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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
Welcome back to the UK Human Rights Roundup, your regular Wimbledon Tennis Championship of human rights news and views. The full list of links can be found here. You can also find our table of human rights cases here and previous roundups here. Links compiled by Adam Wagner, post by Sarina Kidd.
This week, Chris Grayling made a concession, the closed material procedure for evidence in civil trials came into effect, and to Theresa May’s delight, Abu Qatada finally left the country.
This interesting decision shows the intersection between the right to education and the right to freedom of religion under the ECHR. These are fast evolving rights, particularly Article 9, whose “freedom” stipulation is becoming more important than the “religion” right. Article 9 is more and more often taken to cover the right not to cleave to any religion at all.
In this case the arguments were focussed on the right to education under Article 2 Protocol 1 of the Convention, taken together with Article 9. The main issue before the Supreme Court can be briefly stated. Did religious education and collective worship provided in a school in Northern Ireland breach the rights of a child, and the child’s parents, under Article 2 of the First Protocol (“A2P1”) to the European Convention on Human Rights (“ECHR”) read with Article 9 ECHR?
What is particularly interesting and unusual about this judgment is that it emerges from Northern Ireland with its own history of sectarianism and religious division. The very basis from which the case sprang goes back well over a hundred years; since Partition, the Church of Ireland, the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, and the Methodist Church in Ireland are under the control of what is now the Education Authority, and that is where we start our story, details of which can be found in the Supreme Court’s press summary.
Before we get going on this story, let’s highlight this sharp obvservation about the NI education system in paragraph 88 :
there is no commitment in the core syllabus to objectivity or to the development of critical thought. To teach pupils to accept a set of beliefs without critical analysis amounts to evangelism, proselytising, and indoctrination.
According to Strasbourg Jurisprudence, the State is forbidden to pursue an aim of indoctrination that might be considered as not respecting parents’ religious and philosophical convictions. That is the limit that must not be exceeded [see Kjedsen v Denmark (A/23) (1979–80) 1 EHRR711 at [53]].
In this instance, the Supreme Court did not make a separate and distinct finding of indoctrination. It was unnecessary to do so because conveying information and knowledge in a manner which is not objective, critical, and pluralistic manner amounts to indoctrination.
Scottish assisted dying bill falls while Westminster proposals lag in the House of Lords
Tuesday evening saw the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill defeated at the last stage of the Holyrood legislative process. After a final debate, Members of the Scottish Parliament voted against the bill by 69 votes to 57, with one abstention. The bill would have allowed some terminally ill patients to be assisted to end their lives. Patients would have been required to make two declarations of their wish for assisted dying and to undergo assessment by two doctors as to their eligibility and freedom from coercion or pressure.
Meanwhile, the House of Lords continues to debate amendments to the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill for England and Wales. Owing to the 1,200+ amendments which have been tabled, the bill is now widely expected to run out of time – despite passing the Commons in June 2025. The bill’s proposer, Kim Leadbeater MP, is reported to have said that the House of Lords has ‘signed its own death warrant’ by stalling the legislation.
NHRI joint statement urges UK government not to dilute the ECHR
On Thursday, the UK’s three National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs) issued an unusual joint statement urging the government to ‘commit to no reduction in rights protections’.
The NHRIs note that the UK government has expressed an intention to ‘re-balance’ and ‘clarify’ the position relating to migration by adopting political declarations on Articles 3 and 8 ECHR. They ask the government to explain how it will ensure that its proposals do not weaken ECHR protections. The statement continues:
‘The erosion of anyone’s rights puts us all at risk; it signals that these shared standards are not guaranteed and that any of our rights could be subject to debate.’
The UK’s NHRIs – the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the Scottish Human Rights Commission, and the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission – are required to abide by the Paris Principles. These call on them to promote and protect all human rights by acting independently from government.
In his speech at yesterday’s Conservative Party conference, the Prime Minister confirmed that the party’s 2015 election manifesto will include a commitment to repeal the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA) and replace it with a “British Bill of Rights”. Last night, however, The Scotsman newspaper quoted a Scotland Office spokesman as saying that the change would not apply in Scotland. According to the article, the spokesman “confirmed that human rights legislation is devolved to the Scottish Parliament because it was ‘built into the 1998 Scotland Act [and] cannot by removed [by Westminster].’” As reported, this statement is seriously misleading. However, it does highlight genuine difficulties that devolution creates for the implementation of plans to reform human rights law. Continue reading →
G v E and others [2010] EWCA Civ 822 – Read judgment
This post was written with the kind help of Jaime Lindsey
The Court of Appeal has held that a person who lacks mental capacity can be detained if the Court of Protection considers that it is in their best interests, without having to meet additional conditions under Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
This case was a challenge to the decision of Jonathan Baker J in the Court of Protection and raises issues about the relationship between ECHR Article 5 (right to liberty and security) and the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA). It reinforces the point that it is for the Court to decide what is in an incapacitated patient’s best interests, and that Article 5 imposes no further requirements.
This blog has covered a number of claims for damages arising out of the misuse of private information. The Mirror Group phone hacking case is one example (see my post here and the appeal decision here), and the fall-out from the hapless Home Office official who put private information about asylum-seekers on the Internet, being another – (Gideon Barth’s post on TLT here). See also below for related posts.
But this post is to give a bit of context, via the wider and scarier cyber crime which is going on all around us. It threatens the livelihoods of individuals and businesses the globe over – and has given and will undoubtedly give rise to complex spin-off litigation.
So let’s just start with the other week. On 21 October 2016, it seems nearly half the Internet was hit by a massive DDoS attack affecting a company, Dyn, which provides internet services infrastructure for a host of websites. Twitter, Reddit, Netflix, WIRED, Spotify and the New York Times were affected. DDoS, for cyber virgins, is Distributed Denial of Service, i.e. an overloading of servers via a flood of malicious requests, in this case from tens of millions of IP addresses. No firm culprits so far, but a botnet called Mirai seems to be in the frame. It is thought that non-secure items like cars, fridges and cameras connected to the Internet (the Internet of Things) may be the conscripted foot soldiers in such attacks.
And now to the sorts of cases which have hit the headlines in this country to date.
‘A bleak, poorly staffed, highly charged and toxic environment.’ (Callum Tulley)
The Brook House inquiry has recently concluded its first phase of hearings which took place between November 23 and December 10, 2021 at the International Dispute Resolution Centre (IDRC). Brook House is an Immigration Removal Centre (IRC) beside Gatwick Airport, originally managed by the private security company G4S. The inquiry was set up to investigate the actions and circumstances surrounding the ‘mistreatment’ of male detainees at Brook House between April 1 to August 31 2017, and specifically, examining whether the treatment experienced was contrary to Article 3 ECHR (the right not to be subjected to torture, inhuman or degrading treatment). This followed the damning footage filmed by an undercover reporter in Brook House during the ‘relevant period’, and broadcast on the BBC Panorama Programme ‘Undercover: Britain’s Immigration Secrets’ which aired on September 4, 2017.
Background
Callum Tulley was employed by Brook House from January 2015 as a detention custody officer. In this role he witnessed the disturbing culture and conduct of employees there and raised these concerns by email to the BBC Panorama team in January 2016. After a 14– month period providing intelligence and completing specialist training, Tulley began to secretly film 109 hours of footage over a three-month period – the contents of which exposed the degrading treatment of detainees by employees.
Last Wednesday, the European Court of Justice issued a flurry of judgments just before the Christmas break. Indeed, there were so many interesting and important decisions amongst the twenty or so handed down that seems foolish to consider any of them the ‘most important’. Nonetheless the judgment in NS and Others v SSHD(C-411/10) must be a contender for the title.
The case concerns an asylum seeker in Britain who first entered the EU through Greece. The Dublin Regulation, which governs this aspect of EU asylum law, would ordinarily dictate that the applicant should be sent to Greece to have his asylum claim considered there. However, Mr Saeedi challenged his transfer to Greece, claiming that his human rights would be infringed by such a transfer as Greece would be unable to process his application. NS was joined with an Irish case, ME & Others v Refugee Applications Commissioner & MEJLR (C-493/10), which raised similar questions for EU law.
Government proposals to increase the number of court hearings held in secret, and in which parties can only see minimal evidence relied upon by the court, have been severely criticised by the “Special Advocates” who play the central role in closed hearings.
The group of 57 barristers, including 19 Queen’s Counsel, argue that despite attempts, for example, to give those subject to “Closed Material Procedures” a summary of the evidence against them, they remain “fundamentally unfair” and
represent a departure from the foundational principle of natural justice that all parties are entitled to see and challenge all the evidence relied upon before the court and to combat that evidence by calling evidence of their own.
The document is a response to the Government’s Consultation (see my and Angus McCullough QC’s previous posts) which have to be sent via email or post by tomorrow,Friday 6 January 2012. I will be collating summaries of responses as I did with the Bill of Rights Commission consultation. If you would like your response to be included, please send it to 1crownofficerow@gmail.com, with the subject “Consultation response”.
Welcome back to the UK Human Rights Roundup, your regular hurtling freight train 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.
This week, immigration, in various forms was hotly discussed and some notable cases have been or are soon to be decided in the realm of disability rights. And not everyone is happy about the decision to televise Court of Appeal cases.
Unsurprisingly, the Opinion of the EU Court (just before Christmas – my post here) that the proposed accession of the EU to the ECHR on current terms would be unlawful has not gone down well in Strasbourg.
An excellent post today by Tobias Lock on the Verfassungblog tells the story here, but these are the highlights. In short, the President of the Strasbourg Court, Dean Spielmann, added some text to his review of 2014, in a speech given yesterday, 29 January – here.
Lots of interesting stuff on the 2014 ECtHR case law (and case load), but his withering bit on the CJEU’s Opinion is worth quoting.
Bearing in mind that negotiations on European Union accession have been under way for more than thirty years, that accession is an obligation under the Lisbon Treaty and that all the member States along with the European institutions had already stated that they considered the draft agreement compatible with the Treaties on European Union and the Functioning of the European Union, the CJEU’s unfavourable opinion is a great disappointment.
In short, the CJEU is out of line with the views of the member states, and not least with the obligation in Article 6 of the Lisbon Treaty that the EU “shall” accede to the ECHR.
But Spielmann did not leave it at that, as we shall see.
Figures published by the Ministry of Justice showed that the backlog of crown court cases had risen to yet another record high: by 31 March this year, there were almost 60,000 outstanding cases, a rise of 45 per cent on the previous year. In the magistrates’ courts, that figure stood at 400,000, a rise of 21 per cent.
Waiting times have hiked accordingly: the average crown court case it now taking just under a year, 363 days, to be heard. Some trials are already being scheduled for 2023.
These latest figures follow the Ministry of Justice’s End-to-End Rape Review Report on Findings and Actions, covered on last week’s round-up, which revealed that processing times for rape complainants were particularly egregious, averaging around a thousand days between the commission of an offence and the conclusion of a trial.
Several MPs were quick to diagnose root causes of the criminal justice system’s dismal condition. Shadow justice secretary David Lammy complained that ‘the Conservatives are forcing victims of rape, domestic abuse and violent assault to wait months and years for justice if they get it at all’, blaming the compounded effect of ‘the government’s decade of court closures, combined with its incompetent response to the pandemic’. Liberal Democrat MP Wera Hobhouse also pointed to pre-coronavirus underfunding, warning that ‘ministers must not use Covid as an excuse for this backlog, or to undermine the fundamental right to trial by jury.’
Bank Mellat v HM Treasury [2011] EWCA Civ 1: read judgment.
Financial restrictions imposed in 2009 on an Iranian Bank which effectively excluded it from the UK financial market did not breach common law or ECHR principles of fairness, said the Court of Appeal on Thursday.
The Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 conferred powers on the Treasury to restrict persons operating in the financial sector from entering or participating in any transaction or business relationship with the appellant Bank Mellat (BM). The Order, which was subject to the affirmative resolution procedure and reviewable on limited grounds (Section 63(2) CTA) was justified by a Ministerial Statement which declared that the direction to cease business would
reduce the risk of the UK financial sector being used, unknowingly or otherwise, to facilitate Iran’s proliferation sensitive activities. Continue reading →
The year passed was, unsurprisingly, another year of tumult and surprise, something that by now registers as the norm rather than an aberration. Even so, 2022 must be a standout year – even by recent standards. From Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to the death of Queen Elizabeth II, the collapse of two consecutive Tory governments, dramatic election results around the world from Israel to Brazil, and in the run up to the festive season a football World Cup as mired in human rights controversy as in any sporting event can be, 2022 was not a quiet year.
Nor did the legal world disappoint. On the Parliamentary side of things, Justice Secretary Dominic Raab’s controversial Bill of Rights Bill continues to clunk through Parliament, and other bills with interesting human rights implications have had their moment in the sun as well. To take but one example, the Online Safety Bill, whose controversial but central parts dealing with ‘legal but harmful’ speech were removed recently, is yet to become law after extensive reform following criticisms based on freedom of expression.
But the focus of this post is not on Parliament, or politics in general, but on the highlights of 2022 in the Courts. So with no further ado and in no particular order, the cases which (in the completely impartial and objective joint opinion of the co-editors of this blog) have defined 2022 are:
Commissioner of the Police for the Metropolis v DSD and NBV and Alio Koraou v Chief Constable of Manchester [2015] EWCA Civ 646 – read judgment
The Court of Appeal has ruled that the police have a positive duty under Article 3 ECHR to conduct investigations into alleged ill-treatment by private individuals. There is a sliding scale from deliberate torture by State officials to the consequences of negligence by non-State agents. The margin of appreciation enjoyed by the State in terms of complying with the Article 3 procedural duty widens at the bottom of the scale but narrows at the top.
Background
This was an appeal brought by the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) against the decision of Green J in the High Court that the police force were in breach of the prohibition on inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment under Article 3 ECHR. A summary of the judgment at first instance can be found here.
The claimants were two women, DSD and NBV, who had been victims of rape and sexual assault committed by John Worboys, the “black cab rapist”. Administering sedative drugs and alcohol to his passengers, Worboys was the perpetrator of more than 105 assaults on women between 2002 and 2008.
In a conjoined appeal, the claimant Alio Koraou appealed a finding against him by HHJ Platts. He had been subject to an assault in a bar and part of his ear had been bitten off.
Both of these claims alleged that the failures of which the police were accused constituted violations of a duty to investigate said to be inherent in the right guaranteed by Article 3.
Decision
The Court of Appeal rejected submissions made on behalf of the MPS that a positive duty to investigate was not part of domestic law. It held that allegations of ill-treatment of the gravity stipulated by Article 3 gave rise to a duty under that Article to conduct an official investigation. Moreover, this obligation was not limited solely to cases of ill-treatment by State agents, but could arise where crimes were committed by private actors.
The reach and nature of the investigative duty
The Court emphasised that an appreciation of the reach and nature of the investigative duty under Article 3 demanded a broader consideration of the aims of this part of the ECHR. It was important to keep in mind the Article’s overall purpose.
“The idea at the core of the Article is that of safeguarding or protection in all the myriad situations where individuals may be exposed to ill-treatment of the gravity which the Article contemplates” [para. 44].
Reference was made to a sliding scale: from deliberate torture by State officials to the consequences of negligence by non-State agents. The energy required of the State to combat or redress these ills is “no doubt variable, but the same protective principle is always at the root of it” [para. 45].
Further, the margin of appreciation enjoyed by the State as to the means of compliance with Article 3 widens at the bottom of the scale but narrows at the top. At the lower end of the scale where injury happens through the negligence of non-State agents, the State’s provision of a judicial system of civil remedies will often suffice. Serious violent crime by non-State agents is of a different order, lying higher up the scale. Such cases, which included those of the respondent women, generally require a proper criminal investigation by the State.
Were the MPS in breach of their duty?
The Court went on to consider whether the judge had placed the cases in front of him too high on the sliding scale in terms of the degree of rigour required of the police investigation. A contrast between the ECHR and common law negligence was in this regard crucial. Whereas the purpose of English private law is compensation for loss, the strategic aim of the ECHR is to secure minimum standards of human rights protection. This distinction marks important differences in practice.
“The contrast between damages as of right and compensation at the court’s discretion is one. But another, in my judgment, goes to the standard applicable to the ascertainment of breach of the Article 3 investigative duty, as compared with what might constitute breach of a common law duty of care. Because the focus of the human rights claim is not on loss to the individual, but on the maintenance of a proper standard of protection, the court is in principle concerned with the State’s overall approach to the relevant ECHR obligation” [para. 67].
“The enquiry into compliance with the Article 3 duty is first and foremost concerned, not with the effect on the claimant, but with the overall nature of the investigative steps to be taken by the State” [para. 68].
Drawing on the account of Green J, the Court noted the judge’s findings that there were systematic and operational failures in the cases of both claimants. Applying the above legal principles to the facts, the Court held it to be “inescapable” that Green J was right to find a violation of Article 3.
Koraou
In the second of the conjoined appeals, the Court affirmed the approach of HHJ Platts: a finding that there were clear failings in the police investigation would not lead in every case to liability under Article 3.
It had been noted by the judge that this was not the most serious of cases and that the allegations made by the Claimant were of questionable reliability. In his judgment it was not, therefore, a case where it would have been reasonable to require that the investigation left no stone unturned. Account had to be taken of the fact that police resources were limited. Further, this was not a case where the police did nothing.
The Court concluded that HHJ Platts had weighed the proved deficiencies of the investigation, its difficulties as he found them to be, and the gravity of the case. His decision to dismiss the claim could not sensibly be faulted.
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Welcome back to the UK Human Rights Roundup, your regular Wimbledon Tennis Championship of human rights news and views. The full list of links can be found here. You can also find our table of human rights cases here and previous roundups here. Links compiled by Adam Wagner, post by Sarina Kidd.
In his 
Last Wednesday, the European Court of Justice issued a flurry of judgments just before the Christmas break. Indeed, there were so many interesting and important decisions amongst the twenty or so handed down that seems foolish to consider any of them the ‘most important’. Nonetheless the judgment in 
Welcome back to the UK Human Rights Roundup, your regular hurtling freight train of human rights news and views. The full list of links can be found 
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