We use cookies to enhance your browsing experience. If you continue to use our website we will take this to mean that you agree to our use of cookies. If you want to find out more, please view our cookie policy. Accept and Hide [x]
UK Human Rights Blog - 1 Crown Office Row
Search Results for: prisoners/page/45/ministers have been procrastinating on the issue, fearing that it will prove unpopular with the electorate.
The pre-April 2013 Conditional Fee Agreement system, under which claimants could recover uplifts on their costs and their insurance premiums from defendants, has survived – just. It received a sustained challenge from defendants to the effect that such a system was in breach of their Article 6 rights to a fair trial.
In a seven-justice court there was a strongly-worded dissent of two, and two other justices found the case “awkward.”
The decision arises out of the noisy speedway case about which I posted in March 2014 – here. The speedway business ended up being ordered to pay £640,000 by way of costs after the trial. On an initial hearing (my post here), the Supreme Court was so disturbed by this that they ordered a further hearing to decide whether this was compatible with Article 6 .
Over the past month, the Court of Human Rights has handed down judgment in six Article 10 cases. We have already posted about the most recent, MGN v United Kingdom. Of the other five, two involved civil defamation claims in domestic cases. In both civil defamation cases it was held that the State had infringed the right to freedom of expression but there was no finding of violation in any of the other cases. The reasoning is not straightforward in any of these cases and there are continuing doubts about the quality of the Court’s Article 10 case law.
The only “media case” amongh the five was Novaya Gazeta V Voronezhe v. Russia([2010] ECHR 2104) in which a unanimous First Section found a violation of Article 10 as a result of a domestic defamation award of RUB 25,000 (£525) and an order for the publication of an apology. The applicant newspaper had published an article which concerned abuses and irregularities allegedly committed by the mayor of Novovoronezh and other municipal officials. It also made references to services supplied by a local businessman. The article relied on and quoted from a town administration audit report. The domestic court allowed the plaintiffs’ action, holding in particular that the article implied the embezzlement of funds by the mayor and the businessman, of which the newspaper had failed to adduce any proof. It pointed out that no criminal proceedings against the plaintiffs in connection with the audit of some of the financial matters in question had been opened and that the article thus lacked a factual basis.
R ((AAA) Syria and Ors) v Secretary of State for the Home Department[2023] EWCA Civ 745
The Claimants in this case are 10 individual asylum-seekers from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Vietnam, Sudan and Albania who entered the UK irregularly by crossing the English Channel in small boats, together with one charity, Asylum Aid.
Vidal Hall and Ors v Google Inc [2014] EWHC 13 (QB) – read judgment
A group of UK Google users called ‘Safari Users Against Google’s Secret Tracking’ have claimed that the tracking and collation of information about of their internet usage by Google amounts to misuse of personal information, and a breach of the Data Protection Act 1998. The Judge confirmed that misuse of personal information was a distinct tort. He also held that the English courts had jurisdiction to try the claims.
Mr Justice Tugendhat’s decision was on the basis that (1) there was a distinct tort of the misuse of private information (2) there was a serious issue to be tried on the merits in respect of the claims for misuse and for breach of the DPA; (3) the claims were made in tort and damage had been sustained in the jurisdiction and (4) England was clearly therefore the most appropriate forum for the trial.
This decision by the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal (NICA) on 16 September 2025 is the latest stage of long-running litigation concerning odour from the Mullaghglass landfill, in Lisburn, Northern Ireland. It is an object lesson in the various pitfalls which may stand in the way of a successful judicial review of public authorities’ response to environmental problems.
First, the parties. Ms McAleenon lived just over a mile from the landfill site and had been affected by odours from about 2018 onwards, caused by hydrogen sulphide generated by the waste. She sued Lisburn Council (LCCC) who were under a duty to investigate potential statutory nuisances in their area. She also added as defendants the NI Environment Agency (NIEA), which ran the environmental permitting system for the landfill, and the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA, the Northern Irish equivalent of DEFRA) who oversaw NIEA. She filed medical evidence from a Dr Sinha supporting a linkage between hydrogen sulphide and lung damage.
In May 2022, Ms McAleenon failed before Humphreys J against all defendants. She appealed to the Court of Appeal ([2023] NICA 15), who did not engage with the merits but determined that Ms McAleenon had alternative remedies which she should have pursued – her own statutory nuisance prosecution or a civil claim for private nuisance. Part of their reasoning was that it was unjust that the claim should be determined without cross-examination of the relevant expert witnesses.
This decision was reversed by the Supreme Court in 2024. The SC said that it is a matter for a claimant to decide which sorts of claims were better calculated to request environmental regulators to comply with their public law duties: [4] of the latest NICA decision.
The SC referred the case back to NICA, and hence this decision of 16 September 2025.
But this choice of remedy for Ms McAlennon came at a cost. She chose the public law route and she had therefore to abide by the public law rules about deference to the specialist regulators’ opinions when concerned with hazardous activities. Ultimately it was these principles which led to the NICA to dismiss her claim. But, for her status as victim under the Convention, it probably did not matter that Ms McAleenon had moved out of the immediate vicinity of the landfill, nor did it matter that the landfill had closed in November 2022.
Unison (No.2), R (on the application of) v The Lord Chancellor – read judgment [2014] EWHC 4198 (Admin)
The Divisional Court (Lord Justice Elias and Mr Justice Foskett) has dismissed Unison’s second-generation attempt to challenge by judicial review the legality of the Employment Tribunal fees system but gave permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal. The “striking” reduction in claims (79 per cent fewer) presented to Employment Tribunals, Lord Justice Elias accepted, was evidence that the system was “extremely onerous” for people in the position of the hypothetical claimants construed by Unison in their legal argument but “not so burdensome as to render the right illusory” (paragraph 53).
Noting the potential infringement of Article 6 rights, Lord Justice Elias was not convinced that the evidence available to the Court surmounted the high threshold set by the European Union case law on effectiveness (paragraphs 23-51; & 60-64); particularly where hypothetical rather than real examples deprived the Lord Chancellor of an opportunity to redress any alleged deficiencies in the scheme (see paragraphs 62-64). Continue reading →
This is Part 2 of a three part series which originally appeared on Inforrm’s Blog. Part 1 can be read here and Part 3 is coming tomorrow.
The “new law of privacy” has not been uncontroversial. Over the past week the press has complained bitterly about “gagging orders” and “judge made law”. These criticisms are not new. More than four years ago, with characteristic restraint, the commentator Melanie Phillips described the process of the development of privacy law in these terms:
“Driven by a deep loathing of the popular press, the judges have long been itching to bring in a privacy law by the back door. Thus free speech is to be made conditional on the prejudices of the judiciary …” (Melanie Phillips, “The law of human wrongs”, Daily Mail, 6 December 2006)
Her editor at the Mail, Paul Dacre, has been equally firm in his views:
Ibrahim and others v United Kingdom [GC], App nos. 50541/08, 50571/08, 50573/08, and 40351/09 – read the judgment here
The Grand Chamber has found a violation of Article 6(1) and 6(3)(c) in relation to one of the four applicants before it, partially overturning the earlier decision of the Chamber and providing much food for thought on the future of Article 6.
by David Scott. Many thanks to my colleagues at University of Zurich for comments on earlier drafts of this piece. Any mistakes are undoubtedly my own.
Two opinions from Luxembourg on exactly the same issue, with diametrically opposed conclusions. AG Wahl (male) says, in brief, that the Pregnancy Workers Directive does what it says on the tin. It does not apply to non-pregnant employees, even though one of these might be an “intended mother” i.e. a woman who for medical reasons cannot carry a pregnancy to term, who has commissioned a surrogacy. AG Kokott (female) concludes firmly that the Pregnancy Workers Directive was designed to protect the relationship between mothers and their unborn or newborn, whether naturally produced or arranged by surrogacy. These opinions were published on the same day, with no mention in either of the other case. We can only conclude that the AGs read each other’s drafts, and decided to go to press with them together, leaving the CJEU to reconcile them in some way or another.
Independent Schools Council and the Charity Commission for England and Wales (Defendant), National Council for Voluntary Organisations and the Education Review Group (Interveners);Attorney General v Charity Commissioner for England and Wales (Referrer) and the Independent Schools Council (Respondents) [2011] UKUT 421 (TCC) – read judgment
It is not for the Charity Commission or the courts to impose on trustees of a school their own idea of what is for the “public benefit” so as to qualify for charitable status, the Upper Tribunal has ruled. In a detailed assessment of the law on charitable status both before and after the Charities Act, the Tribunal has indicated that the Act has not introduced any legal requirement to act in a way prescribed by the Charity Commission or anyone else. Provided they run their charity to ensure that the poor are able to benefit in a way that is more than minimal or tokenistic, they should be free to make their own considered assessment of what is for the “public benefit” in the circumstances pertaining to their own institution.
The right to education played no role in these proceedings, which turned on the meaning of charitable status in the strict sense. But this case nevertheless has very real implications for the regulation of education in this country, mired as it is in the bitter controversy over state versus private education. This is still a weeping sore for which there is no salve. But the Tribunal’s firm steer towards autonomy at least puts paid to the efforts of the past government to micromanage schools behind the smokescreen of charity law. Continue reading →
Wild Camping on Dartmoor Photo: John Ryan/Alamy originally published in the Guardian 13 January 2023.
[FURTHER UPDATE: on 21 May 2025 the Supreme Court gave its judgment dismissing the appeal against the judgment of the Court of Appeal and holding that, when read in its statutory context, the ordinary meaning of Section 10(1) of the Dartmoor Commons Act 1985 was clear in that it did encompass a right to wild camp subject to the relevant rules, regulations and bylaws. Darragh Coffey discussed the Supreme Court judgment with Lucy McCann on an Episode 221 of Law Pod UK, which you can listen to here.]
[UPDATE: on 31 July 2023 the Court of Appeal allowed Dartmoor National Park Authority’s appeal against the judgment considered in this post. It is interesting to note the similarities between the line of reasoning followed by Sir Geoffrey Vos MR at §55-§57 of that judgment and some of the arguments made below. This is a welcome development and it is hoped that the attention brought to the issue of public access to the countryside by this case will result in future reforms in this area.]
“The principal issue in this case is whether section 10(1) of the Dartmoor Commons Act 1985 (“the 1985 Act”) confers on the public a right not only to walk or ride a horse on the commons but also to camp there overnight.”
That Friday the 13th was indeed unlucky for the wild camping community, if not wider society. For with the handing down of that judgment, the last remaining rights to wild camp without the permission of the landowner in England and Wales were extinguished.
This case, therefore, represents more than just a landowner seeking to prevent campers using their land without permission. Rather it is a further step in the seemingly inexorable privatisation of the English Countryside for the benefit of the few, to the detriment to the many, and with the full-throated support of the law.
In considering this unfortunate development, I will first set out the background to thecase, then examine the reasoning underpinning the judgment. I will then situate this case in the wider context of public access to the countryside, and ask whether and how this public good can be reconciled with the private property rights of landowners in England and Wales.
McMorn (R, on the application of) v Natural England[2015] EWHC 3297 (Admin) – read judgment
Public opinion regarding raptors and pheasant shoots should not influence the authorisation of buzzard control, the Administrative Court has ruled. Any derogations to the EU protection of wild birds should apply equally across wild avian species, irrespective of their popularity.
This was a gamekeeper’s challenge to the refusal by the defendant statutory body (Natural England) to grant him a licence under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 to kill buzzards which he said were destroying such high numbers of game birds as to render his shoot unviable.
At the heart of the claimant’s challenge was his contention that NE treated raptors differently from other wild birds, making it far harder, well-nigh if not quite impossible, for anyone to meet the statutory conditions for the issue of a licence.
He maintained the defendant treated these licence applications differently because of the public controversy which the grant of a licence for the killing of buzzards would engender. This was because of perceived adverse public opinion about the protection of a pheasant shoot. Hence, the decision was based on unjustified inconsistencies in NE’s treatment of raptor and other birds equally protected under the law. Continue reading →
This coming Wednesday sees the end of the first stage of the Justice and Security Bill’s passage into law. The Bill which would introduce Closed Material Procedures (CMP) – where one side of a case is excluded with his legal team and represented by a security cleared special advocate in cases involving national security – has become widely known as the Secret Courts Bill. Its progress has been closely scrutinised in this blog over the past six months.
As it completes Third Reading and passes to the House of Commons, we reflect on last week’s Lords amendments to the Bill. While there are still issues ripe for discussion at Third Reading, it is broadly accepted that the key Lords votes have passed.
More than 7 years after Gordon Brown first announced that a public Inquiry would be conducted to identify lessons that could be learned from the Iraq conflict, the Chilcot report was finally published on7 July 2016. However, it was worth the wait. This post does not seek to summarise the report: there are many other good overviews (such as the BBC’s ). The report’s executive summary, in particular the key findings section, is also well worth a read. The intention is to cover in this and subsequent posts some of the key legal issues raised by the report. This post considers the relevance of the Chilcot report’s findings to the broader issue of whether Britain’s intervention in Iraq was legal – an issue which was not itself within the remit of the inquiry. Continue reading →
One of the possibilities being considered by Lord Justice Leveson as he writes the Report for Part 1 of his Inquiry is whether there should be compulsory regulation of the print media. One, widely discussed possibility is a statutory framework which would require any publisher with turnover or readership above a set threshold to join a “regulatory body”: compulsory regulation for large publishers.
The purpose of such a provision would be to deal with the so-called “Desmond problem” – the anomaly of a system of regulation which does not cover all the large newspaper publishers. But an important freedom of expression question arises: is the compulsory regulation of the print media compatible with Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights? This is not a question which has ever been considered by the Court of Human Rights and the answer may not be an entirely straightforward.
This blog is maintained for information purposes only. It is not intended to be a source of legal advice and must not be relied upon as such. Blog posts reflect the views and opinions of their individual authors, not of chambers as a whole.
Our privacy policy can be found on our ‘subscribe’ page or by clicking here.
Coventry v. Lawrence [2015] UKSC 50, 22 July 2015, read judgment here
Vidal Hall and Ors v Google Inc [2014] EWHC 13 (QB) – 
him and others v United Kingdom [GC], App nos. 50541/08, 50571/08, 50573/08, and 40351/09 – read the judgment 
This coming Wednesday sees the end of the first stage of the 
One of the possibilities being considered by Lord Justice Leveson as he writes the Report for Part 1 of 
Recent comments