Search Results for: prisoners/page/36/ministers have been procrastinating on the issue, fearing that it will prove unpopular with the electorate.
2 October 2012 by Rosalind English
Child Poverty Action Group, R (on the application of) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2012] EWHC 2579 (Admin) (17 July 2012) – read judgment
The High Court has ruled that the government acted unlawfully by removing the Child Poverty Commission, an advisory body set up under the Child Poverty Act 2010 . They had also acted beyond their powers by preparing a child poverty strategy without having requested and having regard to the advice of that Commission. But government is free to formulate new policy and as such there was nothing irrational about the strategy itself.
There is of necessity a great deal of statutory construction in this judgment which makes for dry reading. But the ruling is an important reassessment of the principles of judicial review that have taken root since the power of the courts to intervene in government decision making was reinforced in Anisminic Ltd v Foreign Compensation Commission [1969] 2 A.C. 147. This ruling, as every law student knows, established that a public body acts unlawfully, both in the narrow sense of acting outside its jurisdiction, and where such jurisdiction was wrongly exercised. This means that courts may intervene not just where a governmental act is unlawful under an express provision of the statute but also where the decision or policy, although authorised by statute, has been made in breach of a rule of public law.
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22 March 2011 by Graeme Hall
It’s time for 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.
by Graeme Hall
In the news
As the UK government is requesting the referral of Greens and M.T. v UK to the Grand Chamber, with the intention that the European Court of Human Rights reconsiders the issue of prisoner voting, the Committee of Ministers, vested with the responsibility to oversee the enforcement of the Court’s judgments, has put on hold its ongoing review of the UK’s compliance with the decision in Hirst v UK (No. 2). This comes at a time when a senior human rights academic, as well as other states (according to the PoliticsHome blog), are also questioning the Court’s legitimacy. The background to these controversial decisions can be found in Adam Wagner’s post.
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4 November 2022 by Marina Wheeler QC
The storm raging around small boats arriving on the south coast has been brewing for some time. In early summer the focus was a policy to send arrivals to Rwanda. Intervention by the European Court of Human Rights effectively suspended flights while a domestic ruling on the policy’s legality is awaited. Meanwhile, in Dover a migrant processing centre has been firebombed, another is dangerously overcrowded, and the new Home Secretary raises tensions by speaking of an “invasion”.
Amidst this swirl is an eye-catching Divisional Court Decision about a secret and unlawful Home Office policy to seize and download data from the mobile phones of all those arriving in small boats. The substantive Judgment in R (HM, MA and KH) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2022] EWHC 695 (Admin) was delivered on 25 March 2022, followed by an Order distilling the Court’s conclusions on 18 October 2022.
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5 June 2012 by Adam Wagner
Updated | In stark contrast to the pageantry surrounding the Royal Jubilee, here is a somewhat sombre update on the Justice and Security Bill, which was published on 28 May 2012 and is currently receiving its second reading in the House of Lords. The Bill aims to introduce Close Material Procedures, that is secret hearings, into civil trials.
Three key documents were published shortly after the Bill, presenting the Government’s case in response to the forceful criticism which the initial proposals generated. First is the Government’s response to the Joint Committee on Human Rights’ scathing report on the proposals. Secondly, the Government’s response to the 90 submissions received in response to the Justice and Security Green Paper consultation. Thirdly, a summary of European Convention on Human Rights issues relating to the Bill, also published by the Government.
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11 March 2013 by Daniel Isenberg
Welcome back to the UK Human Rights Roundup, your regular smorgasbord 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 suggestion that a future Conservative government might withdraw from the ECHR and repeal the Human Rights Act dominated this week’s headlines, with much commentary noting that such measures are likely to have only minimal practical effects on our courts. Lord Neuberger also used his first interview as President of the Supreme Court to speak his mind on a number of issues of human rights concerns; and the Justice and Security Bill continues its passage through Parliament.
by Daniel Isenberg
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25 November 2024 by Catherine Churchill
In the News
US President Joe Biden agreed last week to provide Ukraine with anti-personnel land mines as part of their 70th military aid package to Ukraine. The decision represents a significant departure from the Biden-Harris Administration’s 2022 policy which committed to limiting the use of landmines on the grounds that the weapons have a ‘disproportionate impact on civilians, including children, long after fighting has stopped’. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy expressed his gratitude to the US in a video address last Wednesday, stating that the ‘essential’ mines will ‘significantly strengthen troops on the front line’. However, the decision has been met with widespread concern. The International Campaign to Ban Landmines has condemned the decision as ‘unconscionable’, expressing that the ‘human cost of this decision cannot be overstated. Ukraine already faces decades of demining work due to extensive Russian landmine use. Adding new mines to this contamination will only extend the suffering of civilians and complicate post-conflict recovery efforts’.
Uganda opposition leader Kizza Besigye appeared in military court this week after disappearing on November 16th in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi. Last Wednesday, it transpired that he was being held in Ugandan military custody when he appeared before the court charged with national security offences and unlawful possession of firearms. Winnie Byanyima, Besigye’s wife and human rights activist, said in a post on X that Besigye ‘has not owned a gun in the last 20 years’, and, as a civilian, ‘should be tried in a civilian court not a military court’. Human Rights Watch have stated that this is only the ‘latest example of Uganda’s authorities misusing military courts and military-related charges to clamp down on the opposition’. UN Human Rights Chief Volker Turk has released a statement expressing his ‘shock’ at the ‘abduction’ and the ‘deeply concerning practice in Uganda of prosecuting civilians in military courts, in contravention of the country’s obligations under international human rights law’.
In the Courts
On Thursday, the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced its decision to issue warrants of arrest for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, alongside Mohammed Deif, Hamas military leader whom Israel claim was killed earlier this year. The decision comes after the dismissal of two challenges launched by Israel disputing the Court’s jurisdiction. The warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant are issued after the Chamber found ‘reasonable grounds’ to believe the individuals bear criminal responsibility for alleged ‘crimes against humanity and war crimes’. Netanyahu responded later on Thursday to the news of a warrant being issued against him, claiming that the ICC’s warrant is based on ‘false’ accusations made by ‘biased judges who are motivated by antisemitic sentiments against the one and only Jewish state’, and that ‘no war is more just than the war that Israel has been waging in Gaza’. US President Joe Biden has called the decision ‘outrageous’, stating that ‘whatever the ICC might imply, there is no equivalence — none — between Israel and Hamas’. Downing Street, though declining to comment on the specific case, has indicated that it will fulfil its ‘legal obligations’ as imposed under international law. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, speaking to Sky News, added that it is ‘not really a question of should; we are required to because we are members of the ICC.’
A Wyoming Judge on Monday struck down the State’s ban on abortion – including its explicit ban on abortion pills – following a legal challenge brought by a group of women and non-profit organisations. Melissa Owens, Teton Country district judge, ruled that the ban violated a 2012 state constitutional amendment which enshrined the right of Wyoming citizens to have control over their healthcare decisions. Owens stated in judgment that ‘abortion procedures constitute essential health care for pregnant women’ and that there is ‘no compelling governmental interest to eliminate abortion procedures based on the State’s position that abortions are gruesome and barbaric’. Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon announced the day after judgment was handed down that he has instructed the Attorney General to prepare an appeal to the Wyoming Supreme Court, whose members were all appointed by anti-abortion Republican governors.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission published its written submissions last week in advance of the Supreme Court hearing in For Women Scotland v Scottish Ministers, in which it has been granted permission to intervene. The case, which is likely to result in a landmark decision on the legal definitions of ‘woman’ and ‘sex’, is due to take place on the 26th and 27th of November. The appeal has been brought by the controversial gender-critical campaign group For Women Scotland and contests the lawfulness of Scottish Government guidance which states that a person with a Gender Recognition Certificate that recognises their gender as female is to be treated as having the sex of woman. The EHRC’s submissions on appeal take the view that the definition of sex in the Equality Act ‘creates significant inconsistencies, which impair the proper functioning of the Equality Act and jeopardise the rights and interests of women and same-sex attracted people. […] As the equality regulator, we deem this to be a wholly unsatisfactory situation, which Parliament should address with urgency’. Amnesty International UK, who are also intervening, have stated that they are doing so because they believe ‘it is vital the Court is assisted by submissions setting out why legal gender recognition is a human rights issue and that trans people should not be expected to live without it’. A case note on the decision being appealed this week can be found here on the blog.
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22 October 2010 by Adam Wagner
For your weekend reading pleasure, some of this week’s human rights news, in bite-size form. The full list of our external links can be found on the right sidebar or here.
The Inevitable Racial Effect: Counter-Terror Stop and Search Powers – Human Rights in Ireland: Rachel Heron, a PHD candidate at Durham Law School, argues that stop and search power under section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 has failed to yield significant results, except one: it has provided a further example of how racially neutral laws have a seemingly inevitable racial effect. Our most recent post on stop and search, which has been the subject of a decision of the European Court of Human Rights followed by a climb-down by the UK government, is here.
Case Law: Bernard Gray v UVW – privacy injunctions and anonymity – Henry Fox – Inforrm’s Blog: Mr Justice Tugendhat has returned to the subject of anonymity in privacy actions. These cases consistently test the interrelationship between Article 8 (right to privacy) and Article 10 (freedom of expression) of the European Convention on Human Rights.
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20 November 2013 by Celia Rooney
Welcome back to the UK Human Rights Roundup, your regular glass menagerie 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 [note from Adam Wagner – a warm welcome to Celia Rooney, our new rounder upper]
This week, Chris Grayling and the Court of Justice go head to head over the domestic status of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, while the ghost of Winston Churchill comes back to haunt the ‘United States of Europe’ debate. Meanwhile, Theresa May’s plans to deprive terrorist suspects of their British citizenship are under fire, while calls for press accountability are repeated.
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6 January 2014 by Sarina Kidd
Welcome back to the UK Human Rights Roundup, your regular wholesome takeaway 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 Sarina Kidd.
Welcome to 2014 and Santa has brought us the Defamation Act 2013, which aims to reduce the ‘chilling effect’ of previous libel laws . But as we enter 2014, not all is new. The Conservative Party continues to complain about European human rights. They seek to challenge the ECtHR ban on prison life sentences. How to deal with this? With hundreds of years of imprisonment instead. Meanwhile, today criminal lawyers will refuse to appear at court in order to protest against legal aid and criminal barrister fee cuts.
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22 January 2012 by Rosalind English
Standard Verlags GmbH v. Austria (no. 3) (no. 34702/07) – read judgment
On the face of it this judgment is no more than a run of the mill case ( in a line running from Bladet Tromso through Fressoz and Roire to Flinkkilä and Others) concerning freedom of speech in one of the Convention signatory states where media controls are a great deal more stringent than they are here. However with the ongoing Leveson inquiry and speculations about its future recommendations occupying many column inches in the UK media it is instructive to see how other countries apply their press restrictions and indeed how Strasbourg approaches any challenge brought against them.
Background
The applicant company, Standard Verlags GmbH, owns the Vienna daily newspaper Der Standard. The case concerned an article it published in April 2006 reporting on enormous speculation losses incurred by a state-backed bank, and the ensuing criminal investigation for embezzlement brought against the bank’s senior management. The article identified a member of the bank’s treasury department as Christian Rauscher, the son of a former regional government member with responsibility for finance. The article reported that in 2004 Rauscher was not dismissed but merely demoted and transferred, being relieved of his duties only after the incident of the losses had become known. But it made it clear that the losses had thus been incurred under his responsibility.
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5 September 2019 by Jim Duffy
One intervention that did not quite make it onto this week’s packed Parliamentary highlights reel came from Emily Thornberry MP.
The Shadow Foreign Secretary suggested that deaths caused by a lack of basic medicines following a No-deal Brexit would entitle coroners to reach a finding of ‘neglect’ in future inquests. She added that it was her understanding the government had received legal advice to that effect.
Her remarks follow the leak two weeks ago of government documents prepared as part of ‘Operation Yellowhammer’. These reportedly predicted severe, extended delays to the supply of medicines in the event of a No-deal departure.
Neglect
Depending on the content of the warnings about medicines, Ms Thornberry may be right. An argument that a deceased’s death has been caused or contributed to by neglect is usually levelled against a local police force that fails to provide basic medical attention to a detainee in need, or a hospital that does not act to counter a life-threatening illness in a patient. It is not commonly deployed against central government on the basis of a decision said to have denied basic medical attention to whole sections of the population.
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18 February 2022 by Rosalind English
The Good Law Project and The Runnymede Trust, R (on the application of) v The Prime Minister and Anor [2022] EWHC 298 (Admin) (15 February 2022)
This was an interesting ruling on the matter of standing, something that has fallen rather by the wayside since it formed the subject of much satellite litigation in the 1990s. In essence, the Court ruled that the GLP had no standing to bring this claim. Despite its articles of association, whose purposes include the provision of sound administration and equality, democracy, high standards in public administration, access to justice, preservation of the environment or “any other philanthropic or benevolent purpose ancillary”. Such a general statement of objects could not confer standing on an organisation:
That would be tantamount to saying that the GLP has standing to bring judicial review proceedings in any public law case. [58]
Arguments before the Court
The GLP and the Runnymede Trust brought a challenge to the government’s decision to appoint two individuals to head Covid projects such as the Test and Trace programme (Baroness Harding of Winscombe (Dido Harding) was one of the individuals named). Mike Coupe, Director of Testing, NHS Test & Trace, was the other.
The claimants contended that the government had a practice of appointing people to positions critical to the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic without open competition, that only candidates with some relevant personal or political connection to the decision-maker were appointed, and that, even though the positions to be filled were senior and strategically important, the person appointed was unpaid. The Claimants said this gave rise to indirect discrimination on grounds of race and/or disability. They made other complaints about the process used by the Defendants.
The Defendants disputed all these claims on their merits. In addition, they contended (a) that the matters complained of had now been overtaken by events rendering the claims academic, and that for that reason, the claims should not be determined by the court; (b) that the claims had been brought too late and should be dismissed for that reason; and (c) that the Claimants lacked standing to bring the claims. There was also one further matter, which the Court considered in the context of the standing issue, although it was conceptually distinct. That was whether the decisions challenged were amenable to judicial review. Each of the decisions challenged in these proceedings was an employment decision. Employment decisions, even when taken by public authorities, are not ordinarily challengeable by application for judicial review.
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7 September 2013 by Rosalind English
CM, Re Judicial Review [2013] CSOH 143 – read judgment
The Scottish Court of Session has ruled that the prohibition of smoking and possession of tobacco products by patients at a mental hospital was unlawful. Whilst being careful to emphasise that this ruling did not spell out a specific right to smoke, the Court considered that the ban infringed the patients’ right to respect for home under Article 8.
The petitioner, a patient in a high security psychiatric hospital, sought judicial review of the policy adopted by the State Hospitals Board to ban smoking not just inside the hospital but also in the hospital grounds. He claimed that the ban amounted to a breach of his right to respect for private life and home under Article 8, both as a stand‑alone claim and in combination with Article 14 (enjoyment of Convention rights without discrimination). He also argued that the ban constituted an unlawful and discriminatory infringement of his right to peaceful enjoyment of possessions under Article 1 Protocol 1.
The petitioner further based his position on compassionate grounds, pointing out that there are few diversions available in the State Hospital; that he derived pleasure from smoking; and that as an individual with relatively few liberties the removal of his ability to smoke had had a disproportionately large impact on him.
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7 April 2013 by Daniel Isenberg
Welcome back to the UK Human Rights Roundup, your regular smorgasbord 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.
A relatively quiet week on the news front, with courts having a well-earned Easter break. Just a few items to focus on, with commentary appearing following the US Supreme Court’s oral hearing on the same-sex marriage. The Employment Tribunal has found that conference motions and debates surrounding Israeli boycotts do not constitute anti-Semitism; and assistance is out there for litigants in person following the enactment of LASPO.
by Daniel Isenberg
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20 August 2012 by Sam Murrant
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
With the Olympics over now, there’s been a bit more activity in the legal blogosphere this week. Probably the biggest news is the guidance from the Senior Presiding Judge that may stifle judicial blogging altogether – the guidance requires that a blogging judge be unidentifiable as a judge . In other news, the Free Movement blog features a series of three posts this week discussing the July 2012 changes to the Immigration Rules; locked-in syndrome sufferer Tony Nicklinson loses his High Court case and yet another twist in the tale of Julian Assange emerges.
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Child Poverty Action Group, R (on the application of) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2012] EWHC 2579 (Admin) (17 July 2012) – read judgment
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