Search Results for: environmental/page/23/Freedom of information - right of access) [2015] UKUT 159 (AAC) (30 March 2015)

Why domestic Aarhus rules are not wide enough to comply with the Convention

1 December 2014 by David Hart KC

Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government v. Venn, Court of Appeal, 27 November 2014  – read judgment  

Back to Aarhus and the constant problem we have in the UK making sure that the cost of planning and environmental litigation is not prohibitively expensive.

Article 9 of the Aarhus Convention (to which the EU has subscribed) says that members of the public should be able to challenge environmental decisions, and the procedures for doing so shall be adequate and effective and “not prohibitively expensive”. If this means nothing to you, you might want to limber up with my bluffers guide to Aarhus – here -not least on how to pronounce it and how it fits into domestic law.

Ms Venn wanted to stop the owner of land next door to her London property “garden-grabbing”, namely building another dwelling in his garden. The local authority had refused permission, the landowner successfully appealed to a planning inspector, and on further review, Ms Venn said that the inspector had failed to have regard to emerging planning policy in determining the appeal against her.

Lang J gave Ms Venn a protective costs order (PCO), limiting her costs exposure to £3,500 if she lost. The CA reversed this. As ever, the devil is in the detail. Had her appeal been by way of judicial review, she would have got an order in her favour. So why didn’t she?

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Maggots, sewage, bats, butterflies and Brexit

24 March 2017 by Emma-Louise Fenelon

Leigh Day and the Human Rights Lawyers Association  hosted a full house on Wednesday 22 March when Claire McGregor and David Hart QC from 1 Crown Office Row joined Sarah Sackman from Francis Taylor Building, Adrienne Copithorne from Richard Buxton LLP and Rebekah Read from Leigh Day to speak about how to become an environmental lawyer.

The audience heard how on her first day working in environmental law, Claire McGregor boarded a plane to the Ivory Coast to work on the Trafigura case involving 30,000 claimants suing oil multinational Trafigura for compensation following a toxic oil spill. The case went on to become the largest group litigation case in the UK.
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Grayling’s proposals for environmental and planning judicial review

9 February 2014 by David Hart KC

Sections 50 to 57 of the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill and Explanatory Notes; the full Government response is here, 4 February 2014

At first sight, proposals full of sound and fury, and signifying not a great deal for planning and environmental challenges. There are some slippery costs changes which we need to look at, but some of the potentially more concerning proposals (see Adam’s post and the linked posts) do not fully apply to this area, as I shall explain. There are also some perfectly sensible proposals about harmonising planning challenges which lawyers have been advocating for years.

This consultation got going in September 2013 when Grayling put forward his round 2 of reform to judicial review in a wide-ranging, and frankly worrying, consultation paper. This week’s announcement and draft bill seeks to take some of these measures forward, but leaves others at home.

Mercifully, the bill does not include the ill-thought out consultation proposal to reform rules about standing in judicial review – who can complain of unlawful action by government? The proposal had been very worrying to those concerned with environmental challenges. It would have led to the rather unsatisfactory position that a NIMBY complaining about a nearby development would have been able to challenge an unlawful decision, but an entirely altruistic concern about unlawfulness affecting, say, birds, bats or habitats would have been dismissed not on the merits, but because the NGO or individual conservationist had insufficient “interest” in the outcome. See my previous post on this.

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Court of Appeal downplays Aarhus

4 March 2013 by David Hart KC

Evans, R (o.t.a of) Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government [2013] EWCA Civ 114 – read judgment

There have been important pronouncements over the years by the Aarhus Compliance Committee (ACC) about whether the UK planning system complies with the UNECE Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (the Aarhus Convention). See my post here for the most important ones, and more are likely to follow shortly (see here). The interest in this domestic planning case is in how the Court of Appeal dealt with those pronouncements, where there is domestic case law going the other way.

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HS2 challenges fail, except “unlawful” consultation on compensation

15 March 2013 by David Hart KC

R (o.t.a Buckingham County Council and others) v. Secretary of State for Transport, 15 March 2012, Ouseley J  – read judgment – Updated

In a 259-page judgment, Ouseley J has today rejected all but one of the challenges brought to the Government’s plans for HS2. This is the proposed high speed rail link to Birmingham, and potentially beyond.  The host of challengers (including local authorities, local residents and action groups (under the umbrella of HS2AA), and  – wait for it – Aylesbury Golf Club) brought a host of challenges – 10 in all, of which 9 were unsuccessful. I shall do my best to summarise those of wider interest.

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The Return of the Round-up!

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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Chagossians update

11 April 2014 by David Hart KC

A lot is happening in various challenges related to the long-running and shameful exclusion of the Chagossian people from their islands in the Indian Ocean. 

Here are the headlines, with a reminder of what these cases are about:

First, the Court of Appeal has just (2 April 2014) heard an appeal by the Chagossians against the dismissal of their challenge to the designation of the waters around the islands as a Marine Protected Area. 

Second, the closed hearing of the UNCLOS Arbitral Tribunal on the merits of the Chagos dispute (Mauritius v UK) is to be held at Istanbul on 22 April 2014. This also concerns the designation of the MPA.

Thirdly, the public hearing in the UK Information Tribunal on access to Diego Garcia pollution data appeal under the Environmental Information Regulations 2004, which the FCO — contrary to the view of the Information Commissioner — says is inapplicable to overseas territories) is to be held on May 1st, 2014.

Now to a little more detail.

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Media freedom under review

20 September 2010 by Adam Wagner

Updated | Recent weeks have seen some interesting developments in the debate over freedom of expression of the press.

Last week saw a decision of Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights in Sanoma Uitgevers B.V. v. the Netherlands. The case related to the protection of journalistic sources, and has been described as a “victory for press freedom”.

The court held that an order for the compulsory surrender of journalistic material which contained information capable of identifying journalistic sources requires legal procedural safeguards commensurate with the importance of the principle at stake. The Dutch prosecutors in the case, which had ordered the production of a CD-ROM containing potentially incriminating photographs of participants in an illegal race, had therefore breached Article 10 (freedom of expression).

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Can the Media use Parliamentary Privilege to Circumvent Reporting Restrictions in Privacy Injunctions? – Henry Fox

24 March 2011 by Guest Contributor

The recent claim in Parliament by Liberal Democrat MP John Hemming (pictured right) that Sir Fred Goodwin has obtained an injunction to prevent him being identified as a banker has reignited interest in the suggestion that the media can in some way sidestep the secrecy of an injunction through the indirect use of Parliamentary privilege. The incident is reminiscent of Paul Farelly’s revelation to Parliament that Trafigura had obtained a so-called “super-injunction” against the Guardian in October 2009.

In his blog on the Guardian website, Roy Greenslade asks: “Have MPs, and the media, found a way to overcome super-injunctions?” This question is worth considering from a legal perspective. This post will attempt to answer it by focussing on two areas: (i) the ability of MPs to disclose confidential information in Parliament and (ii) the ability of the media to report on these disclosures in order to evade liability for contempt of court.

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Judge releases court papers in hacking cases

29 February 2012 by Rosalind English

Application by Guardian & Various Claimants v. NGN & Mulcaire- read judgment

A high court judge has allowed the media unrestricted access to documents submitted to the court for use in litigation by victims of phone hacking who have now reached settlements with News Group Newspapers (NGN).

Full disclosure of this material was resisted by the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire on the grounds that it would create a “substantial risk” that the course of justice in the criminal proceedings he faces will be seriously impeded or prejudiced. The Telegraph and other papers have now published passages of the documents which were previously censored following this order from Vos J, the judge who has presided over more than 50 hacking claims against NGN.

Mulcaire was jailed in 2007 together with Clive Goodman, the News of the World’s then royal editor, after police found they had hacked phones belonging to members of the Royal household. The Telegraph reports that a section of the documents released in these proceedings that had been previously redacted

alleges that from 1998, when Mulcaire first started working with the News of the World, he “entered into a conspiracy with senior executives of [NGN] including Clive Goodman and Journalists A,B,C,D and E whereby he would, on their behalf, obtain information about individuals of interest to [NGN] journalists and use electronic intelligence and eavesdropping in order to obtain this information.
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Disclosure of information to GP: not “data” under GDPR

12 August 2020 by Rosalind English

Scott v LGBT Foundation [2020] EWHC 483 (QB)

The High Court has struck out a claim that the disclosure of certain personal information made by a charity to the claimant’s GP was unlawful. Although only summary, this judgment goes to the heart of what we believe data protection to be about. As you will tell from my somewhat trenchant comments at the end of this post, I find it difficult to accept the main conclusion in this ruling.

The LGBT Foundation provides services including counselling and health advice. The claimant sought to access the charity’s services by completing a self-referral form in 2016. The form gave an option for the self-referring individual to consent to information being disclosed to their GP, and stated that the charity would break confidentiality without the individual’s consent if there was reason to be seriously concerned about their welfare. Mr Scott gave his GP’s details in the form. He also stated in the form that he no longer wished to be alive, detailed a previous suicide attempt, said that he had recently been self-harming and that he continued to suffer problems from drug use.

A sessional health and wellbeing officer at the charity conducted an intake assessment for Mr Scott to ascertain what support would be best for him. She told him of the confidentiality policy, including the provision that any information he disclosed would be passed on if the charity considered him to be at risk. In this interview he gave further details of drug use, self-harm and suicidal thoughts. The health officer paused the assessment and consulted a colleague, who advised her to inform Mr Scott that they would be contacting his GP because they had concerns about his welfare. The charity concluded it was at that time unable to provide him with the services he sought from them because of his ongoing drug use. They passed the information on to Mr Scott’s GP via a telephone call. This information was in due course recorded in his medical records.

Controversial named person scheme upheld by the Court of Session

8 September 2015 by Thomas Raine

The Christian Institute (and others) v Scottish Ministers [2015] CSIH 64, 3^rd September 2015 – read judgment

The Court of Session’s appeal chamber – the Inner House – has unanimously rejected challenges to the Scottish government’s controversial named person scheme. Three individual petitioners, as well as The Christian Institute, Family Education Trust, The Tymes Trust, and Christian Action Research and Education (CARE), contested the appointment of named persons and the scheme’s provisions for data sharing.

The Named Person Scheme

The named person scheme is part of a package of measures introduced by the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014. According to the Scottish government, the aim of the legislation is to ensure that the rights of children are respected across the public sector.
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Covid and Free Speech in the High Court

11 April 2023 by Thomas Hayes

Introduction

On 5 April 2023 the High Court handed down judgment in Adil v General Medical Council [2023] EWHC 797 (Admin). The case examined the extent to which a professional regulator can interfere with the right to freedom of expression of an individual subject to its regulation, as well as the circumstances in which the Court should accept challenges to decisions made by regulators in the performance of their duties. It is the first case decided by the High Court concerning anti-vaccination statements made by a doctor in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the actions of the General Medical Council (“GMC”) in response. 

Factual Background

Mr Adil is a consultant colorectal surgeon. Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, he posted multiple videos on social media in which he, amongst other things, made statements to the effect that:

1. COVID-19 did not exist;
2. the pandemic was a conspiracy brought about by the United Kingdom, Israel and America; 
3. the pandemic was a scam which was being manipulated for the benefit of Bill Gates and pharmaceutical companies;
4. Bill Gates infected the entire world with COVID-19 in order to sell vaccines; and 
5. COVID-19 vaccines would be given to everyone, by force if necessary, and could potentially contain microchips that affect the human body.

Sarah Ferguson scandal raises debate on right to privacy

26 May 2010 by Adam Wagner

Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, is in trouble for offering to sell her influence for cash. She proposed to sell access to her ex-husband Prince Andrew, a “trade envoy”, for £500,000 to an undercover reporter from the News of the World. The circumstances of the sting raise interesting issues in respect of the right to privacy under the Human Rights Act.

Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights provides that “Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence“. The right is not absolute, and can be breached by a public authority “in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society”, that is, if the breach is in the public interest. Only public authorities need to keep within these rules.

The Inforrm Blog has posted an interesting analysis of the issue, concluding that

it seems to us that there is a proper justification for the publication of the story.   What the Duchess was offering was “access to a public official”, for a payment which appears to be wholly disproportionate to the “monetary value” of the service offered… The fact that neither the Duchess nor the businessman had any specific wrongdoing in mind does not matter.  The whole transaction was “tainted” and its exposure was, we suggest, justified for that reason.
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Gagging on privacy

22 April 2011 by Adam Wagner

When the prime minister criticises judges, he tends to speak from his gut. The prospect of prisoners being given the vote by European judges makes him feel “physically sick”. And now, he is “a little uneasy” about the rise of “a sort of privacy law without Parliament saying so“. 

David Cameron’s use of visceral language may reflect what many in the general public (as well as PR man Max Clifford) are feeling about the issue of wide-ranging injunctions granted by courts, seemingly all the time, to prevent salacious details of celebrities’ private lives being revealed. The latest involves a former big brother contestant’s alleged affair with a married Premier League footballer.

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