Search Results for: puberty blockers consent/page/25/Freedom of information - right of access) [2015] UKUT 159 (AAC) (30 March 2015)

Bank Mellat’s $4bn A1P1 claim gathers pace

9 May 2015 by David Hart KC

Bank Mellat v HM Treasury [2015] EWHC 1258 (Comm), Flaux J, 6 May 2015, read judgment

Two recent judgments underscoring the potential high cost of the UK getting it wrong in its dealing with businesses and hence being liable to pay damages under the Human Rights Act for breach of its A1P1 obligations. Regular readers will know that A1P1 is the ECHR right to peaceful enjoyment of property.

The first case was the photovoltaics case of Breyer, all about reducing renewables subsidies unfairly: see my post of last week here. The second, this case, involves a much more direct form of impact, namely the Treasury’s direction under the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 that no-one else should have any commercial dealings with Bank Mellat, because, the Treasury said, the Bank had connections with Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programme. 

Bank Mellat’s challenge got to the Supreme Court: see judgment and my post. The Court (a damn’d close run thing – 5:4) concluded that the direction was arbitrary and irrational and procedurally unfair. The nub of the complaint is that there were other Iranian banks against whom this very draconian measure was not taken, and that there was nothing specific about the Bank which made it more implicated than the rest of the banking system.

The Supreme Court remitted the case for trial as to HRA damages.

The current judgment of Flaux J is the first stage in that trial process. As we will see, Bank Mellat are distinct winners at this stage.

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Election Round-Up: Ripping Up the Rulebook on Human Rights?

9 June 2017 by Thomas Beamont

It has been widely reported that Theresa May will stay on as Prime Minister following the election on June 8^th. The Conservative PM will seek to form a government with the support of the Democratic Unionist Party (the DUP).

A recent Round-Up by Poppy Rimington-Pounder highlighted some welcome changes in the parties’ approaches to human rights in the pre-election manifestos. With the recent shift in political climate it seems that changes may be on the horizon.

What does the election result mean for human rights?

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ALBA Conference 2019: A Review (Part 4)

2 November 2019 by Conor Monighan

This post, and those that follow, summarise some of the main points of interest arising from the ALBA Conference 2019.

‘Practice and Procedure Update’ – Chair: Lord Justice Singh; Speakers: Catherine Dobson, Jo Clement, Christopher Knight

Catherine Dobson: Costs in Public Interest Litigation

Sir Rupert Jackson’s 2009 review of costs in civil litigation found that reform was required in relation to judicial review. This was because it was “not in the public interest that potential claimants should be deterred from bringing properly arguable judicial review proceedings by the very considerable financial risks involved”. Whilst the government did not take up the proposal for qualified one-way costs shifting in judicial review, it did introduce a scheme for cost capping orders in judicial review. This change was the focus of Ms Dobson’s talk.

UK courts are bound by UK rulings, not Strasbourg decisions, says Admin Court – Leanne Woods

19 June 2015 by Guest Contributor

R (Victor Nealon) v Secretary of State for Justice : R (Sam Hallam) v Secretary of State for Justice [2015] EWHC 1565 (Admin), 8 June 2015 –  read judgment 

As Michael Gove contemplates the future of the Human Rights Act 1998, the High Court has considered how far the presumption of innocence in Article 6(2) ECHR spreads into decisions on payment of compensation for a miscarriage of justice. In doing so, Burnett LJ also managed to find some less than complimentary sentiments about the Strasbourg court’s decision-making.

Sam Hallam was convicted of murder in 2011. Victor Nealon was convicted of rape in 1997. Both successfully appealed against their convictions and then applied to the Secretary of State (‘SoS’) for compensation under s133 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 (the ‘1988 Act’’), as amended by the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 (the ‘2014 Act’). Both men were refused compensation on the basis that their circumstances did not meet the s133 statutory test (as amended).
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One more day to nominate the human rights cases absolutely everyone should know about

26 February 2015 by Adam Wagner

Nominations close tomorrow (Friday) at 5pm for the human rights cases which absolutely everyone should know about.

Full guidelines below – please feel free to nominate as many as 50 or as few as 1 case. The more people who contribute, the better the final list will be. I have already had some brilliant entries.

Here are the criteria: 
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The Big Fat Gypsy Judicial Review

26 February 2015 by Jim Duffy

Traveller Movement v Ofcom and Channel 4, [2015] EWHC 406 (Admin), 20 February 2015 – read judgment

One of the nation’s great televisual fascinations last week became the unlikely subject of an Administrative Court judgment that demonstrates the limits of common law standards of fairness, as well as the lightness of touch applied by the courts when reviewing the decision-making of the media regulator.

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New balance of probabilities test for suicide verdict – Owain Thomas QC

28 July 2018 by Guest Contributor

R (Maughan) v HM Senior Coroner Oxfordshire and others  26 July 2018

The received wisdom, supported by all leading texts on coroner’s law is that in order for a Coroner or jury to return a verdict of suicide in an inquest, the fact that the deceased deliberately took his own life must be established beyond a reasonable doubt, or in other words, to the criminal standard of proof.

Jervis states:

At least since 1984 it has been consistently held in England that the standard of proof in suicide cases should be the same as in criminal prosecutions… although there is no crime involved and an inquest is not a criminal trial. The comparative difficulty in obtaining a conclusion of suicide may well mean that official statistics significantly underestimate the occurrence of suicide.

The Form 2 prescribed by the Rules for the purposes of recording the conclusion of the inquest itself specifies that the criminal standard of proof applies for unlawful killing and suicide conclusions. The Guidance issued by the Chief Coroner (at paragraph 56) says the same thing.

Maughan

In an important judgment of the Divisional Court in R (Maughan) v HM Senior Coroner Oxfordshire and others [2018] EWHC 1955 (Admin) that position has now changed. The Court, Leggatt LJ and Nicol J, has found that the standard of proof is the civil standard of proof, i.e. the balance of probabilities. There case may go as the Court gave permission to appeal.

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Watery rights and wrongs – and causation too

10 February 2016 by David Hart KC

R (o.t.a Seiont, Gwyfrai and Llyfni Anglers Society) v. Natural Resources Wales [2015] EWHC 3578, Hickinbottom J, 17 December 2015, read judgment and

Chetwynd v. Tunmore [2016] EWHC 156 (QB), HHJ Reddihough, sitting as a judge of the High Court, 4 February 2016, read judgment

This is a wintry double-bill on two recently decided cases about water quality, quantity, fish – and causation.

In the first, Seiont, Snowdonian anglers complained that the Welsh water regulator (Natural Resources Wales or NRW)  had misunderstood what was required by the Environmental Liability Directive in respect of Llyn Padarn, a freshwater lake the home of the Arctic charr, Salvelinus alpinus.  So they sought judicial review of NRW’s decision.

The main legal question was – did environmental damage within the Directive include slowing down recovery from previous damage, as the anglers argued, or was it confined to deterioration from an existing state (as the regulator had decided)?

Hickinbottom J held the latter, and the claim was dismissed.

In the second case, the claimant owners of fishing lakes in Norfolk said that their neighbours, in constructing rival lakes (without planning permission) had caused water levels to fall, and hence loss of fish and consequent income. Had that been established, the claimants would have had a claim for breach of statutory duty under section 48A Water Resources Act 1991. Such a claim, the judge held, would have been a strict liability one, in which foreseeability of damage played no part.

But the claimants lost on the facts, not before the judge had given an interesting analysis of the law of causation in this field.

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Human rights reform… Labour reveals its hand

5 June 2014 by Adam Wagner

A Climate of change? Taking stock of the Urgenda case with a Supreme Court ruling on the horizon

8 October 2019 by Guest Contributor

Where one looks across the piste of emergent significant climate litigation – that is, important cases in courts around the world that deal significantly with issues related to climate change – the case of State of Netherlands v. Urgenda (hereafter ‘Urgenda’) looms as large as most, if not any, court ruling to date.

This case, brought by the eponymous Dutch NGO Urgenda, has been rightly held up by many lawyers, commentators and environmental activists concerned to protect our planet from the harmful impacts of anthropogenic climate change as an important testament to the capacity for human rights law to assist in grappling meaningfully with hard problems posed by climate change in the courts. 

Here, The Hague Court of Appeal ruled in October 2018 that the State was required to adjust the Netherlands’ national greenhouse gas emissions reduction target for 2020 upward from 20% to 25% (measured on 1990 emissions levels). This example of national courts ordering a state to adopt a more stringent climate mitigation target is unprecedented at the present time.

In addition to being of particular interest to human rights lawyers and legal analysts, including in these pages where key elements of the ruling have been summarised and discussed by David Hart QC, the broader ripple-effects of the case have become a motivating force in the wider context of climate activism, including in relation to some of the climate protests that have been springing up lately around the world.

Father should be allowed to apply for parental responsibility following surrogacy

25 May 2016 by Rosalind English

Z (A Child) (No 2) [2016] EWHC 1191 (Fam) 20 May 2016 – read judgment.

The Court of Protection has granted an order for a declaration of incompatibility with Convention rights of a section in the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act on grounds of discrimination.

This case concerned a child, Z, who was born in August 2014 in the State of Minnesota in the United States of America. Z was conceived with the applicant father’s sperm and a third party donor’s egg implanted in an experienced unmarried American surrogate mother. The surrogacy arrangements were made through the agency of an Illinois company and in accordance with Illinois law.

Following Z’s birth, the father obtained a declaratory judgment from the appropriate court in Minnesota, relieving the surrogate mother of any legal rights or responsibilities for Z and establishing the father’s sole parentage of Z. Following that court order he was registered as Z’s father in Minnesota. The father has since returned to this country, bringing Z with him.

The legal effect of this is that the surrogate mother, although she no longer has any legal rights in relation to Z under Minnesota law, is treated in the UK as being his mother. By the same token, whatever his legal rights in Minnesota, the father has no parental responsibility for Z in this country. The only two ways in which the court could secure the permanent transfer of parental responsibility from the surrogate mother to the father is by way of a parental order or an adoption order. The father would obviously far prefer a parental order.
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Western Sahara goes to Europe

23 October 2015 by David Hart KC

R (o.t.a. Western Sahara Campaign UK) v. HMRC and DEFRA [2015] EWHC 2898 (Admin) Blake J, 19 October 2015 read judgment

Not primarily about migration, but a case arising out of the long-running conflict between Morocco, as occupying power, and the Western Sahara as occupied territory. For many years, the UN has recognised the Western Sahara as a non-self-governing territory which is entitled to exercise its right of self-determination. Morocco does not agree, and has done what occupying powers do, namely send in Moroccan nationals to flood the existing populations, add troops, and commit human rights abuses, according to evidence filed in the case. 

You may be wondering how this North-West African problem got to London’s Administrative Court. This is because the challenge is to two EU measures concerning Morocco. The first is a preferential tariff (administered by HMRC) applicable to imports from Morocco of goods originating from the Western Sahara. The second concerns the intended application of an EU-Morocco fisheries agreement about fishing in the territorial waters of Western Sahara.

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Justice Human Rights Conference, 12 October 2015

31 July 2015 by Adam Wagner

Here at the UK Human Rights Blog, we love justice, and we also love JUSTICE. Let’s all go to their annual conference, 12 October 2015. All details here and below.

One of the highlights of the human rights lawyer’s calendar, the JUSTICE Annual Human Rights Conference offers a key opportunity to update your legal knowledge and gain valuable insight into the human rights issues of the year.

The Rt. Hon. Sir Brian Leveson and Natalie Lieven QC will be joining us as our keynote speakers and the programme for this year’s event will focus on the challenges facing practitioners and the wider public policy debate on human rights law in the UK.

Morning Breakout Sessions:
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What price liberty? Damages, DOLS and a cat named Fluffy

29 January 2015 by Richard Mumford

On 7 January 2015 District Judge Mort of the Court of Protection approved a £60,000 settlement agreement reached between Essex County Council and Mr P ([2015] EWCOP 1). For a discussion of the case generally see Rosalind English’s post here.

With a significant backlog of care home cases in the Court of Protection, P’s case runs the risk of becoming something of a precedent on the question of damages for unlawful detention. However, as far as calculation of damages goes, it is light on analysis of principle. This post seeks to explore whether the considerable case law that has developed on damages for false imprisonment in other situations may help illuminate what this type of case is worth.
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Demolitions in the West Bank highlight a deep inequality — Josh Newmark

8 March 2018 by Guest Contributor

Josh Newmark is a History and Politics graduate from Durham University and an incoming History MSc at the University of Edinburgh, currently teaching in Salamanca. He is part of the youth-led #DontSettleForThis campaign with Yachad, the pro-Israel, pro-peace movement in the UK.

The security of a roof over one’s head, a space for personal and familial privacy… Having “a place to call home” is widely recognised as an essential prerequisite for human wellbeing. This is acknowledged across the political spectrum – from the phrase “property-owning democracy” shared by both Thatcherites and American liberal philosopher John Rawls, to left-wing movements for affordable housing. In Judaism, too, the value of having a home is recognised. A key aspect of Judaism’s story is learning from the experience of being a people in exile, yearning for a home – “love the stranger, for we were once strangers in Egypt” is a frequent refrain in the Torah. Moreover, the Jewish household is of central importance to Jewish life – with its important physical features, like the mezuzah (boxed prayer scroll attached to each door frame), and key practical functions, such as hosting the traditional Friday night family meal to welcome the Sabbath. Undoubtedly, this is one of the motivating factors for young British Jews’ repugnance towards the Israeli’s government continuing policy of demolishing Palestinian homes.

Yachad is a British Jewish NGO which promotes support for a political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict within the Jewish community through education, debate, and advocacy. Under the hashtag #DontSettleForThis, young Yachad activists are raising awareness within the Jewish community of the demolitions of Palestinian homes, and pushing the UK government to help prevent these demolitions.

According to Israeli humans rights NGO B’Tselem, Israel has demolished at least 1,323 Palestinian residential units in the occupied West Bank, plus over 600 just in East Jerusalem, since 2006. This policy has taken homes from over 8,000 people in that time period, more than 50% of them minors. These figures exclude the demolitions which Israel controversially carries out upon the family homes of convicted or deceased terrorists. Rather, these are homes which are being demolished because they have been built without permits. While demolishing such structures might seem to be the right, even obligation, of a governing authority, only a little detail is necessary to make clear that this policy is an inflammatory and unjust policy which compounds the wider injustice of the occupation itself. The dual policy of allowing and stoking a Palestinian housing shortage whilst allocating land for well-planned, well-connected illegal Israeli settlements, often with illegal (even under Israeli law) structures tolerated on them, highlights the deep inequality inherent in the occupation.

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