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UK Human Rights Blog - 1 Crown Office Row
Search Results for: prisoner voting/page/39/ministers have been procrastinating on the issue, fearing that it will prove unpopular with the electorate.
The Government has launched legal action to recover £122m from PPE Medpro, the supplier recommended by Conservative peer Michelle Mone. The claim is grounded in a contract for the supply of 25m sterile surgical gowns awarded via the ‘VIP lane’ used during the pandemic to prioritise companies with political connections. None of the gowns purchased were ever used in the NHS as they were allegedly not fit for purpose, although Medpro insist that the gowns passed inspection and will defend the claim. The case will be of significant public interest following the revelation that £29m originating from profits from this contract was paid to an offshore trust whose beneficiaries were Mone and her children. Mone’s husband also profited at least £65m from these government contracts. Mone remains insistent that she had no involvement in Medpro and has not gained financially from the contracts.
The Scottish Parliament have passed the Gender Recognition Bill, allowing people to legally change their gender through a system of self-identification. The Bill seeks to make it easier for individuals to legally change their gender, removing the need for a psychiatric diagnosis of gender dysphoria to gain a gender recognition certificate, and extending the new system to 16 year olds. It also reduces the time someone has to have been permanently living in their acquired gender before they can apply (to 3 months down from 2 years). The Bill has been the centre of a much heated debate, with potent beliefs on either side. While the parliamentary debate itself was disrupted within minutes by protesters shouting ‘shame on you… this is the darkest day’, many have come out in support of the Bill for the protections it provides for trans people.
The Guardian reported yesterday that “MPs aiming to claw back powers from Europe have secretly interviewed candidates to become Britain’s next judge at the European court of human rights”. Oliver Heald MP said that a group of MPs from the three main political parties met the 3 candidates, Raquel Agnello QC, Paul Mahoney and Ben Emmerson QC. The aim is “to improve democratic accountability”.
What would really improve democratic accountability is to hold such meetings in public, and broadcast them online. Currently, the UK public knows frighteningly little about how the Strasbourg Court works in practice. This is hardly surprising given that it is regularly misrepresented in the popular press, for example the Daily Mail and Telegraph’s recent uncritical coverage of a report which wrongly stated the UK loses 3 out of 4 cases there (the real figure is about 1 in 50).
The Great Repeal Bill has shrunk more prosaically into the EUWB, but its task is technically arduous. The easy bit is clause 1: the European Communities Act 1972 is repealed on (Br)exit day. Job done? No. Job hardly started.
Episode 143 features Isabel McArdle and Sarabjit Singh QC of 1 Crown Office Row. Isabel practises in indirect tax, healthcare law, personal injury and public law. Sarabjit (“Sab”) specialises in tax, with a particular emphasis on all forms of indirect tax and the interface between tax and public law. They have both given seminars on the implications of Brexit for tax lawyers. In this episode, Rosalind English discusses with Sab and Isabel a number of laws containing Henry VIII powers, including the Childcare Act 2016, Section 8 of the European Union Withdrawal Act 2018, Section 31 of the EU Future Relationship Act 2020, the Coronavirus Act 2020 and Section 51 of the Taxation (Cross-Border Trade) Act 2018. Emma-Louise Fenelon did of course explore this subject in depth with the Public Law Project and Lord Anderson of Ipswich QC in Episode 129: Brexit and the Flaws of Delegated Legislation ; this episode takes this important subject further.
Henry VIII powers enable a minister to amend primary law by secondary legislation, effectively bypassing parliament. They also touch on the popularity of so-called “skeleton bills”. These bills are favoured by those in power because they have no policy in them so there’s nothing to scrutinise by both Houses of Parliament. And Henry VIII clauses are what feed these bills.
Following Brexit, everything from financial services, immigration from Europe, fisheries, agriculture – can all be achieved under Henry VIII in skeleton bills. The concern, from a constitutional perspective, is that there’s a lack of parliamentary scrutiny. They give huge power to ministers to amend and repeal Acts of Parliament.
We have to apologise for the building works sound effects in the background of this episode. We welcome our listeners to perceive them as an appropriate metaphor for the government hammering home their policies under these Henry VIII powers.
It came and went, and we know nothing more. Yesterday, =the government said, through the Queen, that:
Proposals will be brought forward for a British Bill of Rights. My government will bring forward proposals for a British Bill of Rights. My ministers will uphold the sovereignty of Parliament and the primacy of the House of Commons.
All of the signals were pointing to no activity before the EU Referendum, and that was proved right.
It makes sense. We don’t even know if Michael Gove will still be in post after the referendum, and if we are leaving the EU we may want to fold bigger constitutional questions into the bill of rights debate anyway.
So, like a particularly boring 18-season box-set, the saga continues. But if the government continues to delay, at least each new episode brings forth some interesting reactions and coverage, and here is some of it:
This is by me: 4 Charts Which Show The European Court Of Human Rights Has Dramatically Changed Its Approach To The UK (RightsInfo)
What Did The Queen’s Speech Tell Us About The Bill Of Rights? (RightsInfo)
Lockerbie relatives, football supporters and domestic violence survivors among more than 100 groups standing together against Human Rights Act repeal (Liberty)
In Dove v HM Assistant Coroner to Teesside and Hartlepool & Anor [2021] EWHC 2511, the High Court considered the State’s obligations under article 2 ECHR with respect to those in receipt of welfare benefits as well as the scope of coronial inquiries both where article 2 is and isn’t engaged. Although it was argued that failings by the Department of Work and Pensions were relevant to a death by suicide, a fresh inquest was refused in the circumstances.
Background Facts
The Applicant’s daughter, Ms Whiting suffered with spinal conditions and numerous mental health conditions. As a result, she was awarded employment support allowance [ESA] under the ‘support group’ category.
In September 2016, Ms Whiting began reassessment. By way of questionnaire she requested a home assessment, indicating she rarely left the house due to mobility issues and anxiety. This was not passed to the Centre for Health and Disability Services [CHDA] who decided that she was to attend a face-to-face appointment on 16th January 2017. On 6th February 2017, Ms Whiting was informed that her ESA would be stopped as she had not shown ‘good cause’ for her failure to attend and had not therefore demonstrated limited capacity for work.
On 21st February 2017 Ms Whiting, was tragically found unresponsive and was later pronounced dead. An inquest concluded she had died by suicide as a short-form conclusion. The Coroner told attendees that she had noted that there were ongoing discussions with the Department of Work and Pensions, but that it was not her function to question any decisions made by the Department.
However, a report by the Independent Case Examiner [ICE] in February 2019 (following a complaint made before the inquest had concluded) subsequently found that there had been “significant failings” by the Department in the events leading up to Ms Whiting’s death.
The Applicant applied to the Court under section 13 of the Coroners Act 1988 for an order quashing the Coroner’s determination and directing that a new inquest take place.
Updated, 20 Feb 2012 | Following the news recently it would seem that the UK is convulsed by a raging battle between religious observers and, in the words of Baroness Warsi, militant secularists. On the same day, the High Court ruled that Christian prayers held before a council meeting were unlawful, and the Court of Appeal upheld the decision of the High Court that two Christian hotel owners had discriminated against gay clients by not offering them a double room.
Today’s spat, according to The Guardian, involves a letter sent to the Education Secretary Michael Gove by the Trade Union Congress leader “expressing alarm that a booklet containing “homophobic material” had been distributed by a US preacher after talks to pupils at Roman Catholic schools across the Lancashire region in 2010.” From the quotes provided in The Observer, the book sounds pretty offensive:
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, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office published its Report on Democracy and Human Rights and the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act was enacted. The Leveson Inquiry continues to roll on, and we have a fresh round of commentary over freedom of speech, and over the democratic legitimacy of judicial decisions on human rights.
A short examination of whether the policy endorsed by the Labour Party as part of its pledge to support social justice can be justified in law or is a flagrant contravention of human rights. This article was first published in Counsel magazine.
It didn’t take long for some rather well-known lawyers to point out there may be a flaw in this plan. Lord Lester QC of Herne Hill in a letter to the Times that weekend pithily explained that as long ago as 1982, he and David Pannick had advised the school governing bodies that ‘Labour’s plan would violate the European Convention on Human Rights and its first protocol. Our opinion was published. No one disputed our advice and the policy was dropped.’ He expressed surprise about the plan being reignited and continued to be of the view that the plan would violate the European Convention on Human Rights (‘the Convention’).
The Government has commissioned an independent review of children’s social work and frontline child protection practice. Child protection services have been widely derided as a result of a series of scandals such as that involving baby Peter Connelly (Baby P), and many lawyers feel the court system is at breaking point.
Update 13/06/10 – The Court of Protection has issued its first annual report, which can be accessed here. The forward to the Report says “The court has had to endure more than its fair share of setbacks, which were caused in the main by a failure to anticipate, prior to the implementation of the Act, the volume of work that would inundate the court during the initial transitional period, and the overall burden it would place on the judges and staff.”
According to a Department for Education (DoE) press release, Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Education, has asked Professor Eileen Munro, a professor of social policy at the London School of Economics, to lead the a “fundamental” review of child protection services. Professor Munro has written widely on child protection and the regulation of child care.
As we inch towards October, the £100m
government campaign to ‘Get Ready for Brexit’ has been launched. But to all intents
and purposes, the government are jumping the gun. By the time businesses have managed
to get themselves ready for Brexit (again), Boris Johnson will probably have
been required to request an extension to Article 50 under the anti-no deal bill
proposed by Hillary Benn, which today was given royal assent and passed into
law.
Last night saw the latest round of Lords debate on the Justice and Security Bill. It should be required reading for the Secretary of State. Peers from all benches challenged the Government’s case for the breadth of reform proposed in the Bill. A number of amendments have been tabled jointly in the names of members of the Joint Committee on Human Rights and the Lords Constitution Committee, both Committees having already castigated the Government’s proposals as potentially harmful to the common law principles of open, adversarial and equal justice.
JUSTICE hosted Ken Clarke, QC MP, Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice in conversation earlier this week. One of the topics on the table was the Justice and Security Bill. During the evening – helpfully tweeted by the Human Rights Blog’s own Adam Wagner and others (you can read the time line of tweets here) – Ken Clarke stressed his view that the opposition to the Justice and Security Bill posed by JUSTICE together with most other human rights organisations and the Special Advocates is misguided.
The European Court of Justice. Image Credit: The Guardian
The courts open again for Michaelmas term today, but in the meantime the round-up has the latest on a fresh set of challenges to government and NHS policy, plus a successful Brexit reference to the ECJ.
Firstly, a legal action seeking to establish whether the UK can unilaterally revoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty has been referred to the European Court of Justice by the Court of Session, Scotland’s supreme civil court.
The action was brought by a cross-party group of six Scottish MPs, MEPs and MSPs, and the Good Law Project. The case was initially rejected in June as “academic and hypothetical”, but on appeal judges rejected the government’s core argument that the question was “academic” given that their policy is to leave the EU. Lord Carloway, Scotland’s most senior judge, commented: “It seems neither academic nor premature to ask whether it is legally competent to revoke the notification and thus to remain in the EU.”
On 25 January 2012 Justice Edwin Cameron, Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa, delivered an emotive and thoughtful talk entitled “What you can do with rights”. The Law Commission’s annual Lord Scarman Lecture covered apartheid, AIDS denialism, LGBT rights and delved into the essence of moral humanity. It was a lecture delivered with skill and fluency, with only the slight dissatisfaction being the vagueness of Justice Cameron’s conclusion: that legal rights allow people to achieve some progress, but they don’t solve every problem.
Justice Cameron has occupied a seat on the highest judicial bench of South Africa for three years. He was made a judge by President Nelson Mandela in 1994, when his country was emerging from the systemic violence that the apartheid system had wrought on human rights. This position gives him authority, but it is his personal experience that lent the lecture gravitas. The Justice was diagnosed as HIV positive at a time when the true scale of the epidemic was being realised, and publicly fought for access to the anti-retroviral drugs that saved his life at a time when the scale of his government’s folly in denying them to millions was becoming equally clear.
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Welcome back to the UK Human Rights Roundup, your weekly bulletin of human rights news. The full list of links can be found 
On 25 January 2012 Justice Edwin Cameron, Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa, delivered an emotive and thoughtful talk entitled “
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