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: puberty blockers consent/page/24/Freedom of information - right of access) [2015] UKUT 159 (AAC) (30 March 2015)
R (on the application of Hoang Anh Minh) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2015] EWHC 1725 (Admin) – read judgment
This case concerned the proper approach to establishing whether there are “reasonable grounds” for believing that a person has been a victim of trafficking under the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings (“the Trafficking Convention”). It also touched on the scope of the state’s positive obligations under Article 4 ECHR (which protects citizens of Council of Europe Countries from subjected to slavery, servitude, or forced or compulsory labour).
Background
The claimant arrived in the UK from Vietnam via Russia, where he claimed he had been forced to work in a factory for several years before being released. On arrival here he claimed asylum, which was refused.
In parallel with asylum proceedings, however, his case was referred to the Home Office’s competent authority to determine whether he was entitled to protection and assistance under the Trafficking Convention. The question in this context was different from that in the asylum claim – the competent authority was required to consider whether there were “reasonable grounds” to consider that the Claimant had been a victim of trafficking.
The competent authority gave an emphatic “no” to that question, by way of three decisions (an initial decision and two further decisions which reconsidered the first) which were in effect treated as a single decision for the purposes of the claim. The Claimant challenged those decisions by way of judicial review. Continue reading →
Now that the idea of a new UK Bill of Rights appears to be buried, choices re-emerge. The predicted outcome of the London-based Commission’s work was finally confirmed in December. Where now for human rights?
Thinking beyond the European Convention on Human Rights was never confined to this generation or any one process. The limitations of the Convention are well known, and critical material is not lacking. Talk of next steps circles around ‘going beyond’ and ‘building on’ existing achievements in several senses. The feeling that it is possible to improve; that the world of human rights captures more than the HRA or the ECHR. The more ill-defined talk of ‘ownership’ that resembles constitutional patriotism in desperate defence of a union in transition, and the disguised nationalist/unionist positions that occasionally surface.
Vaccine in vial with syringe. Vaccination concept. 3d
SL (Permission to Vaccinate), Re 2017 EWHC (Fam) EWHC (30 January 2017) [2017] EWHC 125 (Fam)
The alleged risks attending on vaccination were outweighed by the benefits of immunisation by a clear margin, the Family Court has ruled.
Background facts
The seven month old baby SL was subject of an interim care order. The mother (the third respondent) objected to immunisations on the basis that her other children had suffered adverse reactions from them in the past. The local authority applied under the court’s inherent jurisdiction for a declaration that it was in the child’s interests for it to be given permission to arrange for him to receive the Haemophilus Influenza Type b (Hib) vaccine and the pneumococcal conjugate (PCV) vaccine. Continue reading →
President Obama made a historic trip to Kenya this week, and called upon African states to abandon anti-gay discrimination (watch the full speech here). In a speech welcomed by Human Rights Campaign, he urged Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta to stop treating people differently based on their sexuality, comparing the effects of this to racial segregation in early 20th century America.
In unanimously allowing an appealagainst a decision to declare the appellant intentionally homeless due to her inability to pay her rent, the Supreme Court affirmed that non-housing benefits are not designed to create a surplus that can be used to account for insufficient housing benefits.
Factual Background
The appellant, Ms Samuels, was an assured shorthold tenant
of a property in Birmingham, where she lived with her four children. Having
fallen into rent arrears she was given notice to leave and subsequently applied
to the respondent council as homeless under Part VII of the Housing Act 1996.
The council instead decided that she was intentionally homeless on the grounds
that her current accommodation was affordable and it was only due to the
appellant’s deliberate decision not to pay the rent that had resulted in her becoming
homeless.
At the time that Ms Samuels left the property she was entirely dependent on social security benefits which amounted to a total of £1,897.84 per month. This figure comprised: (a) housing benefit (£548.51); (b) income support (£290.33); (c) child tax credit (£819.00); and (d) child benefit (£240.00). Excluding the housing benefit, the total available for living expenses was £1,349.33.
Ms Samuels’ rent was £700, leaving a shortfall of £151.49 when compared to her housing benefit, whilst she calculated her other monthly expenditure to be £1,234.99, comprising: (a) food/household items (£750); (b) electricity (£80); (c) gas (£100); (d) clothes (£50); (e) TV license (£43.33); (f) school meals (£43.33); (g) travel (£108.33); (h) telephone (£20); and (i) daughter’s gymnastics (£40).
Overall, Ms Samuels was left in the unfortunate position of having expenses totalling £1,934.99 with only £1,897.84 worth of social security benefits to cover these expenses.
After some quieter times earlier in the year, last week saw no fewer than two Supreme Court judgements and twenty Court of Appeal (Civil Division) decisions.
However, the dominant legal and political story of the week (the ubiquitous Brexit aside) concerned criticism of the Home Secretary Sajid Javid, after reports emerged about the death of the child of Shamima Begum. The 19-year-old left East London to travel to Syria and join the Islamic State aged 15. Javid had stripped Begum of her British Citizenship on the basis that she was a dual national of Bangladesh. News broke this morning that the Home Office had removed citizenship from a further two individuals who had left under similar circumstances.
Conor Monighan brings us the latest updates in human rights law
Photo credit: The Guardian
In the News:
Over 100 female detainees have gone on hunger strike at Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre.
The women began their strike on the 21st February, over “inhuman” conditions, indefinite detentions, and a perceived failure to address their medical needs. The UK is the only European state that does not put a time limit on how long detainees can be held.
This week, the strikers were given a letter from the Home Office warning their actions may speed up their deportation. Labour criticised the letter, but Caroline Nokes, the Immigration Minister, said the letter was part of official Home Officer guidance and was published last November on its website. Continue reading →
R (on the application of) Friends of Antique Cultural Treasures Ltd v Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs – read judgment
“We believe that the legal market presents opportunities for criminals to launder recently poached ivory as old ivory products.” (Defra’s statement in consultation in introducing the Ivory Bill)
The Ivory Act 2018, which received Royal Assent in December 2018, proposes to prohibit ivory dealing with very limited exceptions. This includes antique items made with ivory. According to the Government, the Act contains “one of the world’s toughest bans on ivory sales”. No date has yet been fixed for it to become law.
The purpose of the Act is to enhance the protection of African and Asian elephants in the face of ongoing threats to their survival. It does so by prohibiting the sale, as opposed to the retention, of all ivory (that is, anything made out of or containing ivory), subject to a very limited and tightly defined exemptions. These prohibitions are backed by criminal and civil sanctions.
The claimant company represented UK dealers in antique worked ivory such as Chinese fans, walking canes with sculpted ivory tops and furniture with ivory inlay. The appeal of these items is not confined to Sinologist antiquarians. Netsuke, smaller carved ornaments worn as part of Japanese traditional dress, are an example. Even for the non connoisseur, Edmund de Waal’s novel The Hare with the Amber Eyes is a celebration of the significance and aura that these ornaments bestow on their owners, not just for the carving, but for the material of which they are made. Religious, hierarchical, magical, and even medicinal.
MA, BB v Secretary of State for the Home Department (The Equality and Human Rights Commission intervening) [2019] EWHC 1523 — judgment not yet on Bailii but available here.
The High Court has held that an effective Article 3 investigation by the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman (“PPO”) into allegations of serious physical and mental abuse in an Immigration Removal Centre requires the PPO to have powers are to compel witness attendance, hold hearings in public and ensure that the claimants have properly-funded representation to enable them to review and comment on witness evidence and provide lines of enquiry.
Background: The Panorama exposé
MA and BA were detainees at Brook House Immigration Removal Centre (“the IRC”). Prior to their detention, both had served prison sentences. MA’s asylum claim had been refused and BA’s refugee status had been revoked following his sentencing. Both have mental illnesses.
The IRC is operated for the Home Office by the private company G4S, with healthcare services provided by NHS England and G4S Medical Services.
On 7 September 2017 the BBC’s Panorama programme aired a documentary Undercover: Britain’s Immigration Secrets. This showed footage recorded secretly by a Detention Custody Officer (DCO) at the IRC.
With the May 2015 General Election looming, the battle for the future of human rights in the UK is hotting up. The Prime Minister has just sacked his long-standing Attorney General apparently because he disagreed with a mooted Tory manifesto policy which would, he rightly suggested, breach the UK’s international law obligations.
Meanwhile, over on what used to be Fleet Street,we can expect plenty of human rights misinformation and misrepresentation, as per usual. The Sun, a longterm offender, has been at it again with two recent articles. I thought it would be useful to respond in a bit of detail as they contain a number of common misrepresentations. And because they are behind a paywall, the usual army of Twitter fact checkers are left somewhat powerless.
R (ClientEarth No.2) v Secretary of State for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, Garnham J, 2 November 2016, judgment here
This is all about nitrogen dioxide in air, an unwanted byproduct of the internal combustion engine. Its effect on UK mortality has been estimated at 23,500 deaths per year.
The long way of telling the story involves circling around 6 hearings, to the Supreme Court, twice, to the CJEU in 2014 (C404-13, my post here), and now to a trenchant judgment from Garnham J.
The short version is this.
The UK has been non-compliant with EU Directive 2008/50 on nitrogen dioxide (et al) over the last 6 years. Art.23 of the Directive requires that the period in which a state is obliged to remedy any non-compliance is to be “as short as possible”.
The UK Air Quality Plan (AQP) produced in 2015 (and responding to the 2nd Supreme Court judgment here) was simply not up to ensuring that urgently required result.
In so concluding, Garnham J started with the construction of Art.23, in response to a Defra argument that it imports an element of discretion and judgment.
Kent & others v Arun District Council and others [2015] EWHC 2295 – read judgment
Iain O’Donnell of 1COR acted for the Council in this case: he played no part in the writing of this post.
This case concerned the application of the law in relation to future conduct, in particular, the role of the judicial review procedure in determining what precisely is meant by the prohibition on the selling of live animals under the Pet Animals Act 1951.
This is a detailed statutory provision inspired by welfare and conservation concerns. It has a complicated legislative history, and essentially the judge hearing the application was being asked to decide whether certain future activities might be caught by it.
For the record, the statute was introduced to protect the welfare of animals sold as pets. It requires any person keeping a pet shop to be licensed by the local council, which will only license such a business if they are satisfied as to the suitability of the accommodation, nutrition and safety of the animals concerned. Section 2 bans the selling of animals in the street, including on barrows and markets.
Councils are responsible for enforcing the law in this area. Continue reading →
Women’s rights and gender equality issues have been at the forefront of the news this week. The appalling murder of Sarah Everard, abducted when walking home in London, has elicited a huge social media response. In particular, it has highlighted the problematic phenomenon of victim-blaming directed at women, with advice focusing on teaching woman how to avoid being sexually harassed, rather than educating men about how to be better allies in calling out the misogynistic behaviour that enables harassment. These events coincided with statistics published by the World Health Organisation on Tuesday, which found that one in three women have been physically or sexually assaulted by their male partner across the world, and a survey conducted by UN Women UK published on Wednesday, which showed that 97% of women between the ages of 18 and 24 had been sexually harassed. The latter study also revealed that the majority of women don’t report these incidents because they don’t have confidence that the abuse will be dealt with effectively by the police or the legal system. On Tuesday the government unveiled the new Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill which, among other changes, has amended the sentencing laws for sexual offenders, enabling them to be put behind bars for longer. The government stated the new legislation was aimed at ‘restoring confidence in the criminal justice system’. However, given current statistics indicating a diminished number of successful rape prosecutions in the last year, it seems unlikely that the mere possibility of tougher sentences for sexual offenders once convicted is going to improve women’s confidence in the justice system. In fact, the new Bill has been substantially criticised by equality and civil liberties campaigners because it will increase the powers of the police to shut down public protest. Under the new law, the Home Secretary would be able to label particular protests as a ‘serious disruption’, enabling the police to then impose stringent conditions on the demonstration. The first detailed discussion of the Bill in Parliament today comes after accusations that the police were ‘too heavy-handed’ in dealing with demonstrators at the Sarah Everard vigil on Saturday evening. However, the Conservative majority in the Commons will almost certainly ensure that the Bill passes.
Patricia Davies (by her mother and litigation friend Zelda Davies) v Chief Constable of Merseyside [2015] EWCA Civ 114 – read judgment
The Court of Appeal has considered the compatibility with Article 8 ECHR of the police’s removal of a 14 year old girl’s clothing after she had been arrested and taken to a police station.
Background
The background facts were that the claimant was arrested outside a kebab shop in Argyle Street, Birkenhead. Her behaviour was uncontrolled and aggressive and she was handcuffed and taken to Wirral police station. The custody officer ordered that her clothing should be removed because she was a suicide risk. She was taken to a room by three female officers who removed her clothing and dressed her in a safety gown. She was then placed in a cell in which she could be observed by means of internal CCTV. Continue reading →
The UK Government introduced its Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill to Parliament on 30 January. The Law Society welcomed the Bill’s repeal of the controversial Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act 2024 – described by Society president Richard Atkinson as ‘one of the most damaging pieces of legislation in recent history’ – and certain provisions of the Illegal Migration Act 2023. However, a number of charities have expressed concern that the Bill’s proposed anti-people-smuggling measures – including the creation of what Home Secretary Yvette Cooper calls ‘counter-terror-style powers’ – will adversely affect legitimate asylum seekers. ‘We are very concerned that by creating new offences, many refugees themselves could also be prosecuted’, wrote the Refugee Council. ‘This would be a gross miscarriage of justice… The most effective way to break the smuggling gangs’ grip is to stop refugees from getting into the boats in the first place, which means giving them a legal way to apply for asylum in the UK.’
This week also saw the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill undergo the scrutiny of the Commons General Committee. Lord Sumption, former Justice of the Supreme Court, told the Committee that the Bill’s requirement that those applying for assisted dying would need the approval of a High Court judge as well as two doctors was ‘unnecessary and in some respects undesirable… It is not entirely clear what the judge is supposed to do … Is he there to ensure that the two doctors have done their job… or is he there to form his own view on these matters, completely independently of all those who have given certificates? If the latter, one is talking about quite a time-consuming process, involving a lot of additional evidence. It seems to me this is a protection which no other country, so far that I am aware of among those who have authorised assisted dying, have included.’ The Committee sits again on 11 February.
In international news
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is under investigation by her country’s prosecutors for releasing and repatriating Osama al-Masri, a Libyan warlord wanted by the International Criminal Court. The Court issued its arrest warrant for Al-Masri on 18 January, citing his alleged command over a network of prisons in Tripoli, and ‘crimes against humanity and war crimes, including murder, torture, rape and sexual violence, allegedly committed in Libya from February 2015 onwards.’ Al-Masri was arrested by the Italian authorities at a football game in Turin only a day after the warrant’s issue, before his release on 21 January ‘without prior notice or consultation of the Court.’ Meloni’s Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi, who is now also under investigation, had told the Italian Senate that al-Masri’s deportation was ‘for urgent security reasons, with my expulsion order, in view of the danger posed by the subject.’ It has since been claimed that al-Masri was released on a technicality, following bureaucratic errors made in the course of the suspect’s arrest. These are said to have compelled the Italian court of appeal to refuse to validate his further detention. Al-Masri was then boarded onto a military plane and safely returned to Libya.
In the courts
The Court of Appeal has allowed an appeal brought by two freelance journalists, permitting the disclosure of the names of two family court judges behind historic care proceedings relating to the murdered schoolgirl Sara Sharif. In Louise Tickle & Anor v The BBC & Ors [2025] EWCA Civ 42, Sir Geoffrey Vos MR ruled that Mr Justice Williams had ‘no jurisdiction’ to make a Reporting Restrictions Order anonymising the judges in December last year – save a possible obligation to do so under section 6(1) of the Human Rights Act (HRA) 1998, had it been necessary to avoid an infringement of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR).
Sir Geoffrey found that there was ‘no evidential basis’ on which to believe that the threshold for the application of ECHR Articles 2 (right to life), 3 (freedom from torture and inhuman or degrading treatment) or 8 (respect for family and private life) was reached. ‘For the avoidance of doubt, I am not saying that judges are obliged to tolerate any form of abuse or threats… Nor am I saying that it would never be possible for section 6 of the HRA to allow, or even require, a court to consider… an anonymisation order in relation to judges. In my judgment, however, it is very hard to imagine how such a situation could occur.’ It would require: (1) ‘compelling evidence… as to the risks’; (2) the court to be ‘satisfied that those risks could not be adequately addressed by other security measures’; and (3) the court ‘to conclude that the risks were so grave that, exceptionally, they provided a justification for overriding the fundamental principle of open justice.’
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.
R (on the application of Hoang Anh Minh) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2015] EWHC 1725 (Admin) – read judgment 
Now that the idea of a new UK Bill of Rights appears to be 
With the May 2015 General Election looming, the battle for the future of human rights in the UK is hotting up. The Prime Minister has just 
Recent comments