Search Results for: justice and security bill
21 November 2013 by Guest Contributor
Updated | The relationship between the UK and the European Court remains turbulent and fractious. The Court has been the subject of significant criticism, notably from some politicians and commentators in the UK, relating to its supposed interference in domestic, sovereign questions and the quality of its judges.
Some commentators say that the UK may have to withdraw from the jurisdiction of the court. Michael Pinto-Duschinsky argues that if (as is highly likely) the Council of Europe refuses to institute a “democratic override” for states of European Court of Human Rights decisions, withdrawal should be seriously considered. MP Nick Herbert argues that the UK should withdraw immediately.
Others have proposed withdrawing from the European Convention altogether. For example, in April, the Home Secretary, Theresa May, said that temporary withdrawal from the Convention was one option being considered by the UK government in its efforts to deport the Islamic cleric Omar Mohammed Othman (also known as Abu Qatada). Two members of the Commission tasked with investigating the creation of a UK Bill of Rights advocated withdrawal from the Convention unless the Court ceased its ‘judicially activist approach’ (p. 182).
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3 September 2010 by Adam Wagner
Updated, 3 Sep, 16:35 | The Home Office is to announce a review of UK extradition agreements with other countries, including the controversial and some say unbalanced agreement with the United States. This represents a provisional success for campaigners against certain extradition agreements.
According to reports, the review will include the Extradition Act 2003 which implemented into law the UK-United States extradition treaty. It will also consider the European Arrest Warrant, which was used for 50% more arrests last year. The review fulfils the pledge made in the coalition’s program for government to ”review the operation of the Extradition Act – and the US/UK extradition treaty – to make sure it is even-handed”.
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13 July 2011 by Guest Contributor
R (NM) Secretary v of State for Justice [2011] EWHC 1816 – Read judgment
This case concerned whether the prison authorities were in breach of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and the Equality Act 2010 when they failed to conduct a form investigation into a sexual assault against a prisoner with learning disabilities, NM.
It was further considered whether the failure to conduct a formal investigation was in breach of NM’s Article 3 rights. The claimant was assisted in bringing his case by the Howard League for Penal Reform. The court found in relation to all points that the defendant had acted lawfully.
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13 August 2010 by Adam Wagner
David Kelly
It has long been accepted that the coroners’ courts, which investigate tens of thousands of deaths per year, are in urgent need of reform. But long-awaited changes are now under threat from Ministry of Justice budget cuts, leaving relatives of the dead with an inconsistent system of varying quality. This arguably places the state in breach of is obligations under human rights law.
A death is referred to a coroner when there is reasonable cause to suspect that it was violent or unnatural, or if the cause is unknown. In 2009, just under half of around 460,000 deaths were reported to the coroner, and 31,000 inquests were then opened. Inquests are rarely out of the news; for example, today calls were renewed for an inquest into the death of David Kelly. In the absence of obvious negligence or suspicious circumstances triggering a criminal investigation or compensation claim, inquests are often the only chance for relatives to get to the bottom of how a person died.
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29 July 2010 by Adam Wagner
He can come now
The proposed change to the rules for bringing on who can apply for international war crimes arrest warrants has predictably generated some strong reactions
The changes will make it necessary to get the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions before an arrest warrant can be granted. The Ministry of Justice say they are changing the rules in order to prevent arrests happening after the presentation of “flimsy” evidence. Those who fear arrest under the current system range from Israeli ministers to the Pope.
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15 February 2016 by Guest Contributor
Libby McVeigh is Legal and Policy Director for Fair Trials, a London and Brussels based nongovernmental organization campaigning for the right to a fair trial globally. It is currently campaigning for better defence rights standards in Europe and is also leading research into the use (and abuse) of plea bargaining across the globe.
New guidelines incentivising people accused of criminal offences in England and Wales to plead guilty as early as possible were proposed last week. While existing rules allow for a maximum one-third reduction in the sentence to those who plead guilty at the ‘first reasonable opportunity’, this benefit is now only available to those who plead guilty at their very first court hearing, with the available reduction falling on a steeper sliding scale thereafter.
The Sentencing Council responsible for such matters has emphasised the efficiency gains and cost savings resulting from the swift disposal of cases, and the development has been welcomed by organisations which provide support to victims of criminal offences who will be “spared the stress and anxiety of a trial”. Little attention has been paid, however, to the impact on the rights of criminal defendants who are being encouraged to waive their right to the full trial process which undoubtedly remains the best method for preventing injustice.
Numerous cases illustrate the miscarriages of justice which can result when individuals are incentivised to plead guilty without adequate safeguards. The US case of Phillip Bivens, Bobby Ray Dixon and Larry Ruffin shows how innocent people can be persuaded to confess to a crime they did not commit – in this case the rape and murder of a young mother in front of her 4-year old son – if the stakes are high enough and fair trial rights protection absent. And while a guilty plea may be quick and easy to make, the process of reversing the injustice is far more complex and lengthy. Larry Ruffin died of a heart attack after 23 years in prison before his name was cleared, and Bobby Ray lost his battle against cancer only weeks before his full exoneration. Phillip Bivens regained his freedom 30 years after his arrest and still awaits the conclusion of his civil lawsuit for compensation.
The challenges which ‘plea bargaining’ presents to fair trials protections were highlighted at a recent meeting of criminal justice experts in the US, where 95% of all criminal cases are now resolved through guilty pleas. With an estimated 20,000 factually innocent people in prison for crimes to which they pleaded guilty but did not commit, the drivers of injustice were identified as including:
- the excessive trial penalty and the unaccountable power of prosecutors, who are rewarded for volumes of convictions rather than quality of investigations and routinely over-charge to obtain guilty pleas;
- overworked and underpaid public defenders who are financially incentivised to dispose of cases quickly by encouraging clients to plead guilty;
- income inequality leading defendants who cannot afford to pay bail to plead guilty to avoid pre-trial detention; and
- the erosion of fair trial rights protection in the context of guilty pleas, including the right against self-incrimination, access to evidence, judicial oversight and the right to appeal.
The concerns raised in the US will hopefully be taken into account during the consultation launched by the Sentencing Council last week. Consideration should be given not only to the impact of legal aid cuts on the advice given to those considering a guilty plea, but also the inter-relationship between the proposed guidelines and the Better Case Management scheme (BCM) rolled out across UK courts in January 2016. With changes made by the BCM to the timing and extent of disclosure by the prosecution, defendants will now be required to enter their plea at the first hearing on the basis of the limited evidence included in the Initial Details of the Prosecution Case rather than the full case papers which be provided only after the opportunity to obtain the maximum reduction in sentence has passed.
As experiences in the US and current developments in England and Wales demonstrate, questions about the fairness of plea bargaining systems need to be pushed further up the global human rights agenda. Plea bargaining is on the rise worldwide, sometimes under the influence of US funding for global rule of law reform, and countries that introduce such practices tend to rely on them to resolve a larger percentage of their criminal cases over time.
Fair Trials and its pro bono partner, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, are currently conducting a scoping study that aims to establish the global reach of the practice, examining criminal procedure in approximately 70 national jurisdictions globally to see whether plea bargaining exists and to identify its defining features. A more detailed study in a select number of jurisdictions will involve analysis of the operation of plea bargaining and the extent to which key human rights safeguards are enjoyed in practice.
The results of the research will be published in later 2016, including recommendations for a human rights based approach to plea bargaining which we hope will inform the development of such practices, not only in England and Wales, but in jurisdictions across the globe. The human rights implications of an inefficient criminal justice system demand that solutions to lengthy procedures are found. But the failure to analyse the impact of guilty plea regimes on fair trial rights protection is resulting in the introduction of practices which already do result in injustice and will gradually erode trust in the rule of law. We hope that a global commitment to reform plea bargaining processes to ensure respect for fair trial rights will enable efficiency to be enhanced without fair criminal justice being undermined.
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22 August 2013 by David Hart KC
The Plantagenet Alliance Ltd (R o.t.a) v. Secretary of State for Justice and others, Haddon-Cave J, 15 August 2013 read judgment
I spent long hot summers in the 1970s digging up the remains of Saxons and prehistoric Greeks. In Greece, skeletons were good time-consuming cannon-fodder for incompetent interns, whilst real archaeologists got on with the serious stuff of looking for walls and post-holes. So I can understand the impulse which took the Plantagenet Alliance to court about the bones of Richard III with its diagnostic severe scoliosis.
The judge gave the Allliance permission to seek judicial review of the Secretary of State’s decision about re-burial. But I question the result – does the Alliance really have a legal right to be consulted about where Richard III is to be re-buried?
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4 June 2017 by Sarah Ewart
IN THE NEWS
The news this week, though inevitably dominated by election coverage, has a lot going on for lawyers. We’ve sifted through it so you don’t have to, followed by our summary of the Advocate General Bot’s Opinion on free movement for dual citizens.
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28 June 2011 by Adam Wagner
As reported by Guardian.co.uk, Lady Hale, one of the 12 UK Supreme Court justices, has said in a speech to The Law Society that the government’s proposed reforms to legal aid will have a “disproportionate effect upon the poorest and most vulnerable in society“.
Although the current crop of senior judges has not been afraid to express opinions on controversial issues, it is unusual for a sitting senior judge to criticise current and controversial government plans. The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill has only just been published, and is being debated tomorrow in Parliament. The Guardian.co.uk article presents the comments as a “direct challenge” to the policy. However, upon a closer reading, Lady Hale cleverly steered clear of criticising the plans in her own words, but rather quoted the government’s own analysis of the bill.
The speech was entitled Equal Access to Justice in the Big Society, and was in memory of solicitor Henry Hodge, and can be downloaded in full here (PDF). It is also republished below the page break.
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28 March 2010 by Elspeth Wrigley
The European Commission has sent an official warning letter to the UK regarding the prohibitive expense of challenging the legality of environmental decisions.
The UNECE Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (the Aarhus Convention) was signed by the United Kingdom in 1998, and came into force in October 2001. It was ratified by the United Kingdom in February 2005, at the same time as its ratification by the European Community. Article 9(4) of the Convention provides that access to environmental justice must be fair, equitable, timely and not prohibitively expensive.
The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) does not provide for a specific human right to a clean environment, nor a right to environmental justice, although Article 2 (right to life), Article 6 (right to a fair trial) and Article 8 (respect for family and private life) do provide some scope for environmental protection, Conventions such as Aarhus are important in supporting these rights in an environmental context, particularly where the ECHR may provide inadequate protection. This connection is recognised in the preamble to the Aarhus Convention which identifies that, “the adequate protection of the environment is essential for human well-being and the enjoyment of basic human rights, including the right to life itself.”
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3 June 2013 by Rosalind English
M, R(on the application of) v The Parole Board and another [2013] EWHC 1360 (Admin) – read judgment
Reporting restrictions on proceedings concerning a life prisoner should be discharged since the public interest in allowing media organisations to publish reports outweighed the prisoner’s human rights.
The claimant had been convicted of the brutal murder of three infant children in 1973. Subsequent to his incarceration in open prison, his movements had come to the attention of the press. Inmates made threats and the claimant was moved to secure conditions. When he sought judicial review of a decision by the parole board in 2011 (declining his return to open conditions), the judge granted an order restricting reporting of the claimant’s identity, the details of his offences and his current location. In this hearing, various media organisations intervened to request the discharge this order.
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18 February 2018 by Guest Contributor
Eleanor Leydon brings us the latest developments in rights law.
In The News:
A Senior District Judge has ruled that upholding the warrant for Julian Assange’s arrest is both in the public interest and proportionate, albeit that Assange has already restricted his own freedom for several years. In determining the proportionality of the proceedings the judge had regard to the seriousness of the failure to surrender, the level of culpability at this stage of the proceedings, and the harm caused, including impact on the community.
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9 February 2021 by Samuel March
On 8 February 2020, small but significant changes were made to the Part 3 (Case Management) of the Criminal Procedure Rules and Practice Directions 2020 (“CrimPR”). These changes remove the requirement that defendants in criminal trials provide their nationality to the court at preliminary hearings. The question is now to be asked only where a court passes an immediate or suspended custodial sentence.
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14 October 2011 by Adam Wagner
A quick note to highlight an excellent 2-day seminar on Economic and Social Rights in the Age of Austerity at The Law Society’s annual human rights symposium. It is on 21-22 October. All details are here.
For more on economic and social rights – which are a newish frontier in the human rights world and very controversial – see Rosalind English’s posts here and here.
A host of high profile speakers will lead discussion at the event, which is to be held at the Law Society’s headquarters on Chancery Lane, London. Here are some of the speakers
- Andy Slaughter MP (Labour MP and Shadow Justice Minister),
- Justice Albie Sachs – former Justice of the South African Constitutional Court
- Lady Justice Arden – Lady Justice of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales
- Kate Green MP – Labour MP, chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Poverty and member of the Work and Pensions Committee
- Professor Francesca Klug OBE – director, Human Rights Futures Project, LSE
- Baroness Walmsley – patron, CRAE, co-chair Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Policy Committee on Education, Families and Young People and sponsor of the 2009 ROCK Children’s Rights Bill
- Professor Emeritus Richard Wilkinson – director, Equality Trust and author of The Spirit Level Background
There are good discounts for public sector organisations and students. I may be speaking in one of the “breakout” sessions on human rights in the media, depending on another commitment. But don’t let that put you off! Sign up now.
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18 February 2014 by Rosalind English
McLoughlin, R v [2014] EWCA Crim 188 (18 February 2014) – read judgment
The Court of Appeal has today ruled that judges can continue to impose whole life orders in accordance with Schedule 21 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003.
On the facts of two individual cases, the Court increased the sentence of Ian McLaughlin to one of a whole life term for the murder of Graham Buck. The Court dismissed an appeal by Lee Newell against his whole life order for the murder of Subhan Anwar.
The following is based on the Court of Appeal’s press summary.
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