14 April 2011 by Catriona Murdoch
As we posted earlier this week, US State department has released its 35th annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, including an in-depth analysis of human rights in the UK.
The report overall gives a balanced view of the Human Rights Practices in the UK, with some criticism but also some praise. It touches upon many of the issues reported in the UK Human Rights Blog but also misses some important topics that have emerged since the last annual country report.
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14 April 2011 by David Hart KC
Here we are, back with the access to environmental information question…From rape, bees and lettuces , a coda, involving a diversion via a new road scheme planned for Aberdeen taking in pearls and badgers, crossing the River Dee Special Area of Conservation.
An opponent of the project brought a claim against the UK government before the Aarhus Compliance Committee; findings of the Committee were adopted on 25 February 2011. The complaints ranged far and wide but the point of interest arose under an exemption to disclosure in Article 4 of the Aarhus Convention, namely that disclosure would adversely affect “(h) the environment to which the information relates, such as the breeding sites of rare species.” This has found its way into reg.12(5)(g) of the Environmental Information Regulations 2004/3391, shorn, in a typically English way, of the helpful explanatory words underlined. Wouldn’t want the reader to get its meaning at a glance, would one?
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13 April 2011 by Adam Wagner
The clock is ticking again on prisoner votes. The European Court of Human Rights has rejected the UK government’s latest appeal in the long-running saga.
The UK had attempted to appeal the recent decision in Greens and M.T. v. the United Kingdom. The full background can be found in my previous post, in which I predicted that the European court would find the UK’s appeal unappealing. It has, and the result is that the UK has just under six months to remove the blanket ban on prisoners voting.
Incidentally, Rosalind’s post from earlier today relates to a separate but also interesting Scottish court judgment on prisoner votes.
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13 April 2011 by Adam Wagner
Condliff, R (On the Application Of) v North Staffordshire Primary Care Trust [2011] EWHC B8 (Admin) (07 April 2011) – Read judgment
What happens when the money for medical treatment runs out? The National Health Service has a limited budget. It also is obliged by law to provide necessary medical services to the public. Inevitably, some treatments will be considered unaffordable, and this sometimes leads to court challenges.
Two such challenges have arisen recently. One is interesting because it has been rejected (unless it is appealed) by the High Court, and the reasoning behind that rejection highlights how difficult it is to succeed in such claims, especially on human rights grounds. The other, because of the way it, and in particular its human rights aspects, has been reported. Not quite bad enough to merit placing on the legal naughty step, but not far off.
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13 April 2011 by David Hart KC
On 6 April 2011, the European Commission announced that it has decided to refer the UK Government to the Court of Justice of the European Communities under Article 258 TFEU, for failing to provide affordable access to justice in environmental cases.
This blog has previously charted some of the twists and turns in the process of showing that environmental challenges are currently “prohibitively expensive” within the meaning of Article 9(4) of the Aarhus Convention – not the least of which was a complaint to the Aarhus Compliance Committee which was upheld by that Committee in October 2010. And the underlying concern is the state of the costs rules under which a claimant may be ordered to pay tens of thousands of pounds of costs if he loses, despite the developing case law on Protective Costs Orders designed to mitigate this.
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13 April 2011 by Rosalind English
George McGeogh for Judicial Review of the Compatibility with the Petitioner’s EU law rights of the Decision of the Electoral Registration Officer , Outer House, Court of Session [2011] CSOH 65, 08 April 2011 (Lord Tyre) – Read opinion
This was an attempt by a prisoner to argue that his disenfranchisement under Section 3 of the Representation of the People Act breached his human rights, not under the ECHR, but his rights under EU law. The case illustrates the widespread (and probably correct) perception that if you can bring your claim under European law by persuading the court that one or other of its principles and freedoms are involved, you have a better chance of getting home on the rights argument than if you are restricted to the weaker authority of the Council of Europe and its Convention.
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12 April 2011 by Guest Contributor
Against the backdrop of much fanfare and polemic, France’s controversial prohibition on face-veiling came into force yesterday. The law has met with derision and scepticism internationally, and internally, from a surprising source, in the guise of a police union which “denounced” the law as “unenforceable”.
The law, which was passed by the Senate in September, was motivated by a number of political concerns.
First, it was rationalised with reference to the value of gender equality, and the concern that the republican state should take a stand against the symbols of value in the public square.
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12 April 2011 by Rosalind English
R(New London College) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2011] EWHC 856 (Admin) – read judgment
When she introduced the latest changes to the points-based system for allowing entry into the United Kingdom the Home Secretary Theresa May said that “this package will stop the bogus students, studying meaningless courses at fake colleges…it will restore some sanity to our student visa system” (March 22 2011)
Whether these changes will alleviate any of the difficulties of applying the criteria to institutions that provide study courses for foreign nationals, only time will tell. This case illustrates some of these problems of enforcement.
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11 April 2011 by Melina Padron
It’s time for the human rights roundup, a regular bulletin of all the law we haven’t quite managed to feature in full blog posts.
by Melinda Padron
In the news last week:
At a time when the sustainability of the principle of Parliamentary sovereignty in modern British society is being called into question, Lord Neuberger gave a speech entitled “Who are the masters now?”, where he made a case for Parliamentary supremacy.
He suggested the principle remains absolute for five main reasons:
(1) Parliamentary sovereignty is the cornerstone of our constitutional settlement;
(2) Parliament does not want judges to have the power to overrule statutes (and he added that neither do judges);
(3) arguments to the contrary are far removed from reality that they undermine the main proposition they seek to support;
(4) even the strongest advocates of limiting Parliamentary sovereignty accept that such could only be done in the most exceptional of circumstances;
(5) we live in a world where democratic accountability is of the essence, and as such it would be undesirable for unelected judges to exercise powers to limit Parliament.
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11 April 2011 by David Hart KC
A little cluster of cases has recently been decided which bear on the nature and extent to which environmental information is accessible to the public. They involve Somerset oilseed rape, pesticide residues in Dutch lettuces, and Scottish mobile phone masts. And we visit some German apiarists to consider the implications of such information being or not being provided. So hold on to your hat.
In G.M. Freeze v. DEFRA (8 March 2011), the aptly-named appellant wanted to obtain the six-digit National Grid reference for a field in Somerset. The farmer had sown some supposedly conventional oilseed rape seed in which there was, unbeknownst to him and the seed manufacturer, some genetically-modified seed at a concentration of 5 plants per 10,000. The crop thus grown then cross-pollinated with the neighbouring field of oilseed rape, contaminating the latter to 1 part per 10,000.
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11 April 2011 by Adam Wagner
The US State department has released its 35th annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices relating to over 190 countries. This includes a report on the United Kingdom, which can be access here and here (pdf).
The reports are mandated by US statute and require that the Secretary of State shall transmit to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate, “a full and complete report regarding the status of internationally recognized human rights”, as set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The UK Foreign Office has also recently published its own report into human rights around the world, which only deals with “countries of concern”, and as such doesn’t mention the US once in 355 pages .
Secretary of State Clinton introduced the US reports, saying:
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8 April 2011 by Adam Wagner
The Master of the Rolls Lord Neuberger is either the busiest judge in England or relies heavily upon his assistant John Sorabji for his consistently thoughtful and excellent speeches. Either way, he has given another fascinating speech. Who are the masters now?
The question posed in the title is paraphrased from one asked in Parliament in 1946, which itself paraphrased Humpty Dumpty (see para 3). Neuberger used the second annual Lord Alexander of Weedon lecture (Lord Philips gave the first) to speak about the topical but, as I have posted, slippery issue of Parliamentary sovereignty. So, who is the master: the unelected judge or the elected politician?
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7 April 2011 by Adam Wagner
BM v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2011] EWCA Civ 366 (05 April 2011) – Read judgment
Another control order has been ruled unlawful and quashed by the court of appeal, on the basis that the evidence relied upon to impose it was “too vague and speculative”.
Control orders are a controversial anti-terorrism instrument (see this post) which are soon to be replaced with Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures. These will impose less onerous restrictions upon a terrorist suspect. No doubt they will be approached by the courts at some stage. In the meantime, there are still 9 control orders in operation under the current regime. One has just been quashed by the court of appeal.
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6 April 2011 by Rosalind English
Le Roux and others v Dey (South African Constitutional Court) – read judgment
With the new libel reform proposals doing the consultation rounds it is enlightening to see how other jurisdictions strike the balance privacy and dignity on the one hand, and freedom of expression on the other.
A recent case before the South African Constitutional Court raised two interesting issues: the extent to which liability for defamation should be reduced where children are concerned, and the question whether it should be actionable at all to refer to someone in terms of the condition protected by the Constitution – sexual orientation, for example.
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5 April 2011 by Adam Wagner
Are you a current or recent law student looking for funding to undertake a human rights project in the UK or abroad? The Human Rights Lawyers Association, of which I am a committee member, has £6,000 to give away for its 2011 bursary scheme.
The closing date for applications is 8 May 2011. For full details, click here or continue reading.
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