at political protests was (1) in accordance with the law and (2) a proportionate interference with his right to a private life under Article 8(1) of the ECHR.
However, Lord Toulson’s dissent noted that the information was retained for many years after Mr Catt had attended these mainstream political events, and the police had concluded that he was not known to have acted violently. Accordingly, he thought its retention was unnecessary and disproportionate.
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4 March 2015 by Hannah Lynes
After a brief hiatus, the Human Rights Round-up is back. Our new team of expert summarisers – Hannah Lynes, Alex Wessely and Laura Profumo – is installed and ready to administer your regular dose of UK human rights news.
This week, Hannah reports on the Global Law Summit, access to justice, and what’s happening in the courts.
In the News
‘If you wrap yourself in the Magna Carta…you are inevitably going to look ridiculous if you then throw cold water on an important part of its legacy.’ Lord Pannick QC was not alone last week (23-28th February) in suggesting that there was some irony in Lord Chancellor Chris Grayling evoking the spirit of the Magna Carta at his launch of the three-day Global Law Summit.
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27 February 2015 by Guest Contributor
Zenati v Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis and another [2015] EWCA Civ 80 – read judgment
Matthew Donmall appeared for the Crown Prosecution Service in this case. He had nothing to do with the writing of this post.
In a recent judgment, the Court of Appeal held that where a criminal suspect is remanded in custody, Article 5 of the Convention requires the police to notify the court as soon as possible if there is no longer a reasonable basis for suspecting them. It also held that the police and CPS must aid the court in observing its duty to show ‘special diligence’ in managing a suspect’s detention, by investigating the case conscientiously and by promptly bringing relevant material to the court’s attention.
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26 February 2015 by Jim Duffy
Traveller Movement v Ofcom and Channel 4, [2015] EWHC 406 (Admin), 20 February 2015 – read judgment
One of the nation’s great televisual fascinations last week became the unlikely subject of an Administrative Court judgment that demonstrates the limits of common law standards of fairness, as well as the lightness of touch applied by the courts when reviewing the decision-making of the media regulator.
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26 February 2015 by Adam Wagner
Nominations close tomorrow (Friday) at 5pm for the human rights cases which absolutely everyone should know about.
Full guidelines below – please feel free to nominate as many as 50 or as few as 1 case. The more people who contribute, the better the final list will be. I have already had some brilliant entries.
Here are the criteria:
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25 February 2015 by David Hart KC
The Queen (on the application of Newhaven Port and Properties Limited) v East Sussex County Council and Newhaven Town Council [2015] SC 7 25 February 2015- read judgment
Late February is not necessarily the best time of year for a bit of UK sea swimming. But the Supreme Court has just come out with interesting judgments about whether there is a right to go to the beach and swim from it. For reasons I shall explain, they were anxious not to decide the point, but there are some strong hints, particularly in the judgment of Lord Carnwath as to what the right answer is, though some hesitation as to how to arrive at that answer.
It arose in a most curious setting – East Sussex’s desire to register West Beach, Newhaven as a village green under the Commons Act 2006. But a beach cannot be a village green, you may say. But it is, said the Court of Appeal (see Rosalind English’s post here), and the Supreme Court did not hear argument on that point.
Now to the background for the present decision.
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25 February 2015 by Rosalind English
CG v Facebook Ireland & Another [2015] NIQB 11 (20 February 2015) – read judgment
The plaintiff was a former sex offender who had been identified on a Facebook page run by the second defendant called “Keep Our Kids Safe From Predators 2”. He had been released on licence and he was apprehensive about his safety upon his return to the community.
He resides with his father, who is disabled, and with his adult children one of whom is also disabled. He was particularly fearful of the reactions of others to his conduct in the light of the fact that his name had been published on the internet. I have posted on an earlier case where another former sex offender won an injunction against Facebook Ireland Limited in respect of the original KOKSFP, which was subsequently taken down (XY v Facebook Ireland Ltd [2012] NIQB 96).
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25 February 2015 by Michael Deacon
Photo via Guardian.co.uk
Begraj v Secretary of State for Justice [2015] EWHC 250 (QB) – Read judgment
Adam Wagner acted for the Secretary of State in this case. He is not the author of this post.
The High Court has ruled that when long-running employment tribunal hearing collapsed as the result of the judge’s recusal due to apparent bias the claimants in the action could not obtain damages for wasted costs under section 6 of the Human Rights Act (HRA) 1998 (specifically Article 6, the right to a fair trial) or the EU Charter.
The High Court confirmed that the County Court had acted lawfully in striking out the claim for having no reasonable prospects of success and for being an abuse of process. The state immunity for judicial acts in section 9(3) HRA 1998 applied, and in any event there had been no breach of Article 6 as the judge’s recusal preserved the parties’ Article 6 rights.
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25 February 2015 by Guest Contributor
In the matter of A (A Child) v Darlington Borough Council and (1) M (2) F (3) GM and GF and (4) A (by his children’s guardian) [2015] EWFC 11 (“Re A”) – read judgment
In a scathing judgment, the president of the Family Division has condemned as “social engineering” a local authority’s application to remove a baby boy permanently from the care of his father and place him for adoption.
The case was, he said,
an object lesson in, almost textbook example of, how not to embark upon and pursue a care case.
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19 February 2015 by Adam Wagner
On yesterday’s Newsnight (from 7 minutes 20 seconds in), Britain’s foremost legal commentator Joshua Rozenberg revealed that he resigned as the Telegraph’s legal editor in 2007 after the news desk sexed up a human rights story with false information.
The story is still on the Telegraph’s website here. It was a report of the 2007 House of Lords decision in Secretary of State for Defence v Al-Skeini & Ors [2007] UKHL, a case about whether the Human Rights Act applied to actions of the British Army in Iraq. The House of Lords ruled that the Act did apply in British detention facilities, but that it did not apply in the streets of occupied Basra. There is an excellent summary of the case by Rozenberg here.
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19 February 2015 by David Hart KC
JX MX (by her mother and litigation friend AX MX) v. Dartford & Gravesham NHS Trust [2015] EWCA Civ 96, 17 February 2015 – read judgment
Elizabeth Anne Gumbel QC and Henry Whitcomb of 1COR (instructed by Mark Bowman of Fieldfisher) all appeared pro bono for the successful appellant in this case. They have played no part in the writing of this post.
For some years there has been debate between the judges about whether anonymity orders should be made when very seriously injured people’s claims are settled and the court is asked to approve the settlement. This welcome decision of the Court of Appeal means that anonymity orders will normally be made in cases involving protected parties.
This is why the CA reached its decision.
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17 February 2015 by Adam Wagner
Followers of the blog will know I am developing a new initiative, the Human Rights Information Project (HRIP). The aim is to radically rethink the way we communicate about human rights.
I need some help from you. I want to crowd-source data from readers of this blog about the 50 human rights cases absolutely everyone needs to know about. All contributors will be attributed on the HRIP site and I will publish the text of the best nominations.
This data is going to be a central the project so I would really appreciate you taking the time to help out.
Here are the criteria:
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16 February 2015 by David Hart KC
A fascinating riff has been playing around the London Review of Books since Stephen Sedley (erstwhile Sedley LJ) reviewed a biography of the 18th century judge Lord Mansfield – here – part 3, but the excellent letters of response are open access.
Mansfield is perhaps best known by commercial lawyers for injecting into the hitherto archaic English commercial law some element of rationality. But he also ended up trying cases involving the ownership of slaves, and had therefore to decide how ownership fitted in with things like habeas corpus.
But first a bit of historical background about our man, and some indications of the differing times in which he lived – much of it thanks to Sedley’s review.
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16 February 2015 by Guest Contributor
It has long been recognised that enabling healthcare professionals to speak up about concerns at work is a key element of the promotion of patient safety. The Final Report of the Freedom to Speak Up review of whistleblowing processes in the NHS was published on 11 February 2015.
Sir Robert Francis recommends the implementation of twenty “Principles” and “Actions” by organisations which provide NHS healthcare and by professional and systems regulators. These measures are to address “an urgent need for system wide action,” in spite of some positive developments in the handling of whistleblowing processes since the February 2013 report of the public inquiry into the failings at the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust.
The Principles and Actions appear under five “overarching themes” which are addressed at chapters 5-9 of the 222 page report, each chapter describing the Principles that should be followed to bring about the change required, and the Actions which follow from each. Annex A to the report is a summary of good practice which cross refers to the Principles.
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16 February 2015 by Guest Contributor
Liberty & Ors v GCHQ [2015] UKIPTrib 13_77-H (6 February 2015) – read judgment
Despite being hailed as an ‘historic victory in the age-old battle for the right to privacy and free expression’, closer examination of a recent ruling by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (‘IPT’) reveals it to have been a hollow victory.
The case arose from the Snowden leaks, which unveiled a vast communications interception program led by the US National Security Agency (‘NSA’). Intercepted communications can include the content of emails as well as ‘metadata’, and can extend to purely internal communications as well as communications with a US connection. For example, an email exchange between Leeds and London may be liable to interception by the NSA simply because it happens to be routed through a US server at some stage along the line. The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (‘RIPA’) establishes a framework for interception of communications by UK authorities, but of course those provisions don’t apply to interceptions by foreign state authorities in their own territory. Once intercepted by the NSA, mutual intelligence sharing arrangements can lead the same Leeds-London email to be handed over to the UK authorities, notwithstanding that the UK authorities would have needed a RIPA warrant had they wished to conduct the interception themselves.
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