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27 March 2024 by Kate Litman
In UK News
On Tuesday the government published its response to the public inquiry into Brook House Immigration Removal Centre. The inquiry was a response to a 2017 investigative documentary, which included footage of staff abusing detained people. The inquiry’s report was published on 19 September 2023. In its response the government described the documentary footage as “utterly shocking”, but emphasised the fact that “[d]etention is and will remain a fundamental element of the immigration system”. The government rejected the report’s key recommendation that it should set a time limit on detention. The response sought to highlight changes that have been made across the immigration detention estate since the events of 2017, such as the improved ratio of custodial staff to detained persons and the introduction of accredited training and a code of conduct for staff. The government stated that a “comprehensive review” into complaints and whistle blowing processes is being undertaken.
In other news, a memorandum disclosed to the Afghanistan Inquiry shows that in 2011 a UK Special Forces commander raised concerns that “there is in effect an unofficial policy… to kill wherever possible fighting aged males on target, regardless of the immediate threat they pose to our troops. In some instances this has involved the deliberate killing [of] individuals after they have been restrained… and the subsequent fabrication of evidence to suggest a lawful killing in self-defence”. The inquiry is investigating alleged unlawful conduct by UK Special Forces in Afghanistan between 2010 and 2013 and the adequacy of the Ministry of Defence’s response to concerns that were raised at the time. Johnny Mercer MP, the Minister for Defence People and Veterans, has stated in his witness statement that he was shown a copy of the memorandum but not allowed to keep it. Mercer been ordered to disclose the names of those who told him about alleged war crimes to the inquiry.
In international news
The Hong Kong government passed new national security legislation known as ‘Article 23’. The new law increases prison sentences for national security related offences, including a maximum jail sentence of 10 years for sedition where an ‘external force’ is involved. Any speech which is critical of the government could potentially come under the scope of sedition, and Hong Kong’s justice minister has since stated that a person might commit an offence if they share criticism of the legislation online. The legislation gives the police the power to detain someone for 16 days without charge and to prohibit the person from consulting with a lawyer for 48 hours. UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron previously stated that the legislative proposals would “have a negative impact on the people of Hong Kong in the exercise of their rights and freedoms”. The EU has expressed concerns over the legislation’s ‘sweeping provisions and broad defintions’ and described the increased penalties, which have extraterritorial reach, as “deeply worrying”.
In the courts
The Court of Appeal ruled that an individual’s views on climate change do not form part of the ‘circumstances’ of criminal damage which is committed as part of a protest. Previously, climate protesters had successfully relied on the defence that they honestly believed the owner of the property would have consented to the damage if they had known of the damage “and its circumstances”. The Court emphasised that the “circumstances must belong to the damage, not to the defendant”, and that there “must be a sufficient connection between the damage and its circumstances”. The case under consideration involved a climate protester (“C”) who had caused damage to the offices of various charities and political parties. The court held that “what C had to say about the facts of or effects of climate change could not amount to the circumstances of the damage” and that such evidence would be inadmissible in relation to the consent defence.
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18 January 2012 by Adam Wagner
The City of London has succeeded in its court High Court battle against the Occupy London movement which is currently occupying an area close to St Paul’s Cathedral. As things stand, subject to any appeals, the movement has been evicted.
The Judiciary website will be publishing the full judgment tomorrow morning, but for those seeking it before then, I have uploaded it here. Below is the very helpful summary of the judgment sent to me by the Judicial Office (with apologies for the numbering, which is a quirk of the blog formatting, not the summary).
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26 April 2013 by Guest Contributor
The Guardian reports that Prime Minister Cameron is considering denouncing the ECHR on a temporary basis in order to facilitate the deportation of Abu Qatada. As tennis legend John McEnroe might have put it ‘you cannot be serious!’ In order to remove one man from the jurisdiction the government is contemplating removing the protection of human rights for all. One suspects that this announcement by Downing Street was little more than ‘dog-whistle’ politics with the local elections looming next week. But what if the government is really serious? Two quick thoughts come to mind.
Firstly, the UK is on the face of it able to denounce the ECHR under the terms of Article 58, though see below. But even after a denunciation the ECHR will remain fully applicable for six months. Presumably the government would wait for the six months to expire. It would then seek within domestic law to remove Qatada. As this would also require the suspension or repeal of the Human Rights Act 1998 this would require an Act of Parliament. No doubt a political and constitutional storm would break as a result. This would of course not be the end of the matter because the decision would be judicially reviewable, no doubt under an enhanced form of anxious scrutiny. How further forth would the government be then?
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12 September 2019 by Sapan Maini-Thompson
R (Bridges) v Chief Constable of South Wales Police and Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWHC 2341 (Admin)
The High Court has dismissed an application for judicial review regarding the use of Automated Facial Recognition Technology (AFR) and its implications for privacy rights and data protection.
Haddon-Cave LJ and Swift J decided that the current legal regime is adequate to ensure the appropriate and non-arbitrary use of AFR in a free and civilised society. The Court also held that South Wales Police’s (SWP) use to date of AFR by has been consistent with the requirements of the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA) and data protection legislation.
Nonetheless, periodic review is likely to be necessary. This was the first time any court in the world had considered AFR. This article analyses the judgement and explores possible avenues for appeal.
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18 October 2012 by Guest Contributor
There has been much in the press recently about the UK Government being minded to opt out, and/or in, of EU criminal justice measures. The implications of this decision will be significant to the UK’s ability to investigate and prosecute crime. So what does it all mean?
Opting out of what?
The UK managed to negotiate the quite remarkable article 10 to protocol 36 of the Lisbon Treaty which allows for the UK to exercise a power that no other member state of the Union holds. The Lisbon Treaty finally incorporates EU criminal justice measures (which are referred to as the area of police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters) into the main body of treaty law.
In order to do so, it allowed a transitional period of five years (which expires in December 2014), at the end of which, all measures adopted under the earlier treaty provisions (in what was known as the third pillar) are ‘Lisbonised.’ What this means is they become directives rather than framework decisions (and various other equivalents). The difference between the two is that directives are enforceable before the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and decisions are not.
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10 May 2021 by Calla Randall
In the news:
Campaigners have warned that a loophole allowing children aged 16 or 17 to get married with their parents’ consent is enabling forced child marriages to take place across England. Current laws against forced marriage to do not specifically protect children, and there are no laws in the UK to prevent religious or customary child marriages. The organisation Girls Not Brides UK, who sent a letter to the Prime Minister warning of the impact of this loophole last week, have suggested that child marriages disproportionately affect girls, and often lead to fewer educational and employment opportunities and a higher risk of domestic violence. The government’s Forced Marriage Unit, which collects data on cases of forced marriage, shows that more than a quarter of cases involve children. The Conservative MP Pauline Latham is currently promoting a bill in Parliament aimed at criminalising child marriage completely.
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11 September 2016 by David Hart KC
Al-Saadoon & Ors v Secretary of State for Defence [2016] EWCA Civ 811, 9 September 2016 – read judgment
This is an extremely important judgment from the Court of Appeal on the reach of the ECHR into war zones, in this case Iraq. The CA, with the only judgment given by Lloyd Jones LJ, disagreed in part with Leggatt J – for whose judgment see Dominic Ruck Keene’s post here.
3 main points arose on appeal.
The first was the jurisdictional question under Art.1 of the Convention – were Iraqi civilians killed or injured by British servicemen covered by the ECHR?
The second is the extent to which the UK is under a duty to investigate ECHR violations alleged by Iraqis, under Arts 3 (torture) and 5 (unlawful detention).
And the third is the question of whether the UN Torture Convention could be relied upon in domestic law proceedings.
I shall cover the first point in this post. The blog will cover the other points shortly. The points arose by way of preliminary legal issues in various test cases drawn from the 2,000 or so Iraqi claimants.
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3 August 2011 by Adam Wagner
G v E & Ors [2011] EWCA Civ 939 – Read judgment – 1COR’s Guy Mansfield QC appeared for the Respondent. He is not the author of this post.
Bahta & Ors, R (on the application of) v Secretary of State for the Home Department & Ors [2011] EWCA Civ 895 – Read judgment
The general rule in civil law cases is that the loser pays the winner’s legal costs, even if the case settles before trial. As with all general rules, there are plenty of exceptions, and many relate to public authorities. Two of those exceptions have just been chipped away at by the Court of Appeal.
Two important judgments increasing the likelihood that local authorities will have to pay out costs emerged the usual last-minute glut before the court term ended on Friday. The first concerned costs in the Court of Protection when an authority has unlawfully deprived a person of their liberty. The second was about costs in immigration judicial review claims which had settled following consent orders.
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31 January 2018 by Rosalind English
Kings College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust v Thomas and others [2018] EWHC 127 (Fam) – read judgment
Updated: The Court of Appeal has now ruled that doctors at King’s College hospital, London, could remove Isaiah from the ventilator that has kept him alive since he was deprived of oxygen at birth and sustained catastrophic brain injury. The judges also refused the parents permission to appeal against this ruling. McFarlane LJ said
This case is not about the parents or their hopes. It is and must firmly be about Isaiah and his best interests.
Parental love is to be cherished by society, particularly when a child is sick. But the “flattering voice of hope” is not always in best interests of the object of that love. So concluded MacDonald J in a recent ruling which has attracted considerable media attention. The judge concluded that it was not in the 11- month old boy’s best interests for life-sustaining treatment to be continued. He was satisfied on the evidence of the court, he said, that the boy, Isaiah, had
no prospect of recovery or improvement given the severe nature of the cerebral atrophy in his brain
and that he would remain “ventilator dependent and without meaningful awareness of his surroundings”
Perhaps with the Charlie Gard publicity in mind, MacDonald J was careful to emphasise the weight of the medical evidence as against the parents’ assessment of the boy’s condition. The publicity sparked by this case has led to visits to the child by other medical professionals. There are some forceful concluding remarks in this judgement about the inappropriate nature of these possible “clandestine examinations”. These are now a matter for the police.
The judge also rejected the argument that the court should hear evidence from “foreign” experts on the approach from which other cultures might approach this question in terms of its ethics and outcome. There was a “world of difference” between medical expertise from abroad and a foreign “expert” who simply takes the view that the medical or ethical approach to these issues in this jurisdiction differs from that in their own practice.
It would be extremely unfortunate if the standard response to applications of this nature was to become one of scouring the world for medical experts who simply take the view that the medical, moral or ethical approach to these issues in their jurisdiction, or in their own practice is preferable to the medical, moral or ethical approach in this jurisdiction.
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29 January 2016 by Alasdair Henderson
Lady Hale, who delivered the court’s judgment (Photo: Guardian)
R(C) v. Secretary of State for Justice [2016] UKSC 2 – read judgment.
When is it right to keep the names of parties to litigation a secret? That was the difficult question the Supreme Court had to grapple with in this judgment, handed down on Wednesday. The decision to allow a double-murderer to remain anonymous led to outraged headlines in the tabloids. Yet the Court reached the unanimous conclusion that this was the right approach. Why?
The Facts
C, who had a long history of severe mental illness, was convicted of murdering his ex-girlfriend and her new partner in 1998 and sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 11 years before parole could be considered. The murder was described by Lady Hale as “a particularly savage killing which must have caused untold suffering to the victims and has continued to cause great grief to their families.” During his sentence C was transferred from prison to a high security psychiatric hospital. Whilst there, in 2012, C’s treating doctors applied for permission to allow him unescorted leave in the community in order to assess how well his treatment was progressing and whether he would be suitable for discharge. The Secretary of State refused to allow this.
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18 September 2011 by Guest Contributor
Updated |Nine years ago, in March 2002, Amanda “Milly” Dowler (aged 13) was on her way home from school. She was kidnapped and murdered and her body was found in September 2002. In June 2011, Levi Bellfield was convicted of her murder and sentenced to a “whole life” tariff. When Milly went missing, journalists of the News of the World newspaper “hacked” into her voicemail. The fact that this had happened came to public prominence in July 2011 when The Guardian newspaper revealed the story.
The Metropolitan Police are now seeking an order that The Guardian journalists reveal their sources of information about the hacking. There is a suggestion that the Official Secrets Act 1989 may have been breached. The Guardian plans to resist this “extraordinary demand to the utmost” – see The Guardian 17th September – “Hacking: Met use Official Secrets Act to demand Guardian reveals sources.”
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20 April 2018 by Dominic Ruck Keene
In NT1 and NT2 v Google LLC, Mr Justice Warby considered whether Google should be required to ‘de-list’ links in its search results to articles about the spent historic convictions of two businessmen under what is commonly called the ‘right to be forgotten’. He held it was in the case of one claimant, but not the other.
The claimants argued that the Google search results conveyed inaccurate information about their offending. Further, they sought orders requiring details about their offending and their convictions and sentences to be removed from Google Search results, on the basis that such information was out of date; irrelevant; of no public interest; and/or otherwise an illegitimate interference with their rights. They also sought compensation for Google in continuing to return search results disclosing such details, after the claimants’ complaints were made. Google resisted both claims, maintaining that the inclusion of such details in its search results was legitimate.
Mr Justice Warby summarised the issues as “the first question is whether the record needs correcting; the second question is whether the data protection or privacy rights of these claimants extend to having shameful episodes in their personal history eliminated from Google Search; thirdly, there is the question of whether damages should be paid.”
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15 March 2012 by David Hart KC
Welsh Ministers v. RWE Npower Renewables Ltd [2012] EWCA Civ 311 read judgment, reversing RWE Npower Renewables v. Welsh Ministers & Swansea Council [2011] EWHC 1778 (Admin) Read judgment
In my previous post on this case, I summarised the judge’s findings as to why this Planning Inspector had gone wrong at the wind farm inquiry. The Inspector turned down the appeal because the positioning of individual turbines might lead to damage to deep deposits of peat found on this site. The judge, Beatson J, thought the inspector had not explained his reasons for his conclusions in sufficiently clear a form. Nor did the Inspector give the wind farm developer an opportunity to deal with his concerns.
So said the judge. But the Court of Appeal disagreed – showing how it is not easy to “call” the merits of these reasons challenges.
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4 March 2013 by David Hart KC
Evans, R (o.t.a of) Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government [2013] EWCA Civ 114 – read judgment
There have been important pronouncements over the years by the Aarhus Compliance Committee (ACC) about whether the UK planning system complies with the UNECE Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (the Aarhus Convention). See my post here for the most important ones, and more are likely to follow shortly (see here). The interest in this domestic planning case is in how the Court of Appeal dealt with those pronouncements, where there is domestic case law going the other way.
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18 June 2021 by Marina Wheeler QC
During the pandemic, the public’s gratitude to the medical profession has been palpable. But rightly, practitioners continue to be regulated, supervised by the Courts. Here we report a clutch of decisions highlighting some common themes: the importance of transparency and maintaining public confidence in the profession; managing conflicts of interest; making and handling findings of dishonesty.
In R (on the application of Young) v General Medical Council [2021] EWHC 534 (Admin), the Administrative Court upheld the decision of a GMC Assistant Registrar (AR) to proceed with charges against the Claimant notwithstanding a previous Assistant Registrar had taken a contrary view.
The events giving rise to the case were tragic. In October 1996 Claire Roberts, age 9, died at the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children two days after admission. Her death wasn’t referred to the Coroner and the certificate failed to record the diagnosis – hyponatraemia, a condition where sodium in the blood falls dangerously low, leading to cerebral oedema.
In late 2004, a public inquiry was convened following a documentary about the deaths of three other children from hyponatraemia, which prompted Claire’s parents to contact the hospital. The Claimant – Professor of Medicine at Queen’s University, Belfast – was asked to review Claire’s clinical notes and met with Mr and Mrs Roberts in December 2004. A letter to them followed in January 2005 to which he contributed. In May 2006 he gave evidence at the inquest convened to investigate Claire’s death.
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