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/29/www.bailii.org/eu/cases/ECHR/1975/1.html
Michael Spencer is a pupil barrister at One Crown Office Row.
The fate of Shamima Begum, the British teenager who joined the Islamic State in Syria (ISIS) and has asked to return home, has divided opinion.
Home Secretary Sajid Javid’s
decision to deprive the 19-year-old mother of her citizenship is apparently
popular: a recent poll
found that 78% support the move.
But others have raised concerns about the propriety of using such a draconian power against a British citizen by birth in circumstances where she may be rendered stateless, also leaving the fate of her child uncertain.
From Bethnal Green schoolgirl to
ISIS bride
Ms Begum was born in the UK to
parents of Bangladeshi heritage. She was
one of three 15-year-old schoolgirls from the Bethnal Green Academy who
travelled to Syria via Turkey in 2015 to join ISIS.
The Metropolitan Police
subsequently apologised to the
families for failing to warn them that the schoolgirls were at risk and
suggested that they would not face criminal charges if they returned to the UK.
After arriving in Raqqa, Syria, Ms
Begum married ISIS fighter Yago Riedijk, a Dutch national. She had three children with him, two of whom
died. Her youngest son, Jarrah, was born
in a Syrian refugee camp in February 2019.
The press caught up with Ms Begum just before she gave birth and she has given a series of incendiary interviews. She claimed that she had been “just been a housewife for the entire four years” and that she had not done anything “dangerous” or made propaganda. However, she also said she had “no regrets” about joining ISIS and suggested that the Manchester Arena bombings were justified because of the bombing of civilians in Syria.
(10) Does/Can blogging act as a check on bad journalism?
Yes. The primary reason UKHRB was set up was to act as a corrective to bad journalism about human rights, and in under two years it has become a trusted source of information for journalists, politicians, those in government and members of the public.
UKHRB operates alongside a number of other excellent legal blogs, run by lawyers, students and enthusiasts for free, which provide a similar service in respect of other areas of law. I would highlight, for example[2]:
Protestors demonstrate outside the Famagusta district court in Paralimni, Cyprus, at the trial of a 19-year old girl convicted of public mischief after withdrawing a rape allegation in contested circumstances. Credit: The Guardian.
A quick look at the “recent decisions” page of the British and Irish Legal Information Institute’s (BAILII) website did not, at first glance, give this author much cause for optimism in the preparation of this blog. However, a more careful reflection on the week’s events provided a plethora of material to consider, notwithstanding the absence of any recent decisions from the Supreme Court or civil Court of Appeal.
When the domestic courts go on leave, it falls to their European counterparts to pick up the slack and churn out judgments to help keep us occupied. It was with surprise however, that a hopeful scroll through the week’s European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) decisions revealed not only the familiar names paying a visit to Strasbourg (ahem, Russia), but also that our own United Kingdom had put in an appearance at Europe’s legal naughty corner. Some further creative searching on BAILII revealed that the UK paid nine visits to the ECtHR last year, compared to Russia’s one-hundred and seventy-three.
In Yam v United Kingdom [2020] ECHR 41, a former MI6 informant and Chinese dissident failed in his attempt to have the ECtHR rule that his 2009 murder trial had been prejudiced by virtue of parts of it being held in camera, rather than in public. The applicant had relied upon the provisions of Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, specifically 6(1) and 6(3)(d):
“1. In the determination of … any criminal charge against him, everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing … [T]he press and public may be excluded from all or part of the trial in the interests of morals, public order or national security in a democratic society, where the interests of juveniles or the protection of the private life of the parties so require, or to the extent strictly necessary in the opinion of the court in special circumstances where publicity would prejudice the interests of justice.
3. Everyone charged with a criminal offence has the following minimum rights:
(d) to examine or have examined witnesses against him and to obtain the attendance and examination of witnesses on his behalf under the same conditions as witnesses against him;”
The court held however that these provisions did not prohibit domestic courts from derogating from public hearings where special circumstances justified it. The measures adopted during his trial had met the requirement of necessity. Furthermore, the ECtHR considered itself poorly equipped to challenge national authorities’ judgement when assessing national security concerns. The court held that the trial judge had carefully balanced the need for openness against the national security interests at stake, and in so doing, had limited the private aspects of the trial to the minimum possible. Through such an analysis, he had satisfied himself that a fair trial was still possible. Consequently, there was no thus disadvantage to the applicant, who had suffered no breach of his Article 6 rights.
In other international developments, lawyers acting for a British 19-year-old in Cyprus filed an appeal against her suspended sentence for public mischief and fabricating an “imaginary crime”. The woman involved had initially made accusations of gang-rape against 12 Israeli youths before retracting her accusation in circumstances now disputed. Her defence have suggested that not only was she suffering from PTSD at the time her claims were withdrawn, but also that she was in fear for her life. The signed confession was in Greek rather than English and made after several hours of unrecorded questioning by detectives in the absence of a lawyer. Her legal team seek to have her conviction overturned.
Returning to purely domestic considerations, the week also saw the announcement that judicial sentencing remarks in high profile cases will in future be broadcast on television from Crown Courts. The move was lauded by broadcasters and the Lord Chief Justice as promoting transparency and as an aid to public understanding of the criminal justice system.
The move was not however uncontroversial. Concerns were raised by the Bar Council of England and Wales that the broadcast of sentencing remarks in the absence of fuller details of the trial could lead to a failure on behalf of viewers to appreciate why a particular sentence has been passed. They expressed anxiety that the audience will be deprived of relevant context, such as mitigation. Further fears included that increased disclosure of judges to the public eye could expose them to undue attack and criticism in circumstances where a given sentence proves unpopular. However regardless of the merits, the development was successful in affording current BBC radio 4 listeners one of the funnier moments so far of 2020, when Evan Davis introduced American lawyer Robert Shapiro to debate the topic with Lord Sumption, only to find that they had inadvertently invited an American political adviser with the same name to the PM show instead (listen here).
The week also saw:
The Mail of Sunday file its defence at the High Court on Tuesday in response to a claim brought by the Duchess of Sussex for breach of copyright, invasion of privacy and misuse of personal data. The case concerns excerpts of correspondence between the Duchess and her father published by the newspaper.
The ECHR deliver judgment in favour of nine Russians detained pending trial for as long as 7 years, some of whom remain incarcerated, in circumstances characterised by fragile reasoning of the courts and an absence of due process – DIGAY AND OTHERS v. RUSSIA [2020] ECHR 54.
The entire Russian government resign in a move thought likely to pave the way for amendments to the country’s constitution favourable to current leader Vladimir Putin. The proposed reforms would strengthen the role of the Prime Minister and weaken that of the President. Mr Putin is constitutionally barred from standing again for the presidency but could transition into one of the roles in which the proposed constitutional changes are likely to vest more power. The reforms would also restrict the applicability of international law in Russia to circumstances where it did not contradict the constitution or restrict people’s rights and freedoms, a measure framed as one to increase national sovereignty.
The High Court refuse permission to appeal in a case brought by a soldier, who contracted Q-fever whilst serving in Afghanistan, against the Ministry of Defence (MOD). The claimant soldier had alleged failings on behalf of the MOD in not providing him with adequate chemoprophylaxis to protect him from the disease – Bass v Ministry of Defence [2020] EWHC 36 (QB).
X v Facebook Ireland Ltd [2012] NIQB 96 (30 November 2012) – read judgment
This fascinating case comes to light in the midst of general astonishment at the minimal attention paid in the Leveson Report to the “wild west” of the internet and the question of social media regulation.
This short judgement demonstrates that a careful step by step judicial approach – with the cooperation of the defendant of course – may be the route to a range of common law tools that protect individuals from the internet’s incursions in a way which no rigidly formulated statute is capable of doing. As the judge observed mildly,
The law develops incrementally and, as it does so, parallels may foreseeably materialise in factually different contexts.
Background to the case
The plaintiff (XY) sought an injunction requiring Facebook to remove from its site the page entitled “Keeping Our Kids Safe from Predators”, alternatively requiring Facebook to monitor the contents of the aforementioned page in order to prevent recurrence of publication of any further material relating to the Plaintiff and to remove such content from publication forthwith. Continue reading →
We posted last weekon issues of breach of duty in cases involving child protection, and mentioned the MAGA case as an important decision in extending the duty of care to priests in the Catholic church. The lawyers in the case have now written up the judgment.
MAGA v The Trustees of the Birmingham Archdiocese of the Roman Catholic Church [2010] EWCA Civ 256, Court of Appeal (Lord Neuberger MR, Lord Justice Longmore and Lady Justice Smith) (read judgment)
This appeal was brought with permission from the trial Judge Mr Justice Jack. The claim arose out of sexual abuse suffered by the Claimant whilst a child living in the area of the Church of Christ the King in Coundon, Coventry. This was a Catholic church under the control of the the Trustees of the Birmingham Archdiocese of the Roman Catholic Church. The priests appointed to work at that church in the 1970s included a senior priest father McTernan and a younger priest Father Clonan. The Claimant was seriously and repeatedly sexually assaulted over a number of months by the younger priest known as Father Clonan. The abuse took place after Father Clonan befriended the Claimant, invited him to the church youth club and then to the Presbytery where Father Clonan and other priests including the senior Priest Father McTernan lived.
Faulkner, R (on the application of ) v Secretary of State for Justice and another [2013] UKSC 23 – read judgment
The Supreme Court has taken a fresh look at what is meant by the Human Rights Act exhortation to take Strasbourg jurisprudence “into account” when fashioning remedies for violations of Convention rights, in this case the right not to be arbitrarily detained under Article 5.
These appeals concerned the circumstances in which a prisoner serving a life sentence or an indeterminate sentence of imprisonment for public protection (“IPP”), who has served the minimum period specified for the purposes of retribution and deterrence (the “tariff”), and whose further detention is justified only if it is necessary for the protection of the public, should be awarded damages for delay in reviewing the need for further detention following the expiry of the tariff.
Appellate courts do not ordinarily interfere with an award of damages simply because they would have awarded a different figure if they had tried the case. However, as the Supreme Court was being asked in this case to give guidance on quantum, the Court determined the level of the award that would adequately compensate the appellants. Continue reading →
More than 7 years after Gordon Brown first announced that a public Inquiry would be conducted to identify lessons that could be learned from the Iraq conflict, the Chilcot report was finally published on7 July 2016. However, it was worth the wait. This post does not seek to summarise the report: there are many other good overviews (such as the BBC’s ). The report’s executive summary, in particular the key findings section, is also well worth a read. The intention is to cover in this and subsequent posts some of the key legal issues raised by the report. This post considers the relevance of the Chilcot report’s findings to the broader issue of whether Britain’s intervention in Iraq was legal – an issue which was not itself within the remit of the inquiry. Continue reading →
The BIOT is an archipelago consisting of over 50 islands located roughly half way between East Africa and Indonesia. It is a British Overseas Territory and is formally administered from London by a Commissioner, who performs both legislative and executive functions.
Diego Garcia is the largest island in the archipelago. It has no settled population but accommodates a substantial US/UK military facility. The facility employs a transient population of about 4,000.
In 2021 a group of individuals of Tamil ethnicity left India by boat, apparently with the goal of reaching Canada. On 3 October 2021 their vessel encountered difficulties in the Indian Ocean and was escorted by the Royal Navy to Diego Garcia. Following their arrival in the BIOT, the individuals made claims for asylum. These claims remain un-determined, and some 61 individuals (including children) have now been living on Diego Garcia for nearly three years. There they have been housed in what have been described as “hellish” conditions. The majority live in tents in Thunder Cove (referred to as the “Camp”). Initially they were confined to the Camp itself, but as a result of an order made on 21 December 2023 they gained access to a nearby beach. They also have limited access to buildings outside the Camp for the purposes of consultations with lawyers, medical treatment and, for children, education. A few individuals who with medical complaints which could not be addressed on Diego Garcia have been flown to Rwanda for treatment.
In May 2024 eleven individuals were granted “bail” on terms which allowed them (in summary) to leave the Camp and walk along highway DG1, and to access beaches from the road. These arrangements appear to have been uncontroversial. When they were put in place, it was envisaged that the limited freedoms granted to the eleven individuals would be extended to the other migrants on Diego Garcia. In any event, it was also expected that the position of all of the individuals would be finally resolved at a hearing scheduled for July 2024. This substantive hearing has, however, been indefinitely adjourned.
The July 2024 Bail Application
In July 2024 a number of the individuals applied for extended bail. Specifically, they sought access to a “nature trail”, and also sought changes to the terms on which their bail could be exercised.
In response to this application (the “July Application”) the Commissioner sought the views of the US authorities responsible for the operation of the military facilities on Diego Garcia. The US authorities provided their views on the July Application a few hours before it was due to be heard (on 23 July 2024). The US position was stark: it opposed any extension of bail on the basis that the proposals posed “operational, security, health and safety risks [to the military facilities on Diego Garcia]… which cannot be mitigated or would be unduly burdensome to mitigate”.
The Commissioner applied for an adjournment of the hearing of the July Application to give him more time to consider the response of the US. This was rejected.
Very shortly after the hearing on 23 July, the Commissioner received letters from (i) the Director General for Africa and the Americas at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office; and (ii) the Minister of State for Europe, North America and the UK Overseas Territories. Both emphasised the respect which should be accorded to the US’ concerns. These letters were provided to the Court.
On 26 July Judge Obi of the Supreme Court of the BIOT granted the July Application, subject to some relatively minor caveats. In particular, she extended bail to all the relevant individuals and permitted access to the Nature Trail.
The Commissioner appealed, and the Court of Appeal of the BIOT heard the appeal on 9 August. It handed down its decision, dismissing the appeal, on 20 August.
The Commissioner’s Grounds of Appeal
The Commissioner appealed against the Judge’s order on four grounds:
It was procedurally unfair for the Judge to have proceeded with the hearing of the July Application on 23 July (i.e. not to have granted the Commissioner’s application for an adjournment to allow more time to consider the US response).
The Judge exercised her discretion unreasonably because she failed properly to consider the impact of extending bail on US/UK relations.
The Judge exercised her discretion unreasonably because she failed to attribute due weight to the assessment by the US authorities of the security implications of extending bail.
The Judge exercised her discretion unreasonably because the July Order necessarily impacted upon decisions by the Commissioner concerning the allocation of resources.
The Court of Appeal’s Determination
The Court of Appeal dismissed the Commissioner’s appeal on all grounds.
Ground 1: Procedural Unfairness
The Court rejected the Commissioner’s contention that it was procedurally unfair for the Judge to refuse to adjourn the hearing of the July Application for two reasons.
First, the Court agreed with the Respondents that there was nothing “new” in the US’ response to the July Application. In summary it took the view that the US’ position had long been clear, and had amounted to “consistent and unvarying opposition” to any bail arrangements. Its response to the July Application was wholly consistent with this. Accordingly the Judge had been entitled to take the view that it was not necessary for the hearing to be adjourned for the Commissioner to have a fair opportunity to present his case.
Secondly, the Court noted that the Judge permitted oral submissions to be made on the two letters which the Commissioner received just after the hearing of the July Application. That further oral hearing constituted an obvious opportunity for the Commissioner to make any additional submissions on the US’ response to the July Application. The fact that he had not sought to make any such submissions undermined the contention that it had been unfair for the Judge not to adjourn the first hearing.
Ground 2: US/UK Relations
The Commissioner’s next ground of appeal relied on a contention that the Judge had failed to attach due significance to the impact that extending bail would have on US/UK relations.
The Commissioner’s case on this ground seems to have been somewhat confused. It appears to have been uncontroversial that “questions relating to international relations… are not generally justiciable”. However, it was also common ground that international relations considerations could not necessarily “dictate the outcome of the court’s enquiry”. The Commissioner’s argument before the Court of Appeal on this ground (at least in part) was that, because the grant of bail “had the potential to have a profound impact on international relations between the UK and [the US]”, the Judge should have exercised extreme caution before granting the July Application. As the Court of Appeal recognised, however, this was inconsistent with the Commissioner’s acceptance that the impact on the UK’s international relationships was just one factor to be considered in the overall balancing exercise. On that basis, the only question was whether the Judge had in fact properly evaluated the security concerns raised by the US. The Court of Appeal concluded that she had, and that there was no warrant for interfering in the evaluative conclusion which she had reached.
Ground 3: US Security Assessment
The Commissioner next argued that the Judge had failed, in summary, to accord sufficient respect to the US’ assessment that the grant of the July Application would interfere with security considerations.
Again, the Court dismissed this Ground. It accepted that it was for the relevant US authorities, rather than the Judge, to take a view on whether the grant of the July Application would have adverse security implications. However, this is not what the Judge had done. She had not questioned the US view of the relevant security implications but had, quite properly, taken that into account as a factor to be weighed alongside other relevant considerations. Her overall evaluation was that the July Application should (broadly) be granted. There was no warrant for interfering with that evaluation. In deciding that the Judge had accorded due respect to the US assessment of the security implications, the Court of Appeal seems to have relied in part on the fact that the Judge rejected aspects of the July Application (such as permitting the individuals to access a social club on Diego Garcia) because of the burdens those aspects would give rise to for the Commissioner.
Ground 4: Resource Allocation
Finally, the Commissioner argued that the Judge had strayed into another non-justiciable area because granting the July Application necessarily had implications for the allocation of resources by the Commissioner (in that there would be costs for the Commissioner associated with the extended bail arrangements).
Again, the Court found little difficulty in rejecting this Ground. It concluded that the Judge had not purported “to tell the Commissioner how to spend the funds available to the BIOT”. Rather she had explicitly recognised that this was a matter for the Commissioner. As was pointed out in argument, decisions as to bail conditions regularly have cost implications for the authorities; it would be surprising indeed if judges making such decisions were unlawfully straying into non-justiciable resource allocation territory.
Comment
It has been suggested (in particular by Joshua Rozenberg: see https://rozenberg.substack.com/p/uk-loses-diego-garcia-appeal) that the Commissioner must have recognised that he was likely to lose the appeal to the Court of Appeal, and that the appeal was only pursued in an attempt to show others (such as the US Government) that the UK was exhausting all its options in seeking to prevent bail being extended. On this view, the Court of Appeal’s decision was, from a legal perspective, “obvious”.
It is true that aspects of the Commissioner’s case before the Court of Appeal seem to have been very weak. In particular, it is difficult to see how the Commissioner could reasonably have hoped to succeed on Grounds 1 or 4.
However, the Court of Appeal’s decision does give rise to some points of genuine legal interest. In discussing Ground 2, the Court of Appeal accepted that the conduct of the UK’s foreign relations is non-justiciable in itself, but that the Crown’s foreign policy priorities can be weighed in the balance against other factors in determining a bail application. Presumably the same is true in other contexts. Similarly, in relation to Ground 3, the Court accepted that it is for the executive (in this case, in effect, the US Government) to form a view as to the state’s security interests, but that its view can be weighed among other factors in an appropriate case. This distinction is one which surely merits further academic, legal and political scrutiny. Put briefly, it is difficult to see how judges can on the one hand be expected to “keep out” of foreign policy and national security questions if the executive’s views on such matters are susceptible to being balanced against other factors (such as, in this case, the interests of individuals in being able to move more freely than has hitherto been the case). The Court’s approach to this issue seems to have been largely a result of the Commissioner’s acceptance that foreign policy and national security considerations did not constitute “trump cards” but were merely factors to be weighed in the balance. The Commissioner might have stood a better chance of success, and his case would certainly have been more intellectually coherent, had that concession not been made.
The second point arising from the Court’s judgment which is of significant interest concerns the way in which the parties and the Court all viewed the July Application through the prism of “bail”. As the Court itself recognised, this case falls far from the ordinary context in which bail principles are applied. One might see this case as demonstrating the admirable ability of English legal principles to address novel factual circumstances. Others might regret that such a unique set of facts could only be addressed by an analytical framework developed in very different cases.
The Child Poverty Action Group (Respondent) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions(Appellant) [2010] UKSC 54 – Read judgment / press release
The Supreme Court has ruled that where benefits are overpaid as a result of a mistaken calculation, the department responsible cannot claim these amounts back via the common law route of restitution; the Secretary of State’s only recourse is via Section 71 of the Social Security Administration Act.
The following summary is taken from the Supreme Court site’s Press Release, with my comment below:
This appeal concerns the question whether, in cases of social security benefit awards mistakenly inflated due to a calculation error, the Secretary of State is entitled to recover sums overpaid under the common law of unjust enrichment or whether section 71 of the Social Security Administration Act 1992 (the “1992 Act”) provides the only route to recovery (nb. the Supreme Court press summary wrongly refers to the Social Security Benefits Act 1992).
Procedural fairness is a bit like an elephant. It is difficult to define in abstract, but you know a fair procedure when you see one. So Lawton LJ put it in Maxwell v Department of Trade [1974] QB 523, 539
The trouble is it seems that different courts have different ideas of “elephantness”. Since we know that fairness is a necessarily context-sensitive notion, this, in itself, does not seem to give rise to too much difficulty. But practical problems start to arise when, for example, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) starts to endorse a view of fairness that is binding on the UK courts, but at odds with the approach taken by the UK Supreme Court. Add the facts that a) the UK is required to take into account the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), which seems to have a different conception of fairness to that of the CJEU and b) the UK courts themselves do not necessarily speak with one voice, there’s a heady mix.
This brief post attempts to survey the area, and to discern the bumps in the road. Smoothing them out is another challenge in itself, and will probably require more than filling in the odd pot-hole. Continue reading →
Othman (aka Abu Qatada) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2013] EWCA Civ 277 – read judgment
The Home Office last night assured its 70,000 Twitter followers that “it is not the end of the road”. Yet by the time she had reached page 17 of the Court of Appeal’s dismissal of her latest attempt to deport Abu Qatada, it might well have seemed that way to Theresa May.
In November, the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) ruled that Qatada could not be deported to face a retrial for alleged terrorism offences due to the real risk of “a flagrant denial of justice”. Read my post on that decision here. Yesterday, Lord Dyson – the Masters of the Rolls and second most senior judge in England and Wales – together with Lord Justices Richards and Elias, rejected the Home Secretary’s appeal.
Aside from lazy sub-editors (one of whom was me), what is causing this proliferation of Top Judges? It may be that senior judges are speaking out more, even on controversial topics which could create problems for them in the future.
Or perhaps Top Judge has always been outspoken, but fewer people were listening. In the internet age judges’ pronouncements are more quickly and widely reported. Speeches are often published instantly (sometimes, even before being made) on websites such as judiciary.gov.uk. Previously obscure Parliamentary committee hearings are broadcast live on the internet. The increased profile of the still-new Supreme Court adds to this dynamic.
Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) is the red button for the nuclear option of withdrawal from the EU, and in its design, it was never really, truly envisioned to be pressed. Without testing, and without precedent, we are left with no idea of the potential fallout of pressing that red button. Compared to the quasi-constitutionism of Article 2 TEU evoking the values ‘common to the Member States’ of ‘pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity and equality between men and women’; or the brutal legalism of Title VII of the Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) on competition, tax and the approximation of laws; Article 50 TEU is anaemic. It is, essentially, a button triggering a countdown clock, which is on a comparable level of advancement to the 1980s floppy disk.
The two-year countdown
Triggering Article 50 TEU will begin a two-year countdown to the end of UK Membership of the Union. Within that two-year period an agreement determining the withdrawal arrangements and the future relationship with the Union must be made. Barring a unanimous decision to extend the period, at the end of two years from the point of notification, the UK will no longer be a Member. The Treaties, and all rights and duties therein, cease to apply.
But now, as the British political establishment play a game of “pass the red button”, we are faced with some confounding, and concerning questions from a rights’ perspective. Likely to be lost in the two-year scramble for a political and trade agreement between the UK and EU, which will attempt at all costs to avoid the fall-back position of the application of WTO trade rules, are the very rights and values held as common between the (ex-)Member State(s). During that two-year period, EU law and (pertinently) EU rights will continue to apply in the UK. Free movement will still be (from a legal perspective) free, and claimants may still rely on their EU rights in the Courts. But then what? What happens when the clock strikes zero? Continue reading →
The Court of Appeal has published its decision in Guardian News Media v AB and CD. It is not a judgment, the Court says. Judgments – plural – will be given “in due course.” Still, the 24 paragraph decision contains the order and explanation of the order, and gives an indication of some of the reasons that will follow.
Is this a good decision? It is better than it might have been, but there are still deeply worrying problems.
Welcome back to the UK Human Rights Roundup, your regular breakfast cereal variety box of human rights news and views. The full list of links can be found here. You can find previous roundups here. Post by Sarina Kidd, edited and links compiled by Adam Wagner.
Commentators have been criticising a number of assertions that Chris Grayling made about judicial review in the Daily Mail this week. Elsewhere, although Price Competitive Tendering has been scrapped, there are still many concerning proposals, and there has been a secret court rebellion by the Lib Dems.
Human Rights Awards: Liberty has opened nominations for their 2013 Liberty Human Rights Awards – all details here.
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.
Othman (aka Abu Qatada) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2013] EWCA Civ 277 – 
.jpg)
Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union (
Guardian News and Media Ltd -v- AB CD – 
Welcome back to the UK Human Rights Roundup, your regular breakfast cereal variety box of human rights news and views. The full list of links can be found 
Recent comments