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]
UK Human Rights Blog - 1 Crown Office Row
Search Results for: justice and security bill/page/19/www.bailii.org/eu/cases/ECHR/1975/apple-touch-icon.png
Widely – and quickly – reported as a “crushing” or an “emphatic” defeat – in a rare turn – the Government was last night defeated in three consecutive votes on its proposals to restrict access to judicial review. With a ‘hat-trick’ of blows, on three crucial issues, votes on amendments tabled by Lords Pannick, Woolf, Carlile and Beecham were decisive. On the proposal to amend the materiality test – the Government lost by 66. On the compulsory disclosure of financial information for all judicial review applicants, and again on the costs rules applicable to interveners, the Government lost by margins on both counts by 33. A fourth amendment to the Government proposals on Protective Costs Orders – which would maintain the ability of the Court to make costs capping orders before permission is granted – was called after the dinner break, and lost.
Yesterday Sir Nicolas Bratza spoke candidly about the responsibility of certain UK politicians and media outlets in tarnishing this countries human rights legacy. He called on lawyers and NGOs to help rekindle the fire for human rights at home.
At an event hosted by the British Institute of Human Rights (BIHR) and the Law Society – “Sixty years of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR): What does the future hold?” – politicians, legal practitioners, civil servants, academics and activists debated the impact of six decades of the UK’s membership of the ECHR.
Wagner is one of 14 authors who contributed to a new working publication entitled ‘Justice Wide Open’, produced by the Centre for Law, Justice and Journalism (CLJJ), City University London, following an event on February 29 2012. The individual chapters can be accessed electronically.
Angus McCullough QC and Jeremy Johnson QC, Special Advocates at the JCHR
It appears that the Government has climbed down, in part, from some of its controversial secret justice proposals. According to the Telegraph, the Justice and Security Bill, which will be published this week, will include a provision whereby judges, not the Government, has the final say on whether a Closed Material Procedure (CMP) is used. Moreover, CMPs will be restricted to “national security cases” rather than any case “in the public interest”.
It “remains uncertain”, however, “whether Mr Clarke will exclude inquests from being subject to the secret hearings.” Junior Justice Minister Jonathan Djanogly caused a stir last week when he appeared prematurely to announce that particular concession in Parliament, but quickly stepped back from his statement. In view of the likely legislative bartering which will occur as the bill progresses through Parliament, perhaps this is a concession which was meant to be left until later in the process.
We will analyse the bill when it is published later this week. But as this important debate resurfaces and the manoeuvring continues, it is important to keep two things in mind.
Updated | The legal community has been digesting yesterday’s announcement of government plans for legal aid to be reduced by around £350 per year from 2014-15.
Most commentators and legal professionals are worried that less money for legal representation will lead to less access to justice for the poorer members of society. But some have also expressed relief that the criminal legal aid scheme has been left largely untouched, as have funding for inquests, judicial reviews and asylum cases.
For those who have a view on the reforms, the Ministry of Justice has an online questionnaire which can be filled in here.
Nicholas Green QC (Chairman of the Bar of England and Wales: “A permanent contraction of justice cannot be justified by the “big society” or by any sort of philosophical mantra. Ultimately an efficient justice system is fundamental to the wellbeing of the country. We only have to look at our television screen at events unfolding in Burma and elsewhere to see the undeniable truth of that proposition.”
In these conjoined appeals the Court of Appeal (Sir Terence Etherton MR, Irwin and Coulson LJJ.) have taken the opportunity to deal with a number of issues relating to the reasonableness and proportionality of costs in PI and Clinical negligence cases and the proper approach to the assessment of those costs.
The case is important because it considers and explains the unique position of ATE insurance premiums in clinical negligence cases. In clinical negligence it is almost always necessary for an ATE insurance policy to be obtained by a Claimant to insure against the risk of incurring a liability to pay for an expert report or reports relating to liability or causation. Specifically, the Recovery of Costs Insurance Premiums in Clinical Negligence Proceedings (no.2) Regulations SI 2013/739, provide (by way of exception to the general rule in s.46 LASPO 2012) that such premium (insofar as it relates to the risk of incurring liability to pay of expert reports relating to liability or causation in respect of clinical negligence in connection with the proceedings) may be recovered. Brooke LJ had stressed in Rogers v. Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council [2006] EWCA Civ 1134 the availability of such ATE insurance and the recoverability of the relevant premium, is an important means by which access to justice continues to be provided in clinical negligence cases. It was perhaps therefore unsurprising that the present Court of Appeal began their analysis of the issues in the instant case by saying:
Access to Justice must therefore be the starting point for any debate about the recoverability of ATE insurance premiums in any dispute about costs.
The following piece was first published on the UK Constitutional Law Blog on 25 April 2024 and is reproduced here with their permission, for which the editors are grateful
Commentary on the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act (“RA”), which is shortly to receive Royal Assent, has concentrated principally on its deeming of Rwanda as a safe country whilst ousting the supervision of courts. This post considers a separate issue – section 4 of the Act as it applies to victims of slavery (“VOS”). Section 4 provides a carve out from the Act’s deeming provisions where the Home Secretary considers Rwanda is unsafe for an individual “based on compelling evidence relating specifically to their particular individual circumstances”. It also providescourts with a power of review of that question.
This post argues that, read in the light of the common law constitutional prohibition of slavery (“POS”), s.4 should prevent all suspected and confirmed victims of slavery from being removed against their will to Rwanda without, at the least, a detailed assessment of their specific risks of re-trafficking there.
Welcome back to the UK Human Rights Roundup, your weekly bulletin 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.
In the news
This week saw the final Brighton Declaration, containing the Council of Europe states’ proposals for reform of the European Court of Human Rights, published, in extremely important news for the future of the Court. Other hot topics this week include perennial gems such as the deportation of terrorist suspects, the right to liberty, fears over the democratic legitimacy of judicial “lawmaking” and cameras in court.
Welcome back to the UK Human Rights Roundup, your regular smorgasbord 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.
The suggestion that a future Conservative government might withdraw from the ECHR and repeal the Human Rights Act dominated this week’s headlines, with much commentary noting that such measures are likely to have only minimal practical effects on our courts. Lord Neuberger also used his first interview as President of the Supreme Court to speak his mind on a number of issues of human rights concerns; and the Justice and Security Bill continues its passage through Parliament.
Al-Saadoon & Ors v Secretary of State for Defence [2015] EWHC 715 – read judgment
The High Court has ruled that the ECHR applies to situations where Iraqi civilians were shot during security operations conducted by British soldiers. When taken together with the parallel cases being brought against the MOD for breach of its Article 2 obligations towards its own soldiers, it appears increasingly likely that any operation undertaken by the British Army in the future will lead to legal challenges being brought against almost every aspect of its actions pre, during and post any use of military force.
Mr Justice Leggatt was asked to consider the scope of the UK’s duty under the ECHR to investigation allegations of wrongdoing by British Forces in Iraq. The Secretary of State accepted that anyone taken into custody by British Forces did have certain rights under the ECHR, in particular the right to life and the right not to be tortured. However, the one of two key areas of controversy were whether non detainee civilians who were killed outside the period when the UK was an ‘occupying power’ (1 May 2003 – 28 June 2004), were within the jurisdiction of the UK for the purposes of Article 1 of the ECHR. Continue reading →
65 responses to the Justice and Security Green Paper consultation, which proposes introducing “Closed Material Procedures” – secret trials – into civil courts, have been published on the official consultation website. According to the site there are potentially 25 more to come.
Whilst it is a good thing that the responses have been published at all, the low number of responses is a little depressing. In a country of over 60 million people, and given the proposals could amount to a significant erosion of open justice, 90 responses seems a little thin. Granted, many of the responses are from organisations or groups of individuals, such as the 57 Special Advocates who have called the proposals a “departure from the foundational principle of natural justice“. But the low number surely represents the fact that as yet the proposals have failed to capture the public imagination.
Welcome back to the UK Human Rights Roundup, your weekly bulletin 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.
by Wessen Jazrawi
In the news
A bumper edition this week. The European Court of Human Rights elected a new president and the Government finally apologised for the Hillsborough disaster. Its report on Hillsborough was published this week and provides illuminating reading. In other news, the DPP has published guidelines on the approach prosecutors should take when assessing the public interest in cases affecting the media and the UKBA has published guidance for caseworkers following the Alvi judgment. Finally, questions are asked about Chris Grayling’s qualifications for his new role of Lord Chancellor.
Human Rights Tour
First, the British Institute of Human Rights is bringing the 2012 Human Rights Tour to a city near you soon: see here for further detail on the programme, dates and venues.
In Northern Ireland, the Troubles are not the only part of its troubled past and present. In March this year, the Stormont administration found itself mired in controversy over women’s reproductive rights and access to abortion services. In April, a fresh controversy arose: a legislative ban on so-called “gay conversion therapy”. On 18 March 2021, Ulster Unionist Party MLAs Doug Beattie and John Stewart tabled a private member’s motion in the Northern Ireland Assembly calling for a legislative ban on the practice. The motion was debated on 20 April, with one amendment ringfencing religious activities from the proposed ban, taking centre-stage.
To characterise the debate which followed as polarising would be to put it mildly. The Assembly Hansard for 20 April records angry, frustrated exchanges between MLAs who called for safeguarding the LGBTQ community from harmful practices (condemned by the UN Human Rights Council as creating “a significant risk of torture”) and MLAs who called for safeguarding the free exercise of religion.
In the event, the DUP amendment failed and the UUP motion was passed unamended by 59 votes to 24, providing Communities Minister Deirdre Hargey MLA with a strong mandate to bring legislation to ban conversion therapy in Northern Ireland. However, that was not the end of the matter. In the immediate aftermath of the Assembly vote, the DUP signalled its intent to block legislation unless “robust protections for churches” were included. Eight days after the vote, the Northern Ireland First Minister and DUP leader Arlene Foster MLA faced significant rebellion in the party against her leadership and announced her intention to resign both the leadership of the DUP and the First Ministership. The extent to which the motion to ban conversion therapy played a part in the rebellion against Foster remains a matter for debate, especially given concerns about the impact of the DUP’s political stance on the very recently enacted access to abortion and same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland.
Almost a month later, Mr Justice Scoffield in the Northern Ireland High Court handed down judgment in JR111’s application for judicial review [2021] NIQB 48, declaring the language of “disorder” in the Gender Recognition Act 2004 (GRA) to be in breach of the ECHR.
As many around the world celebrated the International Day against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia on 17 May, the events of the past month were a reminder of how different the story of LGBT equality was in Northern Ireland, compared to Great Britain.
While MPs were dreaming of the imminent long summer break and a possible pay hike, in mid-June the Government produced the draft amendments to the Civil Procedure Rules (“CPR”) necessary to bring Part 2 of the Justice and Security Act 2013 (“JSA”) into force. Many – including JUSTICE – consider the Act’s introduction of closed material procedures (“CMP”) into civil proceedings unfair, unnecessary and unjustified.
That one party will present their case unchallenged to the judge in the absence of the other party and their lawyers is inconsistent with the common law tradition of civil justice where proceedings are open, adversarial and equal. This blog has spent many pages dissecting the constitutional implications of the expansion of CMP in the JSA and its controversial passage through both Houses of Parliament.
Perhaps in a bid to avoid similar controversy, the draft Rules were dropped quietly into the libraries at the Houses of Parliament without fanfare. Less than two weeks later and without significant change, the Rules were tabled.
One of the most contentious proposals in the Consultation Paper on the transforming legal aid is the removal of client choice in criminal cases. Under the proposals contracts for the provision of legal aid will be awarded to a limited number of firms in an area. The areas are similar to the existing CPS areas. The Green Paper anticipates that there will be four or five such providers in each area. Thus the county of Kent, for example, will have four or five providers in an area currently served by fifty or so legal aid firms. Each area will have a limited number providers that will offer it is argued economies of scale.
In order to ensure that this arrangement is viable the providers will be effectively guaranteed work by stripping the citizen of the right to choose a legal aid lawyer in criminal cases. Under the new scheme every time a person needs advice they will be allocated mechanically by the Legal Aid Agency to one of the new providers. It may not be the same firm the person has used before. The citizen will therefore not be able to build up a relationship with a solicitor. From a human rights perspective this, of course, begs the question would the removal of choice be compatible with the ECHR?
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.
Yesterday 
The real “democratic deficit” in the courts is about limited public access not “unelected judges“, Adam Wagner 
Welcome back to the UK Human Rights Roundup, your weekly bulletin of human rights news. The full list of links can be found 
Welcome back to the UK Human Rights Roundup, your regular smorgasbord of human rights news. The full list of links can be found 
65 responses to the Justice and Security Green Paper consultation, which proposes introducing “Closed Material Procedures” – secret trials – into civil courts, have been 
Welcome back to the UK Human Rights Roundup, your weekly bulletin of human rights news. The full list of links can be found 
While MPs were dreaming of the imminent long summer break and a possible pay hike, in mid-June the Government produced the 
One of the most contentious proposals in the 
Recent comments