Search Results for: puberty blockers consent/page/23/Freedom of information - right of access) [2015] UKUT 159 (AAC) (30 March 2015)
3 August 2022 by Lucy Stock
In the news
- On Monday 25 July, the Court of Appeal refused permission to appeal against a decision to end 12-year old Archie Battersbee’s life support treatment. The decision was stayed for 48 hours – until 2pm on Wednesday – to allow Archie’s parents to apply to the European Court of Human Rights for interim relief. On Tuesday 2 August, the family’s fresh appeal to the Supreme Court, based on ‘new evidence’ of Archie attempting to independently take breaths, was also refused.
- Also on Monday, the London Central Employment Tribunal ruled in favour of Allison Bailey, awarding her £22,000 in her discrimination case. The Tribunal found that the barrister at Garden Court Chambers (GCC) had been victimised and discriminated against by her employer for expressing gender critical beliefs. The claim against Stonewall Equality Ltd was dismissed; the LGBT charity worked with GCC, which had joined its ‘diversity champions’ scheme. Ms Bailey accused Stonewall of ‘trans-extremism’.
- Thursday 28 July marked a historic moment for the UK’s legal system; for the first time, filming and public broadcasting was allowed in the Crown Court. Cameras recorded Sarah Munro QC sentencing Ben Oliver, who killed his grand-father in January 2021. Her judgement, handing down a life sentence with a minimum term of ten years and eight months, was accompanied by an informative explanation.
Continue reading →Like this:
Like Loading...
16 March 2020 by Thomas Hayes
NHS Staff. Credit: The Guardian.
Thomas Hayes is a specialist registrar in vascular surgery and forthcoming pupil at 1 Crown Office Row
As teased earlier, the Covid-19 pandemic gives rise to such a volume of material as to justify a slightly more detailed examination of its consequences. In time, the response of governments across the globe to the disease will no doubt be the subject of detailed study by academics across the fields of biology, history and law. For the time being, however, blog readers will have to tolerate the following words of speculation, much of which will probably suffer the cruel fate of being shown to be out of date and/or inaccurate within hours of publication…
The government has announced its intention to bring before Parliament this week emergency laws to help control the outbreak. Whilst at the time of writing, such draft legislation had not been published, press reports suggested it would include new powers to allow the police to detain those breaking quarantine measures. Where the police might take such recalcitrant citizens is not known, however the prospect of detaining in close proximity those suspected of carrying the highly infectious airborne disease presumably fills neither the police nor public health officials with much joy…
Continue reading →
Like this:
Like Loading...
6 July 2020 by Thomas Hayes
Protesters in Hong Kong. Credit: The Guardian.
It has been a quiet week in the courts from a human rights perspective. The Supreme Court gave judgment on a divorce case and a social security fraud, and whilst the Court of Appeal and High Court were more forthcoming in terms of the number of decisions made, family law and commercial cases dominated. Legal buffs may however be interested to note Scales v Motor Insurers’ Bureau [2020] EWHC 1747 (QB), in which the High Court applied Spanish law in a road traffic accident case, whilst celebrity watchers and students revising for their civil litigation exams may appreciate seeing how the court applied the test from Denton to grant Johnny Christopher Depp II relief from sanctions (who knew there was a Johnny Christopher Depp I?) – Depp v News Group Newspapers Ltd & Ors [2020] EWHC 1734 (QB).
A quiet week in the courts did not however extend to a quiet week in the news…
Continue reading →
Like this:
Like Loading...
27 February 2023 by Hal McNulty
In the news
The UN General Assembly backed a resolution condemning Russia’s actions and calling for an end to the war on Thursday, the eve of the anniversary of the invasion. With 141 supporters, 32 abstentions and seven voting against, the resolution reiterated the UN’s support for Ukraine and called for a “comprehensive, just and lasting peace.” Abstentions included China, India and South Africa, while Russia, North Korea and Syria were among those voting against. General Assembly resolutions are not legally binding but carry great political weight, and the UN Security Council is obstructed from action by Russia’s veto. On the same day in Vienna, a large number of delegates walked out of a parliamentary assembly of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in protest against Austria’s decision to give visas to Russian officials.
Leading supermarkets in the UK have introduced customer limits on purchases of fruits and vegetables. According to the British Retail Consortium, the shortages are expected to last a few weeks until reliance on imports from Spain and north Africa is counteracted by the start of the UK growing season. Tom Bradshaw, one of the leaders of the National Farmers’ Union (NFU), has called for the UK to “take command” of its supply chains. Citing Brexit, the Ukraine War, and climate change, the NFU wants the government to use the powers granted it by the Agriculture Act 2020 to address exceptional market conditions.
Continue reading →Like this:
Like Loading...
17 November 2011 by hrupdateadmin
Chester West and Chester Council v. P (by his Litigation Friend the Official Solicitor) [2011] EWCA Civ 1257 – Read judgment / Lucy Series’ commentary
When assessing whether a patient’s care deprives him or her of their liberty, and thereby entitles them to the procedural protections under Article 5 (4) ECHR, the right to liberty, the Court of Appeal has ruled that the appropriate comparator is an individual with the same disabilities and difficulties who is not in care. The court also provided useful general guidance for deprivation of liberty cases.
P is a 39 year old man with Cerebral Palsy and Down’s Syndrome who lacks the capacity to make decisions about his care and residence arrangements as a result of his physical and learning disabilities.
Continue reading →
Like this:
Like Loading...
2 August 2018 by Rajkiran Barhey
NHS Trust v Y (by his litigation friend, the Official Solicitor) and Others, Supreme Court 30 July 2018 – read judgment
The question for the Court was a simple but important one: whether the permission of a court was always required by law before doctors could withdraw feeding from a person in a persistent vegetative state.
Background
The patient at the heart of this case, known only as Y, had been an active man in his 50s before suffering a cardiac arrest which led to severe brain damage. He never regained consciousness and needed to be fed through a tube (known technically as “clinically assisted nutrition and hydration” or “CANH”) to stay alive.
Doctors had determined that Y was suffering from a “prolonged disorder of consciousness”known as “PDOC”.PDOC covers those who are in a persistent vegetative state and also those in a minimally conscious state, what we might informally call a coma.
Continue reading →
Like this:
Like Loading...
7 March 2023 by Orry Moore
In the news
Rishi Sunak’s pledge to “stop the boats” crossing the Channel will see a Bill brought before Parliament this week aimed at stripping those who arrive in the UK via small boats of their right to claim asylum. Potential measures under the Bill include new powers to declare claims inadmissible and a duty on the Home Secretary to remove such asylum-seekers to Rwanda or another third country. There may also be new criminal offences created for those who arrive via small boats, building on or adopting the draft Illegal Immigration (Offences) Bill. It is not clear how these plans will comply with the UK’s international obligations given the European Court of Human Rights’ previous intervention on the issue and their granting of an interim injunction, although the High Court gave the plans the green light back in December. The move also raises questions about the government’s plans for a domestic ‘Bill of Rights’, which previously included a clause obliging the UK courts to ignore interim measures from Strasbourg.
Suella Braverman is expected to introduce an amendment to the Public Order Bill to provide protective measures for journalists following defeats in the House of Lords. The Lords voted in favour of preventing reporters from being subject to police action after Hertfordshire police had to issue an apology to various reporters and photographers were detained at a Just Stop Oil demonstration in December last year. The government has not accepted the wording of the Lords’ amendment, with their proposed version merely preventing a police constable from detaining a person for the sole purpose of observing or reporting on a protest, which begs the question what exactly the government aims to exclude in doing so.
Continue reading →Like this:
Like Loading...
3 June 2011 by Lucy Series
I watched Panorama’s exposé of institutional abuse of adults with learning disabilities at Winterbourne View Hospital with mounting horror. What legal mechanisms were available to prevent abuses like this, or bring justice to victims?
There can be little doubt that the acts of the carers towards the patients were inhuman and degrading, a violation of their Article 3 rights. It is highly questionable whether the establishment fulfilled their rights to privacy and dignity under Article 8, the right to private and family life.
Continue reading →
Like this:
Like Loading...
30 October 2021 by Anogika Souresh
Re C [2021] EWCA Civ 1527
This is an appeal from Hayden J’s judgment in Re C [2021] EWCOP 25.
The appeal was allowed on the basis that care workers making arrangements to secure the services of a sex worker for C would place the care workers in peril of committing an offence contrary to section 39 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (“SOA”).
Background
The issue was whether care workers would commit a criminal offence under section 39 of the SOA if they made practical arrangements for C to visit a sex worker. C had the capacity to consent to sexual relations but not to make the arrangements.
Section 39(1) SOA states that:
A person (A) commits an offence if—
(a) he intentionally causes or incites another person (B) to engage in an activity,
(b) the activity is sexual,
(c) B has a mental disorder,
(d) A knows or could reasonably be expected to know that B has a mental disorder, and
(e) A is involved in B’s care in a way that falls within section 42.
[Emphasis Added]
The central question was whether the care workers would “cause” C to engage in sexual activity by making the arrangements. Hayden J concluded that they would not cause C to engage in sexual activity.
The Secretary of State for Justice appealed on three grounds:
- The Judge misinterpreted section 39 SOA;
- To sanction the use of sex is contrary to public policy (this ground of appeal was raised by way of an opposed amendment);
- The Judge erred in concluding that Articles 8 and 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights (“ECHR”) required his favoured interpretation.
Continue reading →Like this:
Like Loading...
14 February 2018 by Rosalind English
ABC v Thomson Medical Pte Ltd and others, Singapore Civil Court of Appeal [2017] SGCA 20 – read judgment
It is a trite reflection that law should change with the times but every so often we see the hair-pin bends in law’s pursuit of modern technology. This case from Singapore about reproductive rights and negligence in an IVF clinic is just such an example. As the judge said at the outset, the need for the law to adjust itself to the changing circumstances of life is clearest in the area of medical science,
where scientific advancement has made it possible for us to do things today which would previously have been unimaginable a few decades ago. This has brought untold prosperity to many, and hope to those who previously had none; but it has also given us greater capacity for harm.
Background facts
The Appellant, a Chinese Singaporean, and her husband, a German of Caucasian descent, sought to conceive a child through in-vitro fertilisation . The Appellant underwent IVF treatment and delivered a daughter, referred to in the judgment as “Baby P”. After the birth of Baby P, it was discovered that a serious mistake had been made: the Appellant’s ovum had been fertilised using sperm from an unknown Indian third party instead of sperm from the Appellant’s husband. It turned out that the clinic had processed two semen specimens inside one laminar hood at the same time and failed to discard the disposable pipettes that had been used after each step of the IVF process. This had resulted in a baby being born on 1 October 2010, whose DNA did not match her father’s.
Continue reading →
Like this:
Like Loading...
24 April 2010 by Guest Contributor
UK Human Rights Blog posts from last week that you may have missed
Case law
News
Features
Like this:
Like Loading...
17 January 2012 by Rosalind English
Othman (Abu Qatada) v United Kingdom – read judgment | updated (7/2/2012): Abu Qatada is expected to be released from Long Lartin maximum security jail within days. the special immigration appeals commission (Siac) ruled on Monday that Qatada should be freed, despite the Home Office saying he continued to pose a risk to national security.
Angus McCullough QC appeared for Abu Qatada as his Special Advocate in the domestic proceedings before SIAC, the Court of Appeal and the House of Lords. He is not the author of this post.
The Strasbourg Court has ruled today that whilst diplomatic assurances may protect a suspected terrorist from torture, he cannot be deported to Jordan while there remains a real risk that evidence obtained by torture will be used against him.
The following summary is based on the Court’s press release.
The applicant, Omar Othman (Abu Qatada), is a Jordanian national, currently detained in Long Lartin prison. He is suspected of having links with al-Qaeda.He arrived in the United Kingdom in September 1993 and made a successful application for asylum, in particular on the basis that he had been detained and tortured by the Jordanian authorities in 1988 and 1990-1. He was recognised as a refugee in 1994, being granted leave to remain until June 1998.
While his subsequent application for indefinite leave to remain was pending, he was detained in October 2002 under the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act. When that Act was repealed in March 2005, he was released on bail and made subject to a control order under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. While his appeal against the control order was still pending, in August 2005 he was served with a notice of intention to deport him to Jordan.
Continue reading →
Like this:
Like Loading...
9 January 2013 by Shaheen Rahman
R (Khan) v Secretary Of State For Foreign & Commonwealth Affairs [2012] EWHC 3728 (Admin) (21 December 2012) – Read judgment
In this unsuccessful application for permission to apply for judicial review, the Claimant sought to challenge the Defendant’s reported policy of permitting GCHQ employees to pass intelligence to the US for the purposes of drone strikes in Pakistan. The Claimant’s father was killed during such an attack in March 2011.
The Claimant alleged that by assisting US agents with drone strikes, GCHQ employees were at risk of becoming secondary parties to murder under the criminal law of England and Wales and of conduct ancillary to war crimes or crimes against humanity contrary to international law. The Claimant sought declaratory relief to that effect and also sought a declaration that the Defendant should publish a policy addressing the circumstances in which such intelligence could be lawfully disseminated. [paragraph 6]
Continue reading →
Like this:
Like Loading...
18 July 2011 by Graeme Hall
In the week that saw the UK Human Rights Blog reach half a million hits, we welcome you back to 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. You can also find our table of human rights cases here.
by Graeme Hall
In the news:
Phone-hacking
With the resignation of the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, and the arrest of the former Chief Executive of News International, Rebekah Brooks, the phone-hacking scandal revelations continue to snowball. Adam Wagner considers what role human rights may have played in the News of the World’s demise, here.
Continue reading →
Like this:
Like Loading...
2 February 2012 by David Hart KC
In October 2011, I posted on an important consultation, Cost Protection for Litigants in Environmental Judicial Review Claims, in which the Ministry of Justice wheeled out its proposals to get it out of the various scrapes caused by the expense of environmental challenges. The Aarhus Convention requires that environmental challenges not be “prohibitively expensive”, and both the European Commission and the Aarhus Compliance Committee don’t think that the English system complies – it costs way too much.
In a nutshell, MoJ were suggesting that there should be a starting point in the form of costs orders designed to protect unsuccessful claimants against excessive costs incurred by successful defendants – unsurprisingly called Protective Costs Orders. If a Claimant got permission to challenge an environmental decision, but then lost on a full judicial review hearing, he or she should have to pay no more than £5,000. In return, he should not be able to recover any more than £30,000 if he won. MoJ’s consultation period has now closed, and a very significant response has been received from Lord Justice Jackson, who recently carried out a set of mammoth reviews of litigation costs in all areas of the law.
Continue reading →
Like this:
Like Loading...
Recent comments