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3 May 2021 by Byul Ryan-Im
In the news:
People aged 42 and over are now able to book their Covid-19 vaccines, joining the more than 33.8 million people in the UK who have received their first dose. The news comes as the Joint Committee on Human Rights called for a review of all fixed penalty notices (FPNs) for lockdown breaches and called the system “muddled, discriminatory and unfair”. The committee chair, Harriet Harman MP, said the “lack of legal clarity” meant an unfair system which “disproportionately hits the less well-off and criminalises the poor over the better off”. The report highlighted concerns about FPN validity, an inadequate review and appeals process, the size of penalties and the criminalisation of those unable to pay. A CPS review found that 27% of coronavirus-related prosecutions that reached open court in February were incorrectly charged. The lack of an adequate means to seek review of an FPN, other than through criminal prosecution, significantly increases the risk that human rights breaches will not be remedied, according to the committee. The importance of ECHR Articles 7 and 8 (no punishment without law and right to family and private life, respectively) was highlighted in particular.
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20 January 2013 by Sam Murrant
Welcome back to the UK Human Rights Roundup, your recommended weekly dose 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.
A bumper crop of human rights news this week, owing largely to the conclusion of the Eweida case which has been widely discussed in news outlets and legal blogs alike. There have been other significant cases decided this week also: the undercover police case (AKJ and others) and the Rocknroll case, a high-profile celebrity privacy case. In other news this week, public insults are to be legalised, but offensive columnists are censored.
Human Rights Lawyers Association Judicial Review competition
Calling all students! Interested in a career in Judicial Review and human rights? The HRLA is accepting applications for its inaugural Judicial Review competition, deadline 4 February – all details here.
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4 February 2019 by Rosalind English
Following our popular interview with James Badenoch QC on the “doctor knows best” rule of evidence in medical negligence cases, we bring you John Whitting QC, healthcare law specialist at 1 Crown Office Row (@JohnWhittingQC). In Episode 64 of Law Pod UK, John talks to Rosalind English about the realities of clinical encounters and considers to what extent patients are willing, or in some circumstances even able – to take on board multiple options for their treatment.
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7 March 2011 by Guest Contributor
There probably aren’t many people who want to know what ‘goes on’ in the Court of Protection more than me; it’s what I spend much of my time trying to fathom. An outsider would be forgiven for thinking that this branch of Her Majesty’s Court Service doesn’t feel that case law in this tangled and difficult area is anybody’s business but it’s own.
The reasons for this appearance are complex though, and not necessarily the fault of any individuals working within the courts. I think it’s important to draw a distinction between different ways that greater ‘transparency’ could be achieved; some might be more helpful than others.
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22 October 2020 by Emma-Louise Fenelon
In Episode 128 Emma-Louise Fenelon talks to Marina Wheeler QC about the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review, better known as the Cumberlege Review, which investigated the response of England’s healthcare system to patients’ reports of harm from drugs and medical devices.
Since the report was published in July (available here), the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has indicated it will be taking a number of steps in response to the review (more information here). In recent weeks a number of questions were tabled asking what the government plans to do next in response.
The episode includes a discussion about consent, and reference to Montgomery v Lanarkshire Health Board [2015] UKSC 11
Find an article written by Marina Wheeler QC and Amelia Walker on the Cumberlege Review on page 5 of Issue 6 of the 1COR Quarterly Medical Law Review (QMLR).
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19 March 2021 by Marina Wheeler QC
Many of the newly vaccinated booked their appointments with gusto and left with a sense of elation. For others the process wasn’t so simple. We see a snapshot of this in a handful of reported cases from the Court of Protection:
Re E [2021] EWCOP 7; SD v RBKC [2021] EWCOP 14; and Re CR [2021] EWCOP 19
In these cases, examined below, the relatives of three care home residents lacking medical capacity, objected to their receiving the vaccine against Covid-19. The CoP applied the requirements of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and ruled, in each case, that the resident patient’s best interests favoured vaccination.
Mrs E was 80, suffered from dementia and schizophrenia. Her GP approached the subject of the vaccine, but found her unable to understand the nature of the virus, the risks it posed, or the factors weighing for and against vaccination. He considered she lacked capacity but that vaccination was in her best interests. Her accredited legal representative agreed, but her son did not, so the Court was called on to rule.
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11 February 2019 by Conor Monighan
Conor Monighan brings us the latest updates in human rights law
Credit: the Guardian
In the News:
The Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) has concluded that indefinite detention in immigrations centres must cease. The Committee published a critical report into the issue, which found indefinite detention has a highly detrimental impact upon detainees’ mental health.
The Committee argued that individuals should be held for no more than 28 days. It said this would provide an incentive to the Home Office to speed up case management, thereby reducing costs. Harriet Harman MP, the JCHR’s Chairwoman, noted in an article that the Home Office has paid £20 million over five years to compensate for wrongful detentions.
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26 March 2018 by Conor Monighan
Conor Monighan brings us the latest updates in human rights law
Credit: The Guardian
In the News:
The consultancy company Cambridge Analytica has come under fierce criticism for its treatment of Facebook users’ data. A whistle-blower, Christopher Wylie, alleged that Cambridge Analytica had gathered large amounts of data through a personality quiz, posted in Facebook, called ‘This is Your Digital Life’. Users were told the quiz was collecting data for research.
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27 September 2010 by Adam Wagner
A, R (on the application of) v B [2010] EWHC 2361 (Admin) (21 July 2010) – Read judgment
When should the police disclose a person’s private sexual practices to his employer? The high court has just ruled that a detective inspector breached a man’s human right to privacy by telling his employer that he had been taking pictures of short-skirted women in the street without their knowledge.
The case of ‘A’ raises important questions of the extent of the police’s duty to keep the peace and prevent crimes before they happen. This duty can come into conflict with the human right to respect of private and family life , which can be breached by the state in order to keep the public safe.
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18 January 2022 by crashwigley
The pandemic has had a knock-on effect of increasing awareness of devolution. The governments of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales have been responsible for navigating the pandemic in their own countries, and the approaches taken have sometimes significantly diverged. With the COVID Regulations affecting the essentials of our daily lives, public attention across the UK has been drawn to the powers of devolved governments to govern differently from Westminster.
One surprising difference between the Welsh and UK Governments – and one that has evaded much public scrutiny – is that the Welsh Regulations created a new power of entry which allows police officers to enter people’s homes in certain circumstances to investigate breaches of the COVID Regulations. No such power has ever been included in the English Regulations, and the power of English police officers to enter people’s homes is more restricted, governed by the provisions of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (‘PACE’) and the common law rules for dealing with breaches of the peace.
The practical issues around the Welsh police power of entry to people’s homes have fallen into the background in recent months, because it mainly arises when there is or has been a suspected unlawful gathering in someone’s home. (Although on 26 December 2021, a new restriction was introduced banning gatherings of more than 30 in homes.) With restrictions hopefully easing again, reflecting on this regulation raises broader questions about human rights and legal scrutiny in Wales.
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29 January 2021 by Samuel March
Thacker & Ors v R. [2021] EWCA Crim 97 (29 January 2021), judgment here
The Court of Appeal held today that a group of activists who broke into Stansted Airport in an act of protest should “not have been prosecuted” for an “extremely serious” terror-related offence under s.1(2)(b) of the Aviation and Maritime Security Act 1990 (“AMSA”).
BACKGROUND
The defendants/appellants in this case were a group of activists who have become known as the “Stansted 15”.
On 27 March 2017, the appellants surrounded a Boeing 767 at Stansted Airport which had been chartered by the Home Office for the purpose of deporting 60 individuals to Ghana, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone.
Equipped with makeshift tripods made from scaffolding pipes and some builder’s foam, the appellants cut through the perimeter fence of the airport and used the tripods a to lock themselves together, surrounding a plane and using the foam to secure the locking mechanisms. By ‘locking on’ to each other, the group prevented the use of the plane.
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23 May 2022 by Tabitha Hutchison
In the news:
- On 16 May, the Home Secretary announced in a letter to police forces that she is permanently lifting restrictions on the use of stop-and-search powers under Section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act, which give police officers the right to search people without reasonable grounds in an area when they expect serious violence, and to look for weapons before they can be used, or those used in a recent attack. The new changes will lengthen the periods for which the powers can be in force and by which they can be extended, and a lower rank of officer will be able to authorise their deployment. In addition, the officer will now only need to anticipate that serious violence “may” occur, not that it “will” occur. Concerns have consistently been raised around the powers on the basis that they disproportionately affect black and minority ethnic communities. For instance, in the year to March 2021, black people were seven times and Asian people two-and-a-half times more likely to be stopped and searched than white people.
- In the first Ukraine war crimes trial since the invasion by Russia, a Russian tank commander has pleaded guilty to shooting dead a 62-year-old civilian. Even in light of the guilty plea, for the suspect to be convicted and sentenced, the three judges hearing the case will have to reach a unanimous verdict. The suspect faces life in jail.
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6 April 2013 by Rosalind English
The Queen (on the application of Newhaven Port and Properties Limited (Respondent)) v East Sussex County Council (Appellant) and Newhaven Town Council (Interested Party) [2013] EWCA Civ 276 – read judgment
This is a tale of common law rights, open water swimming, and individual freedoms. It is about the flip side of codified human rights: the time-honoured principle, that that which is not specifically prohibited, is – or should be – permitted in English law.
Our current preoccupation with certain sorts of intolerance must not allow us to lose sight of another threat to our individual freedoms: the encroaching requirement that our use of wild spaces is subject to the permission of the public authority who happens to be vested with certain statutory power over the land in question. This ruling confirms, if it needed confirming, that “toleration” does not mean the same as “permission”. If we allow the one to collapse into the other, the inference will become widespread that use of such land is permissive by virtue of an implied licence, a licence which can be easily withdrawn at any time.
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25 June 2014 by Rosalind English
R (on the application of Nicklinson and another) (Appellants) v Ministry of Justice (Respondent); R (on the application of AM) (AP) (Respondent) v The Director of Public Prosecutions (Appellant) [2014] UKSC 38 – read judgment
On appeal from [2013] EWCA Civ 961
The Supreme Court has declined to uphold a right to die a dignified death. However, a glimmer is is to be found in this judgment in that two out of the seven justices who concluded that it was for the United Kingdom to decide whether the current law on assisted suicide was incompatible with the right to privacy and dignity under Article 8, would have granted such a declaration in these proceedings., particularly where the means of death was one that could have been autonomously operated by the disabled appellant, leaving no doubt as to the voluntary and rational nature of his decision.
But the majority concluded that this was a matter for Parliament, not for the Courts.
The following summary is from the Supreme Court’s Press Summary
Bacground
These appeals arise from tragic facts and raise difficult and significant issues, namely whether the present state of the law of England and Wales relating to assisting suicide infringes the European Convention on Human Rights (“the Convention”), and whether the code published by the Director of Public Prosecutions (“the DPP”) relating to prosecutions of those who are alleged to have assisted suicide is lawful.
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10 November 2010 by Rosalind English
Robert Elwyn Watkins v Philip James Woolas [2010] EWHC 2702 (QB) 5 November 2010- read judgment
Update – read our 3 December 2010 post on his defeat in the administrative court
The Election Court has ruled that the Labour MP for Oldham knowingly and deliberately misled the constituency and as a result his election is void under Section 106 of the Representation of the People Act (1983). Permission for judicial review of the decision has been refused.
The provision of the 1983 Act makes it an offence for anyone to publish “any false statement of fact in relation to the candidate’s personal character or conduct” to prevent them being elected “unless he can show that he had reasonable grounds for believing, and did believe, that statement to be true”.
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