We use cookies to enhance your browsing experience. If you continue to use our website we will take this to mean that you agree to our use of cookies. If you want to find out more, please view our cookie policy. Accept and Hide [x]
Human trafficking is internationally recognised as threatening human rights and the fundamental values of democratic societies. States have taken action to prevent, suppress and punish trafficking and to provide support to victims of what is the third largest illicit money-making venture in the world. But what happens when the victims of trafficking commit a crime themselves? Should they be prosecuted? What factors are relevant in this assessment? And which arm of the State should the assessment of whether someone is a victim of trafficking be entrusted to? This is the first time the European Court of Human Rights has tackled these questions. The Court found that the UK had breached its obligations under articles 4 and 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights by prosecuting two Vietnamese children who were potential victims of trafficking.
Background
It was only at the turn of the century that the first comprehensive international instrument on human trafficking was adopted. The Palermo Protocol established a number of obligations to prevent trafficking, punish traffickers and protect victims of trafficking. It defines trafficking as:
the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs
There are therefore three elements to trafficking: (i) action (recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt); (ii) means (threat or use of force or other forms of coercion etc.); and (iii) purpose (exploitation). When trafficking involves a child, the ‘means’ element of the test does not apply.
Wye Valley NHS Trust v B (Rev 1) [2015] EWCOP 60 (28 September 2015) – read judgment
The Court of Protection has recently ruled that a mentally incapacitated adult could refuse a life saving amputation. This is an important judgement that respects an individual’s right to autonomy despite overwhelming medical evidence that it might be in his best interests to override his wishes. The judge declined to define the 73 year old man at the centre of this case by reference to his mental illness, but rather recognised his core quality is his “fierce independence” which, he accepted, was what Mr B saw as under attack. Continue reading →
Criticism of the planned British bill of rights has been gathering momentum. Free speech campaigners have argued that it will undermine freedom of expression rather than support it. Labour’s shadow justice minister called it ‘a very dark day for victims of crime, for women, for people in care, for everyone in this country who rely on the state to protect them from harm’ . A cross-party amendment that would include the right to abortion has been proposed. While Dominic Raab stated that abortion is already ‘settled in UK law’, Labour MPs have argued that there should be a free vote for MPs on enshrining abortion in the bill as a fundamental right.
Nicola Sturgeon has announced that the Scottish government intends to hold an independence referendum on 19th October 2023. Her government has requested that the Supreme Court give a ruling on whether they can legally call such a referendum without authorisation from Westminster. Sturgeon commented that if the court’s response is negative, the next general election could provide a ‘de facto referendum’ on independence.
In other news
According to a recent analysis, the proportion of judicial reviews in England and Wales in which claimants have won has fallen by 50% since 2020. Last year, 31 judicial reviews (excluding immigration) found for the claimant in the High Court, the lowest number since 2001, when records began. Jolyon Maugham QC, director of the Good Law Project, responded with a warning that the rule of law ‘could easily become a relic for the history books’
The Ministry of Justice and the Attorney General’s Office have called on the Law Commission of England and Wales to review the law regarding contempt of court. This comes amidst concerns that the current system is ‘disordered and unclear’. The review will aim at simplification, clarification, consistency and greater effectiveness within the law regarding civil and criminal contempt of court. It will address, among other things, Article 10 ECHR in relation to publishing information about court proceedings, potential procedural issues, responsibility for adjudication, investigation and prosecution, and the appropriateness of current penalties.
The UK Information Commissioner has announced that public authorities will only be fined for data breaches in ‘the most egregious cases’. The effectiveness of fines as a deterrent was doubted by the Commissioner. Public reprimands will be used more frequently, alongside enforcement notices, as part of ‘a more proactive and targeted approach’.
R (ota Davis et al) v. Secretary of State for Home Department [2015] EWHC 2092 – 17 July 2015 –read judgment
When a domestic Act of Parliament is in conflict with EU law, EU law wins. And when a bit of the EU Charter (given effect by the Lisbon Treaty) conflicts with an EU Directive, the EU Charter wins.
Which is why the Divisional Court found itself quashing an Act of Parliament on Friday – at the behest of four claimants, including two MPs, the Tories’ David Davis and Labour’s Tom Watson.
The doomed Act is the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act 2014 or DRIPA. It was in conformity with an underlying EU Directive (the Data Retention Directive 2006/24/EC or DRD – here). However, and prior to DRIPA, the DRD had been invalidated by the EU Court (in the Digital Rights Ireland case here) because it was in breach of the EU Charter.
All this concerns communications data, which tell us who was sending an email, to whom, from where, and when – but not the content of the email. DRIPA in effect compels telecoms providers to keep communications data for 12 months, and to make it available to public bodies such as intelligence and law enforcement agencies.
… well there aren’t exactly fifty ways to leave the European Union, but from the vociferous debate in legal as well as political circles we might be excused for thinking there are a great deal more. Today’s Times reports that “1,000 people join legal fight against Brexit” to ensure that parliament votes before the government formally triggers the exit procedure from the EU. David Pannick will argue the challenge. But against such a legal heavyweight is former law lord Peter Millett, whose letter published in yesterday’s Times declares that the exercise of our treaty rights is a matter for the executive and the triggering of Article 50 does not require parliamentary approval. So whom are we to believe?
In her guest post Joelle Grogan has speculated upon the possible future for rights in the immediate aftermath of the referendum so I won’t cover the same ground. I will simply draw out some of the questions considered in two reports produced before the result of the referendum was known: 1. House of Lords EU Committee Report (HL138) and the more detailed analysis by Richard Gordon QC and Rowena Moffatt: 2 “Brexit: The Immediate Legal Consequences”.
States have an inherent right to withdraw. It would be inconceivable that the member states of such a close economic arrangement would force an unwilling state to continue to participate. The significance of Article 50 therefore lies not in establishing a right to withdraw but in defining the procedure for doing so. Continue reading →
Faced with mounting criticism of his reluctance to impose restrictions on British society in the face of the Covid-19 crisis, this evening Boris Johnson ratcheted up Britain’s response by announcing a strict lockdown across the country. His address to the nation is available in full here.
Two interesting decisions from the Geneva-based Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee (ACCC) about whether the UK planning system complies with the UN-ECE Aarhus Convention.
The first was given excellent recent coverage in the Independent – a Scottish wind farm case where UK plans for renewable energy had not received the public consultation which Article 7 of the Convention required. The second, which promised much (see my previous post), ducked the issues in a rather unsatisfactory way.
In the news: Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to announce the removal of the last remaining COVID-19 restrictions this afternoon. It is expected that the legal requirement to self-isolate after testing positive will be scrapped alongside free PCR and lateral flow tests. Mr Johnson is set to announce the end of restrictions to be a “moment of pride”, although some groups have expressed concerns about the approach, including NHS leaders and the chair of the British Medical Association Dr Chaand Nagpaul, who said the decision “is not based on current evidence and is premature”.
The Welsh Parliament on Tuesday voted to withdraw consent for the British Nationality and Borders Bill, on the basis that reforms to methods for determining asylum-seeker age would undermine the Senedd’s legislative competence, as they related to a devolved matter. In a letter to Minister for Immigration Kevin Foster, the Welsh Minister for Social Justice outlined this and a further ten matters of concern for the Senedd. These included the establishing of Accommodation Centres, which she said would be “fundamentally incompatible with our Nation of Sanctuary approach”, and the fact that the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has said that the Bill “is fundamentally at odds” with the UK’s obligations under the UN Refugee Convention.
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.
R (on the application of) Nicklinson and Lamb v Ministry of Justice [2013] EWCA Civ 961 – read judgment
The Court of Appeal has today unanimously dismissed appeals by Jane Nicklinson and Paul Lamb challenging the legal ban on voluntary euthanasia.
We have posted previously on the Hight Court ruling in the Nicklinson case, here and here. The following is based on the Court’s press summary. An analysis of this case will follow shortly.
Summary of the facts and the ruling
These appeals concern two individuals who suffer from permanent and catastrophic physical disabilities. Both are of sound mind and acutely conscious of their predicament. They have each expressed a settled wish to end their life at a time of their own choosing in order to alleviate suffering and to die with dignity. Continue reading →
A Local Authority v Mrs A, by her Litigation Friend, the Official Solicitor, and Mr A [2010] EWHC 1549 (Fam) – Read judgment
In the first case of its kind, the court was asked to consider whether a young married woman lacks capacity to decide whether to use contraception, and whether it would be in her interests to be required to receive it.
Mrs A was a 29-year-old woman who suffered from serious learning difficulties, which put her intellectual functioning at approximately 0.1% of adults her age. In 2004 she gave birth to a daughter, and in 2005 she had a son. Both children were removed from her at birth because she did not have the capacity to take care of them.
It has been a quiet week in the courts from a human rights perspective. The Supreme Court gave judgment on a divorce case and a social security fraud, and whilst the Court of Appeal and High Court were more forthcoming in terms of the number of decisions made, family law and commercial cases dominated. Legal buffs may however be interested to note Scales v Motor Insurers’ Bureau [2020] EWHC 1747 (QB), in which the High Court applied Spanish law in a road traffic accident case, whilst celebrity watchers and students revising for their civil litigation exams may appreciate seeing how the court applied the test from Denton to grant Johnny Christopher Depp II relief from sanctions (who knew there was a Johnny Christopher Depp I?) – Depp v News Group Newspapers Ltd & Ors [2020] EWHC 1734 (QB).
A quiet week in the courts did not however extend to a quiet week in the news…
One of the many outrages perpetrated by Donald Trump in the waning of his Presidency was granting a pardon to four private military contractors for their role in the Nisour Square massacre. Those military contractors had opened fire indiscriminately, killing 14 Iraqi civilians, including two children.
As with many of Trump’s assaults on the Rule of Law, the thought was that this kind of abuse could not happen in the UK. But certainty over our moral high ground will be short-lived if Parliament passes the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill – a Bill whose precise aim is to make it much harder to prosecute British military personnel for abuses (including murder) carried out overseas. The Bill reaches Second Reading this week in the House of Lords.
Hurdles to prosecution under the Bill
The Bill introduces three substantial hurdles to the prosecution of British soldiers if the incident took place overseas more than five years ago. The first is that prosecutions must only be “exceptional circumstances”. The second is that the consent of the Attorney General is required. The third is that, in contemplating prosecutions, prosecutors must place particular weight on a list of exculpatory factors, but with the absence of a list of factors tending in favour of prosecution.
Welcome back to the UK Human Rights Roundup, your regular kicking collection of human rights news and views. The full list of links can be found here. You can find previous roundups here. Links compiled by Adam Wagner, post by Celia Rooney.
This week, the legal community reacts to Tory plans to repeal the Human Rights Act. Given the significance of the proposals for human rights protection in the UK, this week’s roundup focuses on how those plans have been received. Continue reading →
McMorn (R, on the application of) v Natural England[2015] EWHC 3297 (Admin) – read judgment
An interesting point arose in this judicial review (for which see Rosalind English’s post here). Could the claimant could get the benefit of an order that any costs he might have had to pay were capped at £5,000? The original judge, Thirlwall J, when granting permission, had refused this costs protection. Ouseley J granted it, though, because the claimant won, the order is academic (short of a successful appeal by the defendant).
This kind of costs protection only applies when the claim is an environmental claim covered by the Aarhus Convention: see a whole list of posts at the end of this one, including the true bluffer’s guide here. The UK has been dragged kicking and screaming into compliance with the Aarhus costs requirements, that environmental challenges not be “prohibitively expensive”, thanks to a combination of the Convention’s own enforcement body and the EU Court in Luxembourg.
But the domestic courts have had some difficulty in deciding what is or is not comes within an environmental challenge.
As we will see, the judge also thought that an Aarhus claim requires a more intensive review of the substantive decision than might have been applied had the claim been a typical domesticchallenge on grounds of irrationality. I deal with that point first.
This blog is maintained for information purposes only. It is not intended to be a source of legal advice and must not be relied upon as such. Blog posts reflect the views and opinions of their individual authors, not of chambers as a whole.
Our privacy policy can be found on our ‘subscribe’ page or by clicking here.
Welcome back to the UK Human Rights Roundup, your regular kicking collection of human rights news and views. The full list of links can be found 
This blog is run by
Recent comments