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Welcome back to the UK Human Rights Roundup, your regular (except for August) last night at the human rights Proms. The full list of links can be found here. You can find previous roundups here. Links compiled by Adam Wagner, post by Celia Rooney.
In recent news, the government outlines proposals for increased rights for the victims of crime, as well as for the revocation and confiscation of passports for ISIS fighters returning to the UK. In other news, the legality of the EU Charter comes back to haunt Chris Grayling once again.
Keyu and Others v Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Office and another [2014] EWCA Civ 312, 19 March 2014 – read judgment
After an interesting analysis of the time limits for claims under Convention in response to a claim made in relation to actions by British soldiers in Malaya in 1948, the Court of Appeal dismissed all their human rights, customary international law and Wednesbury arguments. There was no obligation in domestic law for the state to hold an inquiry into the deaths of civilians killed by British soldiers in colonial Malaya in 1948, even though the Strasbourg Court might well hold that such a duty ensued.
Background
After the defeat of Japan in WWII and their withdrawal from Malaysia, there ensued a bitter conflict between Malaysian civilians Chinese-backed communist insurgents. In 1948 Commonwealth forces got involved and there ensued a guerrilla war fought between Commonwealth armed forces and the Malayan National Liberation Army (MNLA), the military arm of the Malayan Communist Party (MCP), from until 1960. Continue reading →
This is Wessen Jazrawi’s final roundup on the UK Human Rights Blog as she is moving onto pastures new. Thanks to Wessen for her fantastic series of fortnightly roundups – Adam and the UKHRB team.
Welcome back to the UK Human Rights Roundup, your weekly smörgåsbord 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 most significant news of the week has been the decision by the Supreme Court in the case of Yunus Rahmatullah which we consider below. In other news, time is fast running out for the UK government to act on prisoner voting and the European Court displayed the limits of its intervention on domestic violence. Also in today’s roundup is the inaugural list of upcoming UK human rights events – if you would like to add an event to the next roundup, please email.
Smith, R (on the application of v Secretary of State for Justice and G4S UK Ltd [2014] EWCA Civ 380 – read judgment
This case raises the question of whether it is a breach of a non-smoking prisoner’s Convention right to respect for his private life and to equality of access to such rights (ECHR Articles 8 and 14) to compel him to share a cell with a smoker.
The appellant, a convicted sex offender serving a long sentence, was required between 21st and 28th March 2012 to share a cell with a fellow prisoner who was a smoker. It was known to the prison authorities that the appellant was a non-smoker, and the requirement to share with a smoker was contrary to his wishes. The sharing complained of ended when the appellant was transferred to another prison on 28th March 2012.
Welcome back to the human rights roundup. Our full list of links can be found here. You can also find our table of human rights cases here and previous roundups here.
Is my presumed intention inferred from a fair imputation? How naïve!
Domestically, Jonathan Sumption QC, an at-some-time-in-the-future Supreme Court Justice, has been described by Joshua Rozenberg as demonstrating a certain ‘naivety’ when, in delivering the FA Mann Lecture, he argued that judges are too interventionist in policy decisions, and that parliamentary scrutiny is generally a sufficient safeguard to protect ‘the public interest’.
Welcome back to the UK Human Rights Roundup, your regular towering edifice of human rights news and views. The full list of links can be found here. You can find previous roundups here. Links compiled by Adam Wagner, post by Celia Rooney
In recent human rights news, the judicial review of a decision to re-bury Richard III in Leicester fails to find its feet before the High Court. Meanwhile, the Chagos Islanders face further disappointment in their struggle to challenge their eviction from their homeland.
The Supreme Court has found that Poole Borough Council did not owe a duty of care to two children, CN and GN, who it failed to re-house, despite the fact that they were suffering abuse from their neighbours. However, the court overruled previous authority and found that in some situations a duty of care might arise.
Factual background
The Claimants, CN and GN, had been placed by the Council in
a house on an estate in Poole with their mother in May 2006. CN was aged 9 and GN
was aged 7. CN has severe mental and physical disabilities.
The family living in the neighbouring property were known by the Council to have engaged in anti-social behaviour persistently. Soon after their arrival, this family began a campaign of harassment and abuse against GN, CN and their mother which lasted for several years. This included vandalism, attacks on the family home, threats of violence, verbal abuse, and physical assaults. All measures, including eviction, anti-social behaviour orders, of sentences of imprisonment, etc. had failed to stop the abuse. Even a Home Office-commissioned independent report criticised the police and of the council’s failure to make adequate use of powers available under anti-social behaviour legislation.
Lots of judgements are being released this week as judges tie up their business in time for the holidays. Here is a quick roundup of human rights cases.
More trouble for the LSC tender process
Hereward & Foster Llp & Anor v The Legal Services Commission [2010] EWHC 3370 (Admin) (21 December 2010) A number of different organisations have attempted to judicially review the much criticised Legal Services Commission tender of publicly funded work, initially the Community Law Partnership and most notably (and successfully), the Law Society. In this case a solicitor has had its permission application refused regarding the LSC’s immigration tender as it was out of time, but the court did find that the “supervisor attendance criteria” imposed by the LSC indirectly discriminated against women as in privileging round-the-clock service, it prejudiced part-time over full-time workers (see para 62 for a summary of the judge’s conclusions). So a partial (moral) victory for the solicitors, with the immigration tender process looking in trouble and vulnerable to future challenges on indirect discrimination grounds.
Welcome back to the human rights roundup, a regular bulletin of all the law we haven’t quite managed to feature in full blog posts. The full list of links, updated each day, can be found here. You can also find our table of human rights cases here.
by Melinda Padron
In the news last week
Torture, top-secret documents and the boycott to the detainee inquiry
Last week some of the key UK human rights campaign groups decided to boycott the Detainee Inquiry on the basis that it lacks credibility and transparency, with much of the relevant evidence and information to remain secret – see Matthew Flinn’s post asking whether the inquiry will be human rights compliant.
Responding to the boycott, the Inquiry issued a statement that it will still go ahead as planned. Watching the Law blog opines that without the involvement of these bodies (which include the likes of Liberty, Reprieve, Amnesty International and Justice) the Inquiry is highly unlikely to command any public confidence.
Welcome back to the human rights roundup. Our full list of links can be found here. You can also find our table of human rights cases here and previous roundups here.
by Graeme Hall
In the news
The Supreme Court and the European Court of Human Rights have featured prominently in the legal news this week. Let’s find out why.
The Supreme Court’s ‘terrible twos’?
The Supreme Court has become a toddler, celebrating its second birthday last week. The Guardian has produced a video interview with the justices as well as an article with some of the Justices who attempt to demystify the Courts’ processes. But will its birthday mark the beginning of the court’s ‘terrible- twos’?
Lady Hale, the only female Justice, has certainly been vocal of late. Calling for more diversity amongst the judiciary, Hale argues that we need to “think of the very able people that are doing … less visible forms of practice, rather than just thinking about the top QCs”; representing a possible contrast to the other male Justices who argue that promoting diversity over merit would be a “great mistake”.
Welcome back to the UK Human Rights Roundup, your weekly summary 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.
It has been an interesting week for immigration law, with so-called ‘back door’ immigration rule changes struck down by the Supreme Court. The UK has been hauled over the coals yet again about prisoner voting, and those of us interested in corporate accountability saw the High Court rule that it was arguable that the London parent company headquarters of a South African company was its place of central administration for domicile purposes.
In this two-part article, Maya Sikand KC, Tom Stoate, and Ruby Peacock, explore two difficult questions arising from the inquest into the ‘harrowing circumstances’ of the death of a baby, Aisha Cleary, at HMP Bronzefield.
This first part seeks to answer the question: should coroners have jurisdiction to investigate stillbirths?
The second part will examine whether foetuses should enjoy Article 2 rights which do not conflict with the rights of the mother.
Rianna Cleary, who was 18 years old at the time, gave birth to Aisha Cleary alone in her cell in HMP Bronzefield, on the night of 26 September 2019, without medical or any other assistance. Ms Cleary’s two calls for help via the prison emergency intercom system in her cell were first ignored, then unanswered – despite there being a 24-hour nursing station on her wing in the prison. Terrified and in pain, without knowing what to do, Ms Cleary felt compelled to bite through her umbilical cord. Aisha’s birth was not discovered by prison staff until the next morning – after other prisoners raised their concerns – at which time Aisha was ‘not moving,had a tinge of blue on her lips, butwasstill warm’.[1] Unsuccessful resuscitation attempts were made, with an adult oxygen mask in the absence of any paediatric or neo-natal mask. Less than an hour later, paramedics confirmed that Aisha had died. The Senior Coroner for Surrey, Richard Travers, stated that Aisha ‘arrived into the world in the most harrowing of circumstances’.[2]
Following a month-long inquest, involving ten interested persons (‘IPs’) and more than 50 witnesses, including three expert witnesses, Mr Travers concluded that numerous causative failings contributed to Aisha’s death.
Stellato v Ministry of Justice [2010] EWCA Civ 1435 – Read judgment
The court of appeal has ruled that when a court set a deadline for a prisoner’s release, that deadline could was not lawfully extended simply because a court needed time to hear an appeal against the decision to release him.
In other words, prisoners must be released on time unless a court explicitly rules otherwise. Absent such a ruling, any additional time spent in custody waiting for a hearing will be unlawful detention and could trigger damages.
MM and AO (a child), R(on the application of) v Secretary of state for the Home Department [2012] EWCA Civ 668 (18 May 2012) – read judgment
The Court of Appeal has confirmed that the Secretary of State acted lawfully in not ordering independent inquiry into a 2009 protest at an Immigration Detention Centre.
This interesting case explores the scope of the investigative duty under Article 3 of the Convention and its limited nature when compared to the analogous duty under Article 2, where the victim is no longer around to take action for him or herself. On the facts of this case, where there was no allegation of systemic failings, there was no obligation under Article 3 to arrange such an inquiry and the claim for psychiatric damage by the children who became separated from their parents during the protest was dismissed.
Background
The claimants, an adult and child respectively, had been detained amongst others at a removal centre. In 2009 there as a protest by some of the detainees after which the United Kingdom Borders Agency (UKBA) which ran the centre intervened, attempting amongst other things to remove the children from the fray by gathering them in a classroom. Afterwards, there was a dispute as to the degree of force used during the intervention and the distress caused to the children. An investigation by UKBA’s own Professional Standards Unit concluded that the intervention had been necessary. However, it was claimants’ case that an independent investigation was required to comply with the procedural obligations under the prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment under Article 3. When dealing with a mass protest involved careful planning and execution, the claimants submitted that it was particularly important that lessons be learned by the state from events as serious as these. Continue reading →
Welcome back to the UK Human Rights Roundup, your regular assortment 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.
Not a particularly noisy week on the human rights front, but some interesting summaries and analyses. The House of Commons Library has compiled a summary of UK cases before Strasbourg since 1975, as well as on the prisoner voting issue. Some commentary on the issue of secret justice, in particular the role of the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, and the powers of the court of protection in contempt proceedings.
by Daniel Isenberg
In the News
Legal Aid
The Legal Aid cuts are set to continue – see Adam Wagner’s post on the latest consultation, which closes on 4 June 2013. As with previous consultations, we will be collating responses so please send us yours (to email click here).
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Welcome back to the UK Human Rights Roundup, your regular (except for August) last night at the human rights Proms. The full list of links can be found here. You can find previous roundups here. Links compiled by Adam Wagner, post by Celia Rooney.
Welcome back to the UK Human Rights Roundup, your regular towering edifice of human rights news and views. The full list of links can be found 
Welcome back to the human rights roundup, a regular bulletin of all the law we haven’t quite managed to feature in full blog posts. The full list of links, updated each day, can be 
Welcome back to the human rights roundup. Our full list of links can be found 
Welcome back to the UK Human Rights Roundup, your weekly summary of human rights news. The full list of links can be found 
Welcome back to the UK Human Rights Roundup, your regular assortment of human rights news. The full list of links can be found 
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