Search Results for: prisoners/page/52/[2001] EWCA Civ 1546
12 August 2024 by Catherine Churchill
In UK News
Riots continued throughout the UK last week, sparked by the attack and murder of 3 children in Southport on July 29th. The riots have been linked to a widely circulated online rumour falsely identifying the perpetrator as a Muslim asylum seeker. UK Chief Executive for Amnesty International, Sacha Deshmukh, has stated the riots to be caused at root by “racism, Islamophobia and xenophobia”. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has called the rioting an “assault on the rule of law and the execution of justice” and made clear that those involved will not “be allowed to hide behind the legitimate right to protest”. The Crown Prosecution Service revealed on Friday via a post on X (formerly Twitter) that 159 individuals have been charged in connection with the “violent disorder” across the country, with a total of 741 arrests having been made. The news follows Justice Minister Heidi Alexander’s announcement that the process of opening 500 prison places for those involved in the riots is underway.
On Friday, the UK Government announced fresh sanctions against Belarus in response to ongoing human rights violations in the country. The sanctions have been announced on the four-year anniversary of the “deeply flawed” 2020 presidential elections in Belarus; elections which Foreign Secretary David Lammy stated have resulted in “over 40,000 citizens arrested on trumped up political charges, civil society and independent media trampled and a regime with no regard for democracy or human rights”. The Viasna Human Rights Center, a Belarusian NGO, claims that as of August 11, Belarus holds 1385 political prisoners including journalists and human rights activists. The new sanctions raise the total number against Belarus to over 200 individuals and entities. The announcement also revealed a funding package of £2.5 million to support human rights and civil liberties in Belarus.
In Other News
Unrest continues in Venezuela following the contested re-election of President Nicolas Maduro on July 28th. US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has published a statement arguing that there is “overwhelming evidence” that the opposition leader, Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, was the true victor. The statement cites the fact that the opposition have published over 80 percent of the tally sheets from polling stations across Venezuela showing Urrutia to have won by an “insurmountable margin”, further corroborated by exit polls. The announcement of Maduro’s re-election sparked protests across the country which have continued into this week. In a press conference on Tuesday, Maduro announced that over 2229 individuals had been arrested in connection with the protests, calling those involved “terrorists”. In a press conference last week, a spokesperson for UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk expressed concern over the “numerous cases of arbitrary detention”, including that of peaceful protestors, human rights defenders, children, and journalists. Amnesty International sent an open letter on Friday to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court calling for his “resolute and immediate action” against the crimes being committed under international law by Venezuelan authorities. Amnesty argue in the letter that the ongoing “tragedy is a consequence of the impunity for serious human rights violations and crimes against humanity that Maduro’s government has been committing for years.”
Reports have surfaced that in only two days last week, Iranian authorities executed a minimum of 29 individuals. The UN Office of the High Commissioner have verified that a further 38 people were executed in Iran over the course of July, raising the total for 2024 thus far to 345. The Office raised concerns in particular about the “lack of due process and fair trial standards”, with several executions occurring with “neither the prisoner’s family nor legal counsel being informed”. NGO Iran Human Rights has reported that 26 men were executed in a group hanging outside Ghezelhesar Prison – an execution the scale of which has been unparalleled since 2009. Amnesty have revealed that at least one of the prisoners executed in the spree was imprisoned in connection with the Woman Life Freedom protests that erupted following the murder of Mahsa Amini in 2022.
The Bulgarian Parliament passed an anti-LGBT amendment last Wednesday to the country’s education laws, banning the “propaganda, promotion, or incitement in any way, directly or indirectly, in the education system of ideas and views related to non-traditional sexual orientation and/or gender identity other than the biological one.” The amendment was passed by an overwhelming majority with 159 votes in favour and only 22 against. LGBT rights group Forbidden Colours have stated they believe the move represents Bulgaria “adopting tactics from Russia’s anti-human rights playbook”, a development they call “deeply troubling”. The organisation have also raised questions about the swiftness with which the amendment occurred, both readings occurring on a single day – raising “serious concerns about the legislative process and the intent behind such haste”. A spokesperson for the EU Commission told POLITICO last Thursday that while the EU is aware of the amendment, they were unable to comment. The spokesperson however reiterated that the Commission “remains steadfast in its commitment to tackling discrimination, inequalities and challenges faced by LGBTIQ individuals.”
In the Courts
Last Wednesday, the UK Supreme Court rejected Shamima Begum’s permission to further appeal the removal of her British citizenship. Ms Begum appealed on four grounds: trafficking, invoking Article 4 ECHR; deprivation of the right to make representations; a failure to ensure good community relations, required per s.149 of the Equality Act; and de facto statelessness. Permission to appeal was refused on all four grounds, concluding that “the grounds of appeal do not raise an arguable point of law”. In response to the ruling, Maya Foa, director of human rights NGO Reprieve, has stated that “exiling British nationals like Ms Begum is about politics, not the law”. The decision signifies the exhaustion of Ms Begum’s legal remedies in the UK. However, Ms Begum’s lawyers told the BBC that they intend to take the case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
The Dublin High Court found last week that the Irish Government’s treatment of asylum seekers breaches the EU Charter of Fundamental Human Rights. Mr Justice Barry O’Donnell stated in judgment that in failing to support the accommodation needs of applicants for asylum, “the State has breached the rights of those persons as provided for in Article 1 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union” – the right to human dignity. It was held that central to respecting the human rights of asylum seekers is the maintenance of “an adequate standard of living which guarantees their subsistence and protects their physical and mental health where they do not have the means to provide for themselves”.The judgment has been welcomed by the UN Refugee Agency, who have now called on the Irish Government to take “immediate action”. The Court did, however, decline to grant the mandatory orders sought by the applicants, the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, on the basis that it was not satisfied that there was evidence the Government would ignore its obligations.
US federal judge Mark Walker ruled last Thursday in Claire v Florida DMS that Florida’s ban on transgender healthcare access for state employees violates their civil rights. Florida has had a categorical ban on coverage of healthcare for “gender reassignment or modification services or supplies” of state employees for decades, which has now been found to be in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as a form of unlawful discrimination on grounds of sex since it denies transgender employees coverage for medically necessary treatment for gender dysphoria. Quoting a judgment from 2020, Judge Walker reiterated that “discrimination based on homosexuality or transgender status necessarily entails discrimination based on sex” as “the first cannot happen without the second”. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) praised the judgment in a press release, with Staff Attorney Samantha Past stating that “discrimination has no place” in Florida. The ACLU “are hopeful that this decision will encourage a commitment from the state to treating members of the transgender community with the respect they deserve”.
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23 March 2011 by Adam Wagner
Lumba (WL) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2011] UKSC 12 (23 March 2011) – Read judgment / press summary
The Supreme Court has ruled that it was unlawful and a “serious abuse of power” for the Home Office to follow an unpublished policy on the detention of foreign national prisoners which contradicted its published policy. Two convicted prisoners were therefore unlawfully detained.
This fascinating 6-3 majority decision could be important in respect of setting the boundaries for the courts’ scrutiny of executive powers. It is also, for the record, not a decision which is based on human rights. The appellants are both convicted criminals (and foreigners too), so the court may be criticised for upholding their human rights despite their criminal actions. But this is a case decided on traditional public law grounds, which preceded the human rights act by many years. As Lord Hope put it:
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29 April 2024 by Kate Litman
In UK News
At the conclusion of the inquest into the death of Scott Rider, the coroner described Rider’s treatment in prison as “inhumane and indefensible”. Rider died by suicide in June 2022 after serving 17 years of an “imprisonment for public protection” (IPP) sentence, a form of indeterminate prison sentence. A few weeks before his death Rider told a member of prison staff that he felt as though his sentence had ruined his life and there was no hope of release. IPP sentences were abolished in 2012, but the abolition did not apply retrospectively to those who had already received the sentence. As of 31 December 2022 there were 2,892 prisoners serving IPP sentences. The coroner sent a Prevention of Future Deaths Report to the prisons minister, writing that “if action is not taken to review all prisoners sentenced to IPP then there is a risk of further deaths occurring”.
The purpose of inquest proceedings also came under scrutiny this week, with the outgoing Chief Coroner, HHJ Thomas Teague KC, describing “a long-latent tension” at the heart of what the coronial service is trying to achieve in his Annual Report published on Thursday. He criticised the pressure on coroners to expand the scope of their investigations and expressed his view that “an inquest should remain a hearing that is narrowly focused on establishing a person’s immediate cause of a death, as opposed to in effect becoming a surrogate public inquiry”.
Finally, the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration Act) 2024 was passed into law on Thursday. The Act requires decision makers to “conclusively treat the Republic of Rwanda as a safe country”, where a “safe country” means a country to which a person may be removed without violating the UK’s obligations under international law. Speaking on 22 April, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said that he anticipated that first flight removing people to Rwanda would leave in 10-12 weeks, stating that “these flights will go come what may” and that “no foreign court will stop us from getting flights off”.
In international news
Major campus protests have broken out across the US regarding the ongoing conflict in Gaza, with students calling for their universities to divest from companies with ties to Israel. Hundreds of arrests have been made over the last week. At New York University 120 people who had erected an encampment were arrested and all but four were charged with trespass. Hundreds more arrests were made at Emerson University, Yale University, Columbia University, the University of South California and the University of Texas. At the University of Texas, the state Governor called in troopers with the Texas Department of Public Safety, who wore riot gear and were seen using their bikes to push protesters back.
In the Courts
The High Court dismissed the Solicitor General’s claim against Ms Trudi Warner in a judgment handed down on Monday. On 27 March 2023 Warner had stood outside a court where members of an environmental protest group were due to be tried with a placard that read “JURORS YOU HAVE AN ABSOLUTE RIGHT TO ACQUIT A DEFENDANT ACCORDING TO YOUR CONSCIENCE”. The Solicitor General alleged that Warner’s conduct was intended to interfere with the administration of justice and amounted to contempt of court. Mr Justice Saini held that it was “fanciful” to suggest that Warner’s behaviour could be considered to fall within the category of contempt. The content of the placard “accurately informed potential prospective jurors about one of their legal powers… It is not unlawful to accurately communicate the bare principle of law to potential jurors in a public forum”.
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16 December 2011 by David Hart KC
OBG Ltd et al v. United Kingdom, 29 November 2011
We have become quite used to the Strasbourg Court having a serious go at bits of our statutory law, whether it be prisoners’ rights, anti-terrorist legislation or housing law. A lot of this statute enables the state to do things to private citizens which may or may not offend the Convention. But what is rather rarer in Strasbourg is the case where an applicant challenges judge-made law or common law, and does so where the dispute is between two private parties. Perhaps the best known example is the MGN/Naomi Campbell case in which privacy and costs issues got an intense scrutiny from the Strasbourg Court.
OBG sounds much less glamorous and more obscure, but is nonetheless interesting. The human rights of companies which have been injured by the wrongful exercise of administrative receivership powers have not been minutely examined in the case law, to say the least. But if this case sounds dry, and likely to hoist me by my own petard (should lawyers get named and shamed for being boring?), bear with me. Because it is actually quite a sad story of people being dealt an unjust result – for which neither domestic nor Strasbourg courts felt able to fashion a suitable remedy.
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4 October 2010 by Adam Wagner
Many thanks to the ECHR Blog for highlighting some new features of the European Court of Human Rights website which should make its somewhat labyrinth case-law more accessible.
The Court has published a number of useful factsheets on its case-law and pending cases. These cover some of the issues which commonly arise in the court, including, for instance, child protection, Roma and travellers and homosexual rights. The full list is reproduced after the break below.
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1 October 2014 by Adam Wagner
There was some surprise at the lack of detail over human rights in Justice Secretary Chris Grayling and Home Secretary Theresa May’s speeches yesterday. Now, David Cameron has revealed all. Or at least, he has revealed some. Here is what we learned.
1. The Conservative Party will not be leaving the European Convention on Human Rights if it obtains a majority in 2015-2020.
This is the really important bit, as everyone knew the longstanding Tory policy of repealing the Human Rights Act and replacing it with a Bill of Rights (see below) would be maintained. There has been plenty of noise from the Eurosceptic right of the party in relation to the ECHR – both Grayling and May have consistently said leaving was a possibility. But surely now it is not. Or at least, if it intends to do so it would be very odd for that major policy not to have been mentioned at the Conference.
2. Saner heads have prevailed over the ECHR
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8 September 2011 by Adam Wagner
The Ministry of Justice has just released its annual report to the Joint Committee on Human Rights, Responding to human rights judgments.
The report is worth reading. It contains useful summaries of the 17 European Court of Human Rights judgments against the UK in 2010 and the government’s response to them.
But what is really interesting is what it says about prisoner votes, and the government’s 6-year delay in implementing the 2005 decision in Hirst (No.2) v UK.
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20 October 2013 by Daniel Isenberg
Welcome back to the UK Human Rights Roundup, your regular chocolate fondu of human rights news and views. The full list of links can be found here. You can find previous roundups here. Post by Daniel Isenberg, edited and links compiled by Adam Wagner.
The issue of prisoner votes returned to the courtroom this week, with an unsurprising judgment on many fronts. Meanwhile Lord Neuberger made his views known on how access to justice forms a crucial component of the rule of law; and commentators discuss why public bodies can’t bring claims under the HRA.
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15 February 2011 by Graeme Hall
Today we are reinvigorating our weekly human rights news and case law roundup. Look out for regular bulletins of all the law we haven’t quite managed to feature in full blog posts.
by Graeme Hall
Bringing Rights Back Home, with foreword by Lord Hoffmann – Policy Exchange: A report by political scientist Michael Pinto-Duschinsky, commissioned by the thinktank Policy Exchange, offers a strong academic criticism of the European Court of Human Rights’ current composition and powers, as well as the affects its judgments are having in Britain. Click here for our previous commentary on the report.
Ben Emmerson: The European Court of Human Rights enhances our democracy – The Independent: In a detailed article, Ben Emmerson QC examines the thinktank Exchange Policy’s recently published report ‘Bringing Rights Back Home’, which criticised the current practises of the European Court of Human Rights. In particular, the barrister pays attention to the comments of Lord Hoffman (a former law Lord) who authored the report’s foreward. See our previous post for a commentary on the report.
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19 November 2010 by Adam Wagner
The Council of Europe, which monitors compliance with European Court of Human Rights judgments, has warned the United Kingdom to stop dragging its feet over the implementation of judgments on politically sensitive issues.
In a draft resolution, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, which was unanimously adopted on 17 November 2010, said:
The United Kingdom must put to an end the practice of delaying full implementation of Strasbourg Court judgments with respect to politically sensitive issues, such as prisoners’ voting rights.
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19 November 2012 by Daniel Isenberg
This is the first post by the blog’s new rounder-uppper Daniel Isenberg, who joins Sam Murrant. Welcome, Daniel!
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.
This week’s human rights news was dominated by the man who has become the Home Secretary’s bête noire, Abu Qatada. Elsewhere the UK’s relationship with the Strasbourg Court was addressed by Jack Straw and the Court’s recently-retired President, whilst the Court, itself, criticised the UK’s policy on criminal records data retention. Meanwhile, in speeches two Court of Appeal judges have made expressed views on human rights and the principle of proportionality.
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2 June 2013 by Daniel Isenberg
Welcome back to the UK Human Rights Roundup, your regular chocolate selection box 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.
Much of the news this week relating to the media: tweeting, printing and everything in between.Chris Grayling’s thriftiness also maintains the interests of commentators, academics and lawyers; and cases involving the freedom of religion remain at the forefront of the ECtHR as the Strasbourg Court reforms.
by Daniel Isenberg
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4 December 2013 by Rosalind English
On Monday at 10.00 Eastern Time, the Nonhuman Rights Project filed suit in Fulton County Court in the state of New York on behalf of Tommy, a chimpanzee, who is being held captive in a cage in a shed at a used trailer lot in Gloversville.
According to the NRP, this is the first of three suits they are filing this week. The second was filed on Tuesday in Niagara Falls on behalf of Kiko, a chimpanzee who is deaf and living in a private home. And the third will be filed on Thursday on behalf of Hercules and Leo, who are owned by a research center and are being used in locomotion experiments at Stony Brook University on Long Island.
The organisation, led by the animal-rights lawyer Steven Wise, is using the writ of habeas corpus on behalf of the animals to ask the judge to grant the chimpanzees the right to bodily liberty and to order that they be moved to a sanctuary where they can live out their days with others of their kind in an environment as close to the wild as is possible in North America.
| Updated (10 December)|: The judge has declined the application for habeas corpus. According to Steven Wise, Judge Boniello said “that ‘I’m not going to be the one to make that leap of faith.’” Yet Boniello, who decided that chimpanzee personhood is ultimately a matter for legislatures to decide, was also “unexpectedly sympathetic”, calling their arguments sound and wishing them luck. “I’ve been in a lot of cases, and there’s not been many where the judge says, ‘Good luck.’ Usually they just say, ‘denied’.
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24 August 2015 by David Scott
Photo credit: The Guardian
Brown v Parole Board for Scotland, [2015] CSIH 59 – read judgment
Scotland’s civil appeal court, the Inner House of the Court of Session, has refused a prisoner’s appeal for damages resulting from an alleged failure to afford him a reasonable opportunity to rehabilitate himself during his extended sentence.
by David Scott
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18 December 2015 by Fraser Simpson
Photo credit: Guardian
Ansari, Re Judicial Review, [2015] CSOH 168 – read judgment.
The Outer House of the Court of Session has held that the duty imposed under Article 5, ECHR to afford prisoners a reasonable opportunity to rehabilitate themselves, recognised by the Supreme Court in R (on the application Haney and Others) v. The Secretary of State for Justice, [2014] UKSC 66, does not extend to local authorities.
by Fraser Simpson
Background
The petitioner, Yousef Ansari, is currently serving a sentence of life imprisonment. The punitive part of his sentence, set at nine years, expired in March 2005. In his petition for judicial review, Mr Ansari claimed that the local authority, Aberdeen City Council, and the Scottish Government, had failed to afford him a reasonable opportunity to rehabilitate himself. A duty to offer opportunities for rehabilitation had been previously recognised as implicit in the scheme of Article 5 by the Supreme Court in Haney (see previous UKHRB post here). The hearing before Lord Glennie was restricted to the question whether the council owed such a duty.
Mr Ansari’s case
The starting point for the petitioner was the duty recognised in the Supreme Court decision in Haney. He argued that the duty required both the provision of opportunities for rehabilitation, which was the responsibility of the Scottish Ministers, and the provision of opportunities for the prisoner to demonstrate that they no longer posed an unacceptable risk to the public. This latter aspect of the Haney duty required the active cooperation of the local authority. Mr Ansari argued that Aberdeen City Council had failed to satisfy this duty. Whilst in the “Open Estate”, he was provided with the opportunity to return to the community – an important step in proving he no longer posed a threat. However, during this reintegration he was placed under extensive supervision by the local authority which, in his submission, undermined his ability to demonstrate he posed a reduced risk to the public.
Additionally, his ability to be temporarily released into the community was contingent upon the ability to provide the local authority with an appropriate “home leave” address. Mr Ansari claimed that during the vetting process the local authority had incorrectly considered his brother’s residence as inappropriate. Further, if no other address had been suitable, the local authority had a duty to provide him with accommodation under Part II, Housing (Scotland) Act 1987. On his case, these shortcomings had prevented Mr Ansari from temporarily returning to the community and therefore denied him the opportunity to demonstrate that he posed a reduced risk to the public.
In the alternative, Mr Ansari submitted that the duty would, in any event, extend to the local authority. The duty was imposed upon the “state” and, by virtue of s.6, Human Rights Act 1998, this would extend to public bodies such as Aberdeen City Council. As a result, they were bound by the requirements of Article 5, which included the duty recognised in Haney.
Imposing the Haney duty on the local authority, from the petitioner’s perspective, was a natural conclusion. Whilst the functions of the Scottish Ministers and the local authority differed, they both played an important role in the rehabilitation of Mr Ansari. A number of functions of the local authority, especially in the process relating to preparation for release, could not be carried out by the Scottish Ministers acting through the Scottish Prison Service. Extending the duty to provide reasonable opportunities for rehabilitation to the local authority would ensure that the Haney duty was “practical and effective” due to the important “real and practical sense” in which the local authority was involved in Mr Ansari’s rehabilitation.
The City Council’s submissions
The first respondent submitted that they did not owe the petitioner any duty under Article 5 as interpreted in Haney. The duty to provide opportunities for rehabilitation is not a freestanding duty, but instead stems from the decision of the state to detain an individual following conviction by a competent court. In James, Wells, and Lee v. the United Kingdom, [2012] ECHR 1706, the European Court of Human Rights recognised that part of the purpose of an indeterminate sentence was to rehabilitate the prisoner. Consequently, the Supreme Court in Haney recognised the need to provide reasonable opportunities to rehabilitate in the event that the state attempts to justify continued detention under Article 5(1)(a). The first respondent submitted that as they had no power to detain the prisoner, or order his release, it would be inappropriate to impose such a duty upon them.
Decision
Lord Glennie held that the duty recognised in Haney could not be extended to Aberdeen City Council. In line with submissions made by counsel for the first respondent, Lord Glennie held that the Haney duty is only imposed on states in the event that they have detained a prisoner and rely upon Article 5(1)(a) as justification. However, the local authority is in an entirely different position and has no powers to detain or release the prisoner. The first respondent was not required to justify the detention of the prisoner and, therefore, there was no reason to impose the Haney duty upon them.
In the petitioner’s submissions, reference was made to Lord Glennie’s decision in Reid, Re Judicial Review, [2015] CSOH 84 (read previous UKHRB post here). In Reid, Lord Glennie held that as part of the duty recognised in Haney, the Scottish Ministers had a duty to take “reasonable steps to procure” the cooperation of the local authority during the rehabilitation process (see paragraph 30). Lord Glennie clarified that in providing various services to the Scottish Ministers that aid the rehabilitation process, the local authority could only be considered to owe a duty to the Scottish Ministers, not the individual prisoner. As a result, Reid provided no support for the submission that the Haney duty should be extended to the local authority.
Lord Glennie also noted that certain statutes may impose specific duties upon a local authority. For example, s.27, Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968 (detailing the functions relating to the supervision and care of those released from prison) and the Housing (Scotland) Act 1987 outlined relevant functions and duties of the local authority. However, these did not assist the argument that the general Haney duty arising from the operation of Article 5 could extend to the local authority. These duties existed independently from any duty to afford opportunities for rehabilitation. Any failures relating to these duties could be challenged by Mr Ansari in separate proceedings.
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