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UK Human Rights Blog - 1 Crown Office Row
Search Results for: puberty blockers consent/page/23/Freedom of information - right of access) [2015] UKUT 159 (AAC) (30 March 2015)
W(Algeria) and 7 Others v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2010] EWCA Civ 898 (Jacob LJ, Sullivan LJ and Sir David Keene) 29 July 2010 – read judgment
Article 6 of the Convention did not require an “irreducible minimum of information” that had to be provided to appellants in proceedings before the Special Immigration Appeals Commission about the risk they posed to national security.
In their appeal against decisions of the respondent secretary of state to deport them on grounds of national security (upheld by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC)) the appellants all claimed that they would be at risk of ill-treatment if they were deported. They had obtained relevant information which had been provided on the understanding that it could only be made available if there were clear guarantees that it would not become known to their national government.
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 saw the Queen’s Speech set out a number of legislative reforms, the veto of the release of the NHS risk register and the latest instalment in the Abu Qatada saga after the European Court of Human Rights declared his appeal was within time but nonetheless declined to hear it.
An injunction sought against the publication of certain information has been granted by the High Court in Northern Ireland under Article 2 (the right to life). The claimant also invoked the Prevention of Harassment (NI) Order and sought damages for misuse of private information. The Article 8 claim was only partially successful and the harassment claim was dismissed.
The claimant, who had been accused and subsequently cleared of murdering a journalist working for the defendant newspaper sought to prevent the publication of details relating to his address, his partner, his wedding plans and other personal information and photographs. The judge held that the publication of this information, in the light of threats from loyalist paramilitaries and dissident republican paramilitaries, would result in a “real and immediate risk” to the claimant’s life.
This is a rare case involving the welfare of non-human animals balanced against the rights in the Convention. In the Court’s own words, “this is the first time that the Court has had to rule on the question of whether the protection of animal welfare can be linked to one of the aims referred to in paragraph 2 of the Article 9 of the Convention.” Thank you to Joshua Rozenberg for alerting me to this important ruling.
In his Concurring Opinion Judge Yüksel gives a useful brief description of what was at stake here.
“The case concerns decrees promulgated under Belgian domestic law which require, in the interests of animal welfare, stunning prior to the slaughter of animals. The applicants, who are of Muslim or Jewish faith, claim that the prior stunning in question would prevent them from carrying out ritual slaughter in accordance with the precepts of their religion, which would constitute an interference and therefore a violation of their right to respect for their religion within the meaning of Article 9 of the Convention
… At the heart of the case are therefore two questions: i) whether considerations linked to animal welfare can constitute a legitimate aim for the purposes of Article 9 § 2 of the Convention and ii) whether the contested measure did not actually go beyond what is necessary in a democratic society.” [para 3 of the Opinion]
The full judgment is available only in French. A summary of the salient points follows.
The proposed laws under attack
The slaughter of food animals without prior stunning has been banned in a number of countries signatory to the Convention, in the interests of animal welfare. However, both Jewish and Islamic rituals require maximum bleeding of the animal for the resultant carcass to satisfy the requirements of religious laws. Moreover, both rituals require the animal to be healthy and in good condition at the time of slaughter, and to die as a result of blood loss. But scientific research has shown that the fear that stunning would have a negative impact on bleeding is unfounded. “Electronarcosis” (see image above) is a reversible (non-lethal) stunning method that is possible for some smaller species of food animals (pigs, sheep and goats). This means that if the throat is cut immediately after this stunning method, the animal has indeed died solely of blood loss.
The High Court has rejected the argument made by “Martin”, a man with locked-in syndrome who is profoundly disabled and wishes to end his own life. This comes shortly after Strasbourg’s rejection of the Nicklinson and Lamb cases, for which see my post here.
Philip Havers QC, of 1COR, acted for Martin, and has played no part in the writing of this post.
Martin would like to travel to a Swiss clinic to end his life, but wishes to obtain a medical report, from a doctor, to assist. He would also like to take medical advice on methods of suicide.
There is no dispute that a doctor advising him in this way will likely break the law, by committing the crime of assisting suicide. However, Martin argued that in practice, the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) has relaxed guidelines on when it is in the public interest to bring a prosecution against a doctor in these circumstances.
The rights of people with disabilities in the UK have come under scrutiny recently by both the Supreme Court and a UN Committee. On 9th November, the Supreme Court handed down judgment in a case concerning the ‘bedroom tax’. This judgment comes days after the UN Committee on Rights of Persons with Disabilities criticised the UK’s treatment of people with disabilities under recent welfare reforms, finding “grave and systematic violations of the rights of persons with disabilities.”
But what happened in the courts? Oh what an adventure it has been, dear reader. Strap on your seat belts and join me as we take a whistle-stop tour through 10 of the biggest legal battles of the last year.
A (A Child) v The Chief Constable of Dorset Police [2010] EWHC 1748 (Admin) (16 July 2010) – Read judgment
The High Court has ruled that the gist of sensitive evidence in a case involving a child being picked up for being spotted with an “inappropriate adult” must be disclosed in order that the child can bring a claim against the police.
The case is probably the first to follow the significant restriction of the use of secret evidence resulting from the Al Rawi decision (see our previous post), in which the Court of Appeal rejected a request by the Government that evidence in a torture compensation claim be kept secret from the public, and emphasised that the interests of open justice would be seriously compromised if this kind of request were ever granted in a civil case, even in very limited circumstances.
Smith v Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust and another [2016] EWHC 2208 (QB) – read judgment
Under the Fatal Accidents Act 1976 those who live together but are not married are not entitled to damages for bereavement. The High Court has found that though this did not directly engage the right to family life and privacy under Article 8, the difference in treatment between cohabitees and those who were married or in a civil partnership could not be justified and consideration should be given to reforming the law.
The issues before the Court
The claimant had cohabited with a man for over two years before he had died as a result of the first and second defendants’ negligence. She had made a dependency claim under s.1 of the 1976 Act, which by a 1982 amendment had been extended to people who had been cohabiting for more than two years, but the bereavement damages provisions in s.1A(2)(a) still applies only to spouses and civil partners. Continue reading →
A recent Supreme Court decision has reopened a debate on whether it can properly be said that there is a human right to education under the European Convention on Human Rights.
We posted last week on the decision in the Norther Ireland matter of JR17, where The Supreme Court found that there was no breach of a pupil’s right to education where he was unlawfully suspended from school but was provided with work to do and home tutoring.
Today Aidan O’Neil QC, writing on the UK Supreme Court Blog, provides an interesting analysis of the European case-law on the right to education. He also points out that the right to education exists as a protocol (effectively an appendix) rather than in the main body of the European Convention as “no consensus could initially be reached about the recognition of these claims as being fundamental rights.”
British Airways Plc v Unite the Union Queen’s Bench Division, 17 May 2010 – Read judgment
Update (07/06/20) – this decision was reversed by the Court of Appeal on 20/05/10. We will comment on the Court of Appeal decision when it is available.
The High Court has granted an injunction for the second time in 6 months against a strike planned by British Airways cabin crew, scheduled to begin today. Those who had trips planned will be delighted, but the Unite trade union who represented the workers have called the decision a “landmark attack on free trade unionism and the right to take industrial action” and are to appeal the judgment.
The union argued that a recent series of similar injunctions against strike action ran foul of the Human Rights Act 1998. Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights grants the right to freedom of assembly. However, the right can be restricted in certain limited circumstances, as it was in this case.
Lord Justice Laws’ Inaugural Lecture at Northumbria University, 1 November 2012 – read here
This is a fascinating and provocative lecture raising important questions about the extent to which the culture of human rights has become the currency of our moral dealings with each other and the State.
Adam commented briefly on Laws’ speech here but since it deserves a post of its own I will try to capture its essence and highlight some of its main features here without I hope too many spoilers.
Laws suggests, as Adam mentioned, that rights should properly be the duty of the State to deliver as an aspect of the public interest, not its enemy. The problem is that we have exalted rights beyond their status of public goods (along with health care, defence, education and so on) into primary moral values served to us not by the government but by the courts. Consequently these two institutions are seen to be serving opposite interests. The entrenchment of rights in morality in Laws’ view carries great danger.
It is that rights, a necessary legal construct, come also to be seen as a necessary moral construct. Applied to the morality of individuals, this is a bad mistake. Continue reading →
Below is a list of the Articles of the European Convention on Human Rights. You can click on the article itself for a description and analysis, or click the “posts” link after each article to see posts on the blog relating to that Article.
Conor Monighan brings us the latest updates in human rights law
Credit: The Guardian
In the News:
Saudi Arabia has admitted that the Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi is dead. The man was last seen entering the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul.
At first Saudi Arabia refused to admit the journalist was dead, then claimed he was killed in a fist fight, before suggesting he was killed by a rogue operation. A man posing as Khashoggi left the consulate the same day and walked around the nearby area.
The country’s public prosecutor has launched an investigation. King Salman announced a restructuring of the kingdom’s intelligence services. He has also dismissed deputy intelligence chief Ahmed al Assiri and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s nearest adviser, Saud al-Qahtani. 18 other suspects have been arrested and remain under investigation. The location of the journalist’s remains is unclear.
Donald Trump called the Saudi’s response ‘credible’, and senior US officials met with the Crown Prince last week. Trump has promised a robust response, but has said he does not want to damage American jobs by cutting arms sales.
Much of the information was initially leaked by Turkey, which sees Saudi Arabia as a rival in the region. President Erdogan has claimed the murder was planned days in advance. Continue reading →
Poshteh v Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea S [2017] UKSC 36, 10 May 2017 – read judgment
For the last 15 years, whether the right of the homeless to suitable council accommodation is an Art.6(1) ECHR civil right has been argued over in the courts. And the question arose again in today’s judgment of the Supreme Court.
Ms Poshteh had been imprisoned and tortured in Iran, and asked her local council in London to house her as she was homeless in the UK. She then rejected the offer of a flat because she said its windows reminded her of those in her Iranian prison cell. This rejection was held fatal to her housing claim, as we shall see.
To understand the Art.6 point, we need to have a quick look at the council’s housing duties for the homeless.
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W(Algeria) and 7 Others v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2010] EWCA Civ 898 (Jacob LJ, Sullivan LJ and Sir David Keene) 29 July 2010 – read judgment
Welcome back to the UK Human Rights Roundup, your weekly bulletin of human rights news. The full list of links can be found 
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