Search Results for: environmental/page/16/Freedom of information - right of access) [2015] UKUT 159 (AAC) (30 March 2015)

Sanctity of life v personal autonomy: Court of Protection

3 January 2017 by Rosalind English

Briggs v Briggs & Ors [2016] EWCOP 53 (20 December 2016) – read judgment

Apologies for starting the new year on such a sombre note, but there is a shaft of light in that this Court of Protection judgement is a clear indication that judges – or some of them – are prepared to favour an individual’s autonomy over the traditional emphasis on the sanctity of life above all else.

As Charles J points out, this case raises issues of life and death and so vitally important principles and strongly held views. The decision he had to make was whether a part of the current treatment of Mr Paul Briggs, namely clinically assisted nutrition and hydration (CANH), should be continued. Mr Briggs was in a minimally conscious state (MCS) as the result of serious and permanent brain damage he suffered as the victim of a traffic accident eighteen months ago. He was not in a permanent vegetative state (PVS) and so the approach taken by the House of Lords in the Tony Bland case did not apply to him (Airedale NHS Trust v Bland [1993] AC 789). In that case, it will be remembered, their Lordships concluded that the continuation of life in such a state was futile. Problems arose with subsequent advancements in neurological diagnosis, where a less catastrophic condition known as MCS was established. In 2012 a court ruled that a patient in MCS could not be deemed to have made an advance directive regarding medical treatment even though during her lifetime she had made her position very clear that she would not want to continue living in such a reduced state (Re M (Adult Patient) (Minimally Conscious State: Withdrawal of Treatment) [2012] 1 WLR 1653). Her views did not, in their view, encapsulate the state of MCS. See my post on that decision here. Baker J’s refusal of the family’s application to allow treatment to be withdrawn came in for severe criticism in the British Medical Journal (see Richard Mumford’s post on that article). The author took Baker J to task for not according significant weight to the informally expressed views of M on life-sustaining treatment, expressed before she came ill. Charles J took a very different approach in this case.
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The right of appeal against refusal of a residence card: the latest developments

24 October 2018 by Jonathan Metzer

As discussed previously on the Blog, the rights of the family members of EEA nationals to reside in the UK is currently in a state of flux. One important issue concerns the appeal rights of an “extended family member” of an EEA national.

At the moment, if a “family member” of an EEA national resident in the UK, that is, a spouse, direct descendant (including a stepchild) who is dependent or under 21, or a dependent in the direct ascending line, applies for a residence card under the Immigration (European Economic Area) Regulations 2016 and is refused by the Home Office, they have a right of appeal to the First-tier Tribunal in the normal way.

However, if an “extended family member”, that is, a non-married partner or other dependent relative (e.g. grown-up child) of the EEA national applies for a residence card, but is refused, regulation 2 of the Immigration (European Economic Area) Regulations 2016 operates to preclude a right of appeal to the First-tier Tribunal. Therefore, only judicial review is available to challenge such a decision.

In my last article, we saw that one such “extended family member”, Ms Rozanne Banger (I am reliably informed that her surname is pronounced “Banjer” with a soft “g”), fought a case at the Upper Tribunal in part concerning the issue of whether the denial of a right of appeal to a person in her position was compatible with EU law, specifically Article 3(2) of Directive 2004/38 (known as the “Citizens Directive”). The Upper Tribunal decided that it needed to ask the Court of Justice of the European Union to clarify the matter.

But on 12th July 2018, the Court of Justice gave its decision.

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Supreme Court will not hear assisted suicide appeal

30 November 2018 by Rosalind English

Conway, R (on the application of) v Secretary of State for Justice [2018] – read judgment

A man suffering from motor neurone disease has been refused permission to appeal to the Supreme Court in his bid to be allowed to choose when and how to die. He is now wheelchair bound and finds it increasingly difficult to breathe without the assistance of non-invasive mechanical ventilation (NIV). His legal campaign to win such a declaration, on his own behalf and others in a similar position, has met with defeat in the courts (see our previous posts on Conway here,  here and here). As the Supreme Court noted in their short decision, Mr Conway

could bring about his own death in another way, by refusing consent to the continuation of his NIV. That is his absolute right at common law. Currently, he is not dependent on continuous NIV, so could survive for around at least one hour without it. But once he becomes dependent on continuous NIV, the evidence is that withdrawal would usually lead to his death within a few minutes, although it can take a few hours or in rare cases days.

But Mr Conway doesn’t  see this as a solution to his difficulties, since he cannot predict how he will feel should ventilation be withdrawn, and whether he will experience the drowning sensation of not being able to breathe. Taking lethal medicine, he argued,  would avoid all these problems.

In his view, which is shared by many, it is his life and he should have the right to choose to end it in the way which he considers most consistent with his human dignity.

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Immigration rules, prisoner voting and corporate accountability – The Human Rights Roundup

23 July 2012 by Wessen Jazrawi

Welcome back to the UK Human Rights Roundup, your weekly summary of human rights news. The full list of links can be found here. You can also find our table of human rights cases here and previous roundups here.

It has been an interesting week for immigration law, with so-called ‘back door’ immigration rule changes struck down by the Supreme Court. The UK has been hauled over the coals yet again about prisoner voting, and those of us interested in corporate accountability saw the High Court rule that it was arguable that the London parent company headquarters of a South African company was its place of central administration for domicile purposes.

by Wessen Jazrawi

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The limited human right to do business

1 September 2010 by Isabel McArdle

Prashant Modi v United Kingdom Border Agency [2010] EWHC 1996 – Read judgment

Mr Justice Burnett in the High Court has found that there was no breach of a man’s right to respect for private and family life (Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights) when he was refused entry to the UK for business purposes after conviction for a sexual offence. This interesting decision highlights the very limited nature of protection that Article 8 may give  in relation to business activities.

Mr Modi was an Indian businessman who was given multi-visit entry clearance for the UK in 2005. He regularly made business trips to the UK following this. In 2006 he committed a serious sexual offence in the UK and pleaded guilty to the charge. The Judge of the criminal court considered that the Appellant did not pose a serious risk to the public after the commission of the offence and made no recommendation for deportation.

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Right to die case allowed to proceed

13 April 2017 by Rosalind English

Conway, R(on the application of) v The Secretary of State for Justice[2017] EWCA Civ 275

The Court of Appeal has overturned the refusal of the Divisional Court to allow a motor neurone disease sufferer to challenge section (1) of the Suicide Act. He may now proceed to seek a declaration under section 4(2) of the Human Rights Act 1998 that the ban on assisted dying is incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. The background to this appeal can be found in my post on the decision from the court below, which focussed on the vigorous dissent by Charles J.

Briefly, Mr Conway wishes to enlist the assistance of a medical profession to bring about his death in a peaceful and dignified way at a time while he retains the capacity to make the decision. His family respect his decision and choices and wish to support him in every way they can, but his wife states she would be extremely concerned about travelling to Switzerland with Mr Conway so he can receive assistance from Dignitas.

The main argument in support of the permission to appeal was that it was self-evident from the division of opinion in the Divisional Court that there would be a realistic prospect of success. Mr Conway’s legal team also argued that the issues raised about Mr Conway and those in a similar position to him were of general public importance and that this was a compelling reason for the appeal to be heard.
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Supreme Court reduces religious no-go area for courts

11 June 2014 by David Hart KC

Khaira v. Shergill [2014] UKSC 33, 11 June 2014   read judgment

Adam Wagner assisted two of the respondents in this case on behalf of Bindmans, solicitors, but was not involved in the writing of this post.

The Supreme Court has just reversed a decision of the Court of Appeal (see my previous post here) that a dispute about the trust deeds of two Sikh religious charities was non-justiciable and so could not and should not be decided by the Courts. By contrast, the SC said that two initial issues concerning the meaning of trust deeds were justiciable, and, because of this, further issues which did raise religious issues had to be determined by the courts.

The wider interest of the case is its tackling of this tricky concept of non-justiciability.

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A human rights reality check for the Home Secretary – Dr Mark Elliott

18 February 2013 by Guest Contributor

The Home Secretary, Theresa May, is no stranger to ill-founded outbursts concerning the evils of human rights. Against that background, her recent article in the Mail on Sunday (to which Adam Wager has already drawn attention) does not disappoint. May’s ire is drawn by certain recent judicial decisions in which the deportation of foreign criminals has been ruled unlawful on the ground that it would breach their right to respect for private and family life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Some of these judgments, May contends, flout instructions issued to judges by Parliament about how such cases should be decided.

Those instructions consist of new provisions inserted last year into the Immigration Rules, the intended effect of which was to make it much harder for foreign criminals to resist deportation on Article 8 grounds. The Rules – made by the executive and endorsed by Parliament, but not contained in primary legislation – provide that, where certain criteria are met, “it will only be in exceptional circumstances that the public interest in deportation will be outweighed by other factors”. The assumption appeared to be that this would prevent judges – absent exceptional circumstances – from performing their normal function of determining whether deportation would be a disproportionate interference with the Article 8 right.

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Non independent tribunal can curtail young offenders’ rights

20 October 2010 by Catriona Murdoch

Ben King and Secretary of State for Justice [2010] EWHC 2522 (Admin) – Read Judgment

True or False: 1. A non-independent tribunal can determine your civil rights? 2. A non-independent tribunal can curtail your civil rights?

The high court has answered “true” to both of these questions . The non-independent tribunal in this case was the adjudication system in young offender institutions (YOI). The high court ruled that whilst the governor adjudicator was not an independent tribunal for the purposes of Article 6(1) ECHR, it could still determine and ultimately curtail an inmates civil rights.

The case of “King” raises important issues concerning the regime for adjudication of disciplinary charges brought against inmates at prisons and young offender institutions across England and Wales. In 2008 alone 190,192 punishments were imposed for disciplinary offences in young offender institutions.

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Article 8 and a half

10 June 2012 by Adam Wagner

Tomorrow, the Home Secretary will announce to Parliament plans to give judges guidance on how to interpret Article 8 ECHR (the right to private and family life) in foreign criminal deportation cases. There has been already significant speculation as to whether the long-heralded changes will make much or even any difference.

It is not yet clear whether the Home Secretary intends to restrict the use of Article 8 in foreign deportation cases completely, as suggested here, or rather attempt to tweak the way it is applied by judges. The latter is more likely.

We will report in full when the proposals are revealed. But in the meantime, a quick comment on the slightly odd coverage of the story in the press. For example, the BBC reports:

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The Illegal Migration Bill and the Ireland/Northern Ireland Protocol: The return of the Charter of Fundamental Rights

31 March 2023 by anuragdeb

Anurag Deb and Colin Murray

This is not a post about the conflict between the provisions of the Illegal Migration Bill and the European Convention on Human Rights (an issue which has already attracted a considerable amount of critical academic commentary – see here and here). Instead, it is a post about the Bill’s potential conflict with the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (‘CFR’) and the UK’s commitments under the EU-UK Withdrawal Agreement, whether (and why) such a conflict matters in domestic law and how (if at all) that conflict could be resolved.

This might appear to be a quixotic line of discussion. We have been told, after all, that Brexit is done and that the CFR has been excised from the UK’s domestic legal systems (section 5(4) of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018) and that other aspects of EU rights and equality law can be overwritten at will by Westminster. But, as we explore, this is not necessarily the case. Article 2 of the Northern Ireland Protocol (or Windsor Framework under the recent rebrand), the measure’s rights and equality provision, moreover, has important implications for legislative developments that the UK is seeking to pursue on a UK-wide basis.

Guest Post: Assisted Suicide on the NHS would breach the ECHR 

1 November 2024 by Guest Contributor

In this guest post, Rajiv Shah argues that the provision of assisted suicide in the England and Wales via the NHS would constitute a substantive breach of the negative obligation imposed on the State under Article 2 of the ECHR.

Introduction

Article 2 of the ECHR protects the right to life. That article contains two distinct substantive obligations: “the general obligation to protect by law the right to life, and the prohibition of intentional deprivation of life, delimited by a list of exceptions.” (Boso v Italy, at [1])

That first obligation is a positive one and requires States to take steps to protect life from third parties and even from individuals themselves. The precise content of that obligation is necessarily nebulous and the Court affords States a margin of appreciation in deciding what that obligation requires, and how it is to be fulfilled. So, in two recent Chamber decisions – Mortier v Belgium and Karsai v Hungary – the Strasbourg Court held that this positive obligation does not require States to forbid assisted suicide and euthanasia, but that if it does want to allow it, it must create legal safeguards to ensure that the decision of individuals to end their own life/or be killed by third parties is freely taken. 

Allowing religious gay marriages will avoid human rights challenges

7 December 2012 by Adam Wagner

The Prime Minister has announced his support for gay marriage in religious institutions. Having already said, memorably, that “I don’t support gay marriage in spite of being a conservative. I support gay marriage because I am a conservative”, he has now gone a step further and argued that gay couples should be able to marry on religious premises. But, he also made clear, “if there is any church or any synagogue or any mosque that doesn’t want to have a gay marriage it will not, absolutely must not, be forced to hold it“.

The announcement is important in the context of a legal debate which has been taking place since the Government signalled that marriage law reform was on its agenda: namely, whether religious institutions would be forced, as a result of equalities and human rights legislation, to carry out gay marriage ceremonies whether or not they wanted to. In June, when the Government was consulting over the “equal civil marriage” plans, Church of England sounded the alarm that “it must be very doubtful whether limiting same-sex couples to non-religious forms and ceremonies could withstand a challenge under the European Convention on Human Rights”

What is really interesting about the Prime Minister’s announcement is that the Government is now going beyond  its original proposals as set out in the June consultation. At that point, the Government was careful to state that the proposals related only to civil (that is, non-religious) marriage and, indeed said:

Don’t rely on human rights in a dismissal claim

23 May 2012 by Martin Downs

Mattu v University Hospitals of Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust – read judgment 

For a government much divided about rights of employees and the Beecroft Report that proposes curtailing them, some relief is provided by this Court of Appeal ruling, a further blow to those who have argued that Article 6 can be deployed against their employers.

The judgment represents the latest round in the saga of Dr Mattu’s dispute with his former employers which commenced with his suspension in 2002 and included an unsuccessful attempt to force the Trust to prevent disciplinary proceedings and then a challenge to his dismissal.The Court unanimously concluded that the procedure by which Dr Mattu was dismissed did not attract the protection of Article 6 as an employer who dismisses with or without the benefit of a formal hearing is not determining the employee’s civil rights. Rather the employer is exercising a contractual power. The disciplinary proceedings of an employer and a decision to dismiss summarily may give rise to civil rights, namely proceedings for unlawful dismissal and unfair dismissal and those concerned with professional and regulatory standards but they do not determine such rights. In those circumstances Article 6 will be engaged before the Courts, Tribunals and Regulatory Panels but not in disciplinary proceedings before an employer. 
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‘Do Not Resuscitate’ and the Right to Die – the Human Rights Roundup

29 June 2014 by Celia Rooney

Welcome back to the UK Human Rights Roundup, your regular game, set and match 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.

In the News

The Right to Die

This week, in the cases of R (on the application of Nicklinson and another) v Ministry of Justice; R (on the application of AM) (AP) v The Director of Public Prosecutions [2014] UKSC 38, the Supreme Court rejected the appeal of campaigners who asserted a right to die under Article 8 of the Convention.

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