Search Results for: prisoners/page/43/ministers have been procrastinating on the issue, fearing that it will prove unpopular with the electorate.

Culling seals to protect farmed salmon: what should we be allowed to know?

8 December 2012 by David Hart KC

Global Alliance Against Industrial Aquaculture v. Scottish Ministers, 26 November 2012    read decision

An interesting and robust decision from the Scottish Information Commissioner. An NGO (just look at the tin) asked the Scottish Ministers for information about seal culling licensed by them. The Scottish Ministers did not provide all the information sought; they said which companies had received the licences, and the total number of seals killed, but did not say who killed how many seals where – thus, doubtless, stymieing any focussed debate and engagement by the NGO on the justification for the killings. The industry’s position appears to be that such shootings only took place against occasional rogue seals.

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Prisoner’s rights not breached by segregation

3 February 2014 by Rosalind English

Shahid v The Scottish Ministers [2014] ScotCS CSIH – 18 – read judgment

Solitary confinement of a dangerous prisoner in accordance with the prison rules was neither unlawful nor in breach of his Convention rights, the Scottish Court of Session has ruled.

The petitioner (as we shall call him to avoid confusion, rather than the more accurate “reclaimer”) was serving a life sentence for what the court described as a “brutal and sadistic” racially motivated murder of a 15 year old white boy in 2006.  Apart from a short period during his trial he remained continuously segregated until 13 August 2010, when he was allowed once again to associate with other prisoners (“mainstream”). He claimed that his segregation was contrary to the Prisons and Young Offenders Institutions (Scotland) Rules 2006 and, separately, contrary to Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which provides protection against torture and cruel and unusual punishments, and Article 8, which protects the right to private life. He sought declarations to that effect and £6,000 by way of damages.
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A £1,000 prisoner vote signing on bonus? [Updated x 2]

22 November 2012 by Adam Wagner

Update | The Voting Eligibility (Prisoners) Draft Bill has been released. It will not be put straight before Parliament for a vote; rather, it will be put to a Committee of both Houses for full Parliamentary scrutiny which could propose amendments, then back to the Government which will “reflect on its recommendations” and subsequently introduce a bill. There is no timetable set out for this process, but I imagine the Council of Europe may want a timetable imposed.

The bill sets out three options:

“Keep our kids safe from predators” FB page on the rampage again

25 February 2015 by Rosalind English

CG v Facebook Ireland & Another [2015] NIQB 11 (20 February 2015) – read judgment

The plaintiff was a former sex offender who had been identified on a Facebook page run by the second defendant called “Keep Our Kids Safe From Predators 2”. He had been released on licence and he was apprehensive about his safety upon his return to the community.

He resides with his father, who is disabled, and with his adult children one of whom is also disabled. He was particularly fearful of the reactions of others to his conduct in the light of the fact that his name had been published on the internet. I have posted on an earlier case where another former sex offender won an injunction against Facebook Ireland Limited in respect of the original KOKSFP, which was subsequently taken down  (XY v Facebook Ireland Ltd [2012] NIQB 96). 
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Legal aid and ideology: the new basis for Government reform? – Angela Patrick

4 July 2013 by Guest Contributor

In a famous advert from the 80s, Maureen Lipman picked up the phone to caution her distraught grandson that he could never be a failure if he had an “ology”.  It was perhaps in memory of that fine advice that the Lord Chancellor appeared before the House of Commons Justice Select Committee on Wednesday morning.   For the first time, the language of ideology was openly placed at the heart of the Government’s approach to the reform of legal aid. 

Most of the legal profession is familiar with the controversy of the Government’s latest raft of suggestions for reform of legal aid, in the Transforming Legal Aid consultation paper.  JUSTICE and many others have raised substantial concerns about the Government’s approach. The changes proposed to the provision of criminal legal aid will drastically limit the ability of people accused of crimes by the State to access quality legal advice that they can trust. This will increase the likelihood of miscarriages of justice and may make the criminal justice system as a whole more expensive, and less fair, as more people attempt to represent themselves.

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All by myself: segregation, prisons and Article 6

30 March 2012 by Isabel McArdle

Bourgass and others v Secretary of State for Justice [2012] EWCA Civ 376 Read decision

The ability to interact with other prisoners is a major part of prison life, and not one many prisoners would give up willingly. But there are circumstances where prisoners have to be segregated from the rest of the prison population, such as where they are posing a violent threat to another prisoner or planning an escape. The Court of Appeal has recently looked into the question of how decisions to segregate are made, including the initial decision, the review of the decision and ultimately judicial review, in a human rights context.

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Refusal of child care leave to female prisoners was unlawful, rules High Court

16 April 2012 by Rosalind English

MP, R(on the application of) v the Secretary of State for Justice   [2012] EWHC 214 (Admin) – read judgment

The prison authorities had acted unlawfully in restricting childcare resettlement leave to prisoners who were within two years of their release date and had been allocated to “open” conditions.

Two female prisoners applied for judicial review of decisions of the defendant secretary of state and prison governors to refuse them childcare resettlement leave (CRL). CRL is a type of temporary licence available to prisoners who have sole caring responsibility for a child under 16. CRL enables prisoners to spend up to three days at home (including nights), provided certain conditions are met. The principal issue in the claim was whether the secretary of state was acting lawfully in restricting CRL to female prisoners who have less than 2 years until their earliest release date.
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School’s out? Peers ask Government to use summer holidays to reflect on controversial judicial review reforms – Angela Patrick

1 August 2014 by Guest Contributor

Angela Patrick, Director of Human Rights Policy at JUSTICE provides a summary of the House of Lords debate on Government proposals to reform judicial review in Part 4 of the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill.

As the House of Lords closes its gilded doors for the long recess, the Westminster village enters its equivalent of the school holidays. Yet, as Ministers pack their red boxes and MPs head diligently back to their constituency business, the House of Lords – debating the Committee Stage of controversial judicial review proposals in Part 4 of the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill – may have suggested that officials and Ministers yet have some homework to do.

Summing up the debate – and thanking Lord Faulks, the Minister responding to a barrage of criticism from all benches, for his efforts – Lord Pannick acknowledged that many of the Government’s proposals on judicial review had been driven by the Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor, Chris Grayling. He suggested that both Ministers would do well to get together over the summer to digest the Peers’ concerns – perhaps on a convenient beach. There were so many flaws in the Bill that Lord Faulks should pack a red pen with his sunscreen (HL Deb, 30 July 2014, Col 1650).

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Prisoners to vote in next general election, end of 5 year wait since Euro decision

1 November 2010 by Adam Wagner

Updated | According to the Daily Telegraph, the prime minister has conceded that the government has no choice but to comply with a five-year-old European Court of Human Rights judgment and grant prisoners voting rights in the next general election.

The Telegraph reports:

Mousa – a costly costs quirk

3 October 2013 by David Hart KC

Mousa and others, R (on the application of) v Secretary of State for Defence [2013] EWHC 2941 (Admin) – read judgment

A postscript to Rosalind English’s post of today. In the substantive judgment (see Adam Wagner’s post on the order), the Divisional Court decided two main issues, one relating to the independence of the Iraq Historic Allegations Team, and one relating to the extent to which an inquiry conducted through IHAT complied with Article 2 of the ECHR. The Secretary of State succeeded on the first issue, whereas the claimant succeeded substantially on the second issue relating to the need for a different form of inquiry. Hence there was no overall winner; the Secretary of State won on the first issue and the claimant succeeded substantially on the second issue. But more time was spent on the first issue. 

What then to do about costs? And why is that interesting – promise you, it is important.

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Assisted suicide and the right to private life: the enduring repercussions of Nicklinson – Stevie Martin

22 March 2017 by Guest Contributor

In the almost three years since the Supreme Court delivered its reasons in Nicklinson (in which a majority refused to issue a declaration that the blanket ban on assisted suicide in s 2(1) of the Suicide Act 1961 was incompatible with Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (‘ECHR’)), similar questions of compatibility concerning analogous bans have been considered by courts in Canada, South Africa and New Zealand. Additionally, California and Colorado have introduced legislation permitting physician-assisted suicide (taking the total to six States in the US which permit physician-assisted suicide), France has introduced legislation enabling patients to request terminal sedation, and Germany’s Federal Administrative Court this month handed down judgment confirming that the right to self-determination encompasses a right of the ‘seriously and incurably ill’ to, in ‘exceptional circumstances’, access narcotics so as to suicide.

Given news of a new challenge by Noel Conway to the compatibility of s 2(1) of the Suicide Act with Article 8 (the application for permission to review was heard by the Divisional Court yesterday with judgment reserved), it is, then, a propitious time to re-examine a particularly dubious aspect of the majority’s reasoning in Nicklinson namely, its characterisation of the declaratory power, not least given the potential for such reasoning to deleteriously affect the new challenge.
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No prisoner votes in Scottish independence referendum – Andrew Tickell

12 March 2013 by Guest Contributor

Today, the Scottish Government have introduced the “paving Bill” to Holyrood which will finally settle the franchise for the independence referendum in 2014. If passed, it will finally extinguish the hopes of expats, diaspora Scots and those living furth of Scotland who wanted to vote in the poll.

Austrian prisoner vote decision now final, implications for UK

4 November 2010 by Adam Wagner

Updated | The dust has hardly settled on the government’s decision to allow prisoners to vote when, with uncanny timing, the European Court of Human Rights has denied the Austrian government permission to appeal in a similar case involving prisoners’ voting rights.

The Strasbourg court has notified Austria that its request for referral of the case of Frodl v Austria to the Grand Chamber has been rejected. This is likely to have a significant impact on the UK’s implementation of the prisoner voting system, as the court in Frodl effectively ruled that the disenfranchisement of prisoners could only happen on rare occasions: namely, where a prisoner was detained as a result of the abuse of a public position or a threat to undermine the rule of law or democratic foundations. As I said in Monday’s post:

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Scotland’s proposed new environmental watchdog – a rottweiler or a poodle?

25 June 2020 by Rosalind English

The vigilant gaze of the European Commission will begin to turn away from UK when the post-Brexit transition period ends at the turn of the year. The Commission has used its powers as the ‘guardian of the treaties’ to enforce EU laws relating to nature conservation, waste and air pollution. Its absence will leave a governance gap, and replacement institutions are needed to ensure that environmental laws are enforced.

The UK Environment Bill proposes an ‘Office for Environmental Protection’, with powers to enforce environmental laws mainly in England and Northern Ireland (discussed on the UKHRB by Rosalind English & Rafe Jennings). A separate body is planned for Wales.

The Scottish Government published its plans last week for the creation of a new environmental watchdog named ‘Environmental Standards Scotland’ (ESS) in the UK Withdrawal from the European Union (Continuity) (Scotland) Bill.

This article discusses the functions and powers of the ESS in the Bill and then analyses the proposals through the lens of the UN’s Paris Principles (used for assessing the credibility of national human rights institutions).

Wind farms, birds, and that pesky thing called the rule of law

28 October 2013 by David Hart KC

Sustainable Shetland, Re Judicial Review, 24 September 2013, Lady Clark of Calton  read judgment

The current storms brought down a turbine in Teignmouth: see here for good pics of this and other mayhem. And the rule of law recently brought down a massive wind farm proposed for Shetland. The Scottish Ministers had waved aside a request for a public inquiry, and ended up drafting reasons which ignored the obligations in the Wild Birds Directive in respect of this bird – the whimbrel. Lady Clark quashed the consent on this ground, and also decided that the wind farmer could not apply for the consent anyway because it had not got the requisite licence which she concluded was a pre-condition for such an application. 

And there is a very good chance that the NGO which brought this challenge would not be entitled to do so if Mr Grayling gets his way, because it might well not have been held to have “standing”. Such a change he would regard as “firmly in the national interest”: see my post of last week on proposed reforms to judicial review rules. There are, to say the least, two sides to that argument about national interest, hence the importance of responding to his consultation paper, with its closing date of 1 November 2013.

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