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]
The International Federation for Human Rights (Féderation Internationale pour les droits humains, FIDH) has published a report sharply critical of French, German, UK and US state and media responses to pro-Palestine movements between October 2023 and September 2025, in what it calls “a profound crisis”, “not only under authoritarian regimes, but also in liberal democracies that have long claimed to uphold human rights.” Co-signed by the Ligue des droits de l’Homme (France), the Center for Constitutional Rights (US) and the Committee on the Administration of Justice (Northern Ireland), the report compares “violations to the rights of freedom of opinion and expression” across the four jurisdictions, particularly through what it perceives as direct and indirect media censorship and “systematic bias in reporting”; “violations against activists, NGOs, and civil society”; “violations against academic freedom”; and restrictions to “freedoms of peaceful assembly and association” (with blanket bans on protests in France and Germany coming under particular criticism for failing to meet tests of necessity and proportionality). FIDH claims that diverse measures “directly violat[ing] international human rights obligations… have created a widespread chilling effect on freedom of expression and public debate” in the countries concerned, “further undermining democratic participation and the voices of minority groups.” Among the report’s recommendations directed at the UK are a review of public nuisance orders, and the creation of an independent body to oversee police practices during demonstrations, based on the model of the Police Ombudsman in Northern Ireland.
Michael O’Flaherty, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, has published two separate letters on human rights concerns in the UK: one regarding protest policing, the other the “situation of trans people”. The first letter, addressed to the Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, notes the “ever more prominent” policing of protests in the UK since the Commissioner’s visit in July. It urges a “comprehensive review of the current legislation on the policing of protests within the United Kingdom’s human rights obligations” (referring specifically to the Terrorism Act 2000, the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, and the Public Order Act 2023). Further concerns are expressed about the prohibitions of assemblies “in the vicinity of a place of worship” and of the wearing of masks in the Crime and Policing Bill, currently before the House of Lords. In the second letter, addressed to the Chairs of the Joint Committee on Human Rights and the Women and Equalities Committee, O’Flaherty draws attention to the guidance provided by Strasbourg case law on the rights of trans people: “this is particularly important as the Supreme Court [in For Women Scotland Ltd v The Scottish Ministers [2025] UKSC 16] did not engage with these human rights issues.” Speaking of the fallout of the Supreme Court case, the Commissioner warns against “a tendency to see the human rights of different groups of people as a zero-sum game. This has contributed to narratives which build on prejudice against trans people and portray upholding their human rights as a de facto threat to the rights of others.”
In the courts
The Home Secretary has lost her appeal against the decision to grant one of the founders of Palestine Action permission for judicial review of the group’s proscription under the Terrorism Act. In R (Huda Ammori) v Secretary of State for Home Department [2025] EWCA Civ 1311, Lady Carr CJ held that the fact there was a route open for Palestine Action to seek “deproscription” through the Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission did not rule out a challenge to the original proscription by way of judicial review. “We consider that the fact that judicial review would be a more expeditious means of challenging the Order, given the public importance of issues raised, and, in particular, the fact that persons were facing convictions for acting in ways that were made criminal as a consequence of the Order, justified using judicial review” ([59]). The Court of Appeal also granted Ms Ammori permission to apply for two further grounds of review: that the Home Secretary failed to have regard to relevant considerations, and that she did not follow her published policy. These are in addition to the two grounds already permitted by the High Court on 30 July: that the Home Secretary’s Order was unlawful as a disproportionate interference with Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention (freedom of expression and assembly), and that the Home Secretary should have consulted Palestine Action before making the Order, and by failing to do so was in breach of natural justice and Article 6 of the Convention (right to fair trial). The judicial review hearing is due to commence at the High Court on 25 November.
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. The full list of links, updated each day, can be found here.
by Melinda Padron
In the news
The government announced that a commission would be set up to look into whether the government should bring in a bill of rights in light of all the controversy surrounding the ECtHR. The commission is reported to be composed of experts such as Lord Lester, Helena Kennedy QC and Martin Howe QC, and its merits are already being called into question.
There have been two strong reminders of the importance of maintaining compliance with and membership to the European Court of Human Rights: Aidan O’Neill QC wrote an excellent piece questioning the legal merits of some of Dr Pinto-Duschnisky‘s proposals in his report Bringing Rights back home: making human rights compatible with parliamentary democracy in the UK; while Sir Konrad Schiemann, judge of the Court of Justice of the European Union, made a strong case that by abiding by its decisions, the UK would be serving the greater good of stability amongst its members.
Chester v Secretary of State for Justice & Anor [2010] EWCA Civ 1439 (17 December 2010) – Read judgment
The Court of Appeal has rejected a claim by a man convicted of raping and murdering a seven-year-old girl that the court should grant him the right to vote. Meanwhile, following the judgment the government has announced that it plans to allow all prisoners less than four years to vote.
Mr Chester’s case is interesting from a constitutional perspective, although the decision is not too surprising, as I will explain. But it does highlight the complex and sometimes unsatisfactory manner in which human rights are protected in the UK.
Salvesen v. Riddell [2013] UKSC 22, 24 April 2013, read judgment
When can an agricultural landlord turf out his tenant farmer? The answer to this question has ebbed and flowed since the Second World War, but one element of the latest attempt by the Scottish Parliament to redress the balance in favour of tenants has just been declared incompatible with Article 1 of the 1st Protocol (A1P1) as offending landlords’ rights to property. The Supreme Court has so ruled, upholding the Second Division of the Court of Session’s ruling in March 2012.
The reasoning is not just of interest to agricultural lawyers either side of the border. But a brief summary of the laws is necessary in order to identify the invidiousness of the new law as identified by the Court – and hence its applicability to other circumstances.
As will be seen from my postscript, the decision of the court below to the same effect appears to have had tragic consequences.
S.A.S v France (Application no. 43835/11) – read judgment
The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights has rejected a challenge to a French law which prohibits the wearing of veils in public. The ruling is, of course, of great political and media interest, but it is also significant from a legal perspective. In a lengthy and detailed judgment, the Court ultimately accepts that, as a matter of principle, a government can legitimately interfere with the rights of individuals in pursuit of social and cultural cohesion.
On 11th April 2011, Law no. 2010-1192 came into force in the French Republic. Subject to certain limited exceptions, the law prohibits anyone from wearing any clothing which conceals their face when in public places, on pain of a 150 euro fine, and/or compulsory citizenship classes. Whilst phrased in general terms, the most obvious effect of the law, and its clear intention, is to ban the niqab (a veil that leaves only the eyes visible) and the burka (a loose garment covering the entire body with a mesh screen over the face).
In Boyd & Anor v Ineos Upstream Ltd & Ors [2019] EWCA Civ 515, the Court of Appeal handed down a fascinating judgment exploring the tension between the exercise of the rights to freedom of assembly and freedom of expression and the protection of property rights.
The case concerned injunctions ordered against “persons unknown”. In the High Court, the Ineos Group of companies (known for their prominence in the UK shale gas exploration market) had obtained interim injunctions against a collection of as yet unidentifiable defendants. The applications were made to guard against the perceived risk of fracking demonstrations becoming unlawful protests at several sites owned or operated by Ineos.
Human rights protection for residents in private care homes could be a step closer after the House of Lords passed an amendment to the Care Bill.
The amendment, moved by Lord Low of Dalston and supported by Lord Lester of Herne Hill QC and Lord Pannick QC, makes clear that a person who provides regulated “social care” is to be taken for the purposes of subsection 6(3)(b) of the Human Rights Act 1998 to be exercising a function of a public nature.
It is the latest development in a long-running battle to secure human rights protection for service users who are not in local authority-run care homes.
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.
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.
As the last hurrah of its Chairmanship of the Council of Europe, beginning today the United Kingdom is hosting the High Level Conference on the Future of the European Court of Human Rights in Brighton. As delegates settle into their Eurostar seats on the way over, here are a few useful tips:
1. If you have forgotten sun cream, don’t worry! The weather forecast is terrible.
3. The most important document is the draft Declaration which you are being asked to approve. The document has been the subject of frantic negotiations and you will no doubt receive an up to date version. In the meantime, here is a slightly out-of-date version which even has useful track changes to show what has changed since the UK’s first draft. The somewhat ugly buzz-word for the Conference will be subsidiarity.
W(Algeria) and 7 Others v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2010] EWCA Civ 898 (Jacob LJ, Sullivan LJ and Sir David Keene) 29 July 2010 – read judgment
Article 6 of the Convention did not require an “irreducible minimum of information” that had to be provided to appellants in proceedings before the Special Immigration Appeals Commission about the risk they posed to national security.
In their appeal against decisions of the respondent secretary of state to deport them on grounds of national security (upheld by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC)) the appellants all claimed that they would be at risk of ill-treatment if they were deported. They had obtained relevant information which had been provided on the understanding that it could only be made available if there were clear guarantees that it would not become known to their national government.
‘In peril’: Human Rights Watch publishes their World Report 2026
On Wednesday, Human Rights Watch published World Report 2026, the 36th edition of its annual review of human rights practices in over 100 countries.
Introducing the Report, Executive Director Philippe Bolopion describes 2025 as a potential ‘tipping point’: US hostility to multilateral institutions, he argues, now compounds longstanding efforts by China and Russia to erode the rules-based international order.
The Report’s UK chapter highlights restrictions on protest, including the proscription of Palestine Action, alongside rising absolute poverty, disability benefit cuts and far-right anti-migrant mobilisation. It criticised the Supreme Court’s ruling that ‘sex’ in the Equality Act 2010 refers to biological sex rather than legal gender identity (For Women Scotland Ltd v The Scottish Ministers [2025] UKSC 16). The same ruling forms part of a report by the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, discussed further below.
The World Report also welcomed Parliament’s vote to decriminalise abortion. Although the Abortion Act 1967 permitted lawful terminations in specified circumstances, abortion itself remained a criminal offence. In June 2025, the House of Commons voted 379 to 137 to add Clause 191 to the Crime and Policing Bill, removing women from criminal liability in relation to their own pregnancies at any gestational stage. The provision, which represents the most significant reform of abortion law in England and Wales in nearly 60 years, is currently before the House of Lords.
Human Rights Watch’s full global report can be accessed here.
The UK’s new Supreme Court has reached the end of its first term, leading to some interesting discussions about its future from both practical and philosophical perspectives. From a human rights angle, a well-tooled and robust Supreme Court which acts to keep the government in check is good for everyone.
On a practical level, the UK Supreme Court Blog has posted on the stark warning from the UKSC’s chief executive, Jenny Rowe, to the effect that the Government’s proposed budget cuts could cripple the new court after only a year in operation. The UKSC Blog reports that Jenny Rowe, the court’s Chief Executive, has said she is not sure where the axe will fall but that “since casework (i.e. the hearing and determination of appeals) was the Court’s “priority“, it would be the Court’s public education and outreach programmes that would be most vulnerable.”
The road to hell as we know is paved with good intentions and here they are, laid bare by the Daily Politics broadcaster in his exposition of everything that has gone wrong with the Convention since it was forged in the crucible of two world wars.
Post war prosperity ensured that genocide and dictatorships did not arise again. But the Convention has become a “political poison” that goes to the very core of how the country is governed.
In “Rights and Wrongs” Neil declares that he is trying “to cut throughout the hype and confusion” surrounding the subject, and his approach is undeniably forthright and populist. No doubt he will be castigated severely for poor reporting. But to be fair, he points out that the media had exaggerated some judgments – you can’t avoid deportation merely by owning a cat, but you can if you have a settled family who happens to own one. He also cites a number of decisions from Strasbourg that most people in this country would support, or at least think nothing of these days – gays in the military, the abolition of corporal punishment in schools, freedom of the press (particularly the ruling that saved Andrew Neil from jail during the Spycatcher affair in the 1980s).
But – inevitably – the documentary focussed on the cases of Abu Qatada and Aso Mohammed Ibrahim, the asylum seeker whose car hit and killed 12-year-old Amy Houston, and who successfully resisted deportation because of his right to a family life. Continue reading →
The CJEU has ruled, in a first for that regulation, that the use of “Zero Tariff” contracts are inconsistent with its “Open Internet” regulation (Regulation 2015/2120). The regulation “aims to establish common rules to safeguard equal and non-discriminatory treatment of traffic in the provision of internet access services and end users’ rights”. Its intention is to legally establish the principle of ‘Net Neutrality’, whereby internet access providers are prohibited from giving preferential treatment (for example, limiting access or increasing traffic speeds) to specific websites and users.
The issue in this case was whether zero tariff contracts offered by Telenor, an Hungarian internet access provider, contravened net neutrality regulation. Zero tariff contracts provide data allowances to their users, (1 GB, for instance), which the consumer is allowed to use as they please. On running out of data, typically internet access would be stopped. However, in its two zero tariff contracts, called MyChat and MyMusic, certain websites and applications did not run down the data allowance. Furthermore, even once the data allowance had been used up, the same websites and applications could still be accessed, although otherwise no internet access was provided.
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.
S.A.S v France 
As the last hurrah of its Chairmanship of the Council of Europe, beginning today the United Kingdom is hosting the 
Recent comments