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UK Human Rights Blog - 1 Crown Office Row
Search Results for: puberty blockers consent/page/33/Freedom of information - right of access) [2015] UKUT 159 (AAC) (30 March 2015)
The Guardian claims to have access to key findings of the long awaited inquiry into the Bloody Sunday killings of 30 January 1972, and some of the soldiers implicated may now face prosecution almost 40 years after the event.
The Inquiry was set up to investigate the events surrounding a march in the Bogside area of Derry in 1972 when 29 protesters were shot by British soldiers, leading to 13 deaths.
Lord Saville’s report, which marks the conclusion of the longest and most expensive public inquiry in British history, “will conclude that a number of the fatal shootings of civilians by British soldiers were unlawful killings“. However, the Guardian has not revealed where its information originates from, or how the shootings were “unlawful”, which could mean a number of different things.
The report is to be published on Tuesday 15 June at 3pm. The Inquiry’s website, which also has transcripts of the hearings, can be found here.
The Government has lost its appeal (see the BBC report) against the Divisional Court’s decision to order it to release an unredacted version of an email relating to the “cruel, inhuman and degrading” treatment which Binyam Mohamed received during questioning by the Americans. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) had previously argued that to release the full email would damage national security. The full email can now be read on the FCO website.
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) is to cut £2bn from its £9bn or so budget. But where will this 20% cut come from?
Kenneth Clarke’s MoJ are said to have got in early in agreeing spending reduction targets with the Treasury, and yesterday it was reported by the Public and Commercial Services Union that senior staff were informed by email that the cuts will amount to around £2bn of the overall budget. The Union suspect that around 15,000 of the MoJ’s 80,000 staff may have to be axed.
However the MoJ makes the cuts, a reduction of around 20% is likely to have severe effects on access to and provision of justice in the United Kingdom. Various MoJ-funded bodies have already been lining up to explain why their departments could not survive on much less. The criminal legal aid system has long been said to be in crisis, the President of the Family Division indicated last week that the child protection system is in grave danger of imploding, and the Chief Executive of the Supreme Court has said the cuts could cripple the new court.
RightsInfo needs your help on a new campaign to show how protecting human rights is the best way to prevent bigotry, hatred and the rise of the far right.
We’ve all been shocked at the scenes of extremists on the march again. We need your help to fight back against these poisonous ideologies by producing a film for the International Day of Tolerance (16 November 2017), highlighting the discrimination and dehumanisation common to all genocides, and a series of other videos and features.
The crowdfunder launched this morning and we have already reached our first target of £4,000. Now we are working towards the stretch target of £9,000. Can you help?
It’ll all be over by Christmas: that’s what the coalition promised when it established the Commission on a Bill of Rights to, among other things:
… investigate the creation of a UK Bill of Rights that incorporates and builds on all our obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights, ensures that these rights continue to be enshrined in UK law, and protects and extends our liberties.
With less than four months to go, it seems a good time to reflect upon its work. My premise is that the process by which a bill of rights is created is as important as the outcome if the bill is to enjoy longevity and democratic legitimacy, in the sense of having been subject to inclusive and informed public deliberation. This lesson has been learned in contexts from Northern Ireland to Australia, where energetic consultation processes were designed using community organising techniques, televised hearings, the internet, social networking and other creative forms of public engagement. These are explored in research I conducted for the Equality and Human Rights Commission ahead of the 2010 general election.
Moylett v Geldoff and Another (unreported) Chancery Division (Carr J) 14 March 2018
Music nerds may remember with fondness the great copyright wrangle involving Procul Harum and Bach. The focus of that dispute was the organ line in the 1967 hit Whiter Shade of Pale, and Blackburne J’s judgment is imperative reading for anyone interested in the law’s dominion over music, ideas or intellectual property in general. Go to the end of this post for a reminder of that entertaining litigation and its outcome.
Less esoteric but potentially as interesting is this application brought before Carr J in the Chancery Division by the “well known music band”, the Boomtown Rats. Continue reading →
Babar Ahmad, Haroon Rashid Aswat, Syed Tahla Ahsan and Mustafa Kamal Mustafa (Abu Hamza) v United Kingdom – 24027/07 [2010] ECHR 1067 (6 July 2010) – Read judgment
The European Court of Human Rights has delayed the extradition of four men, including the notorious Mustafa Kamal Mustafa (Abu Hamza), from the United Kingdom to the United States due to concerns that long prison sentences and harsh conditions in a “supermax” prison could violate their human rights.
In this admissibility application, the four men mounted a wide-ranging attack on the US Justice system to the Strasbourg court, in terms usually reserved for lawless rogue states. The men claimed their extradition would put them at risk of harsh treatment, extraordinary rendition and the death penalty, amongst other draconian penalties. They said that the trial of non-US citizens on terrorism charges would lead to a “flagrant denial of justice”.
Updated | The Protection of Freedoms Bill received its second reading in Parliament yesterday, followed by debate.
The bill will have significant implications for civil liberties, although some of the changes, such as those relating to the retention of DNA, the reduction of child protection police checks, and police stop and search, have arisen from court rulings rather than a proactive attempt to roll back the state.
The Parliamentary debate can be watched here (it begins at around 17:38 with a statement by Home Secretary Teresa May) and the transcript is here. To whet your appetites, this is part of May’s opening speech:
Today we have a rare opportunity. The Bill gives us a chance to roll back the creeping intrusion of the state into our everyday lives, and to return individual freedoms to the heart of our legislation. Under the last Government, we saw a steady erosion of traditional British liberties and a slow march towards authoritarian government. They presented us with a false choice between our future security and our historic liberties, disregarding any notion of balance between the two.
Two jury trials will resume at the Old Bailey this week in the first steps toward Crown court cases restarting around the country. It has been almost two months since jury trials were suspended on 23 March amid coronavirus lockdown measures.
In his announcement, the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Burnett of Maldon, began by affirming that “the practice of trial by jury sits at the heart of our criminal justice system.” In contrast, the Lord Chancellor, Robert Buckland QC, began his statement with a more equivocal comment about a well-functioning justice system being the hallmark of a healthy democracy.
CF v Security Service and others and Mohamed v Foreign and Commonwealth Office and others [[2013] EWHC 3402 (QB) – read judgment
The High Court has today made the first court ruling on the use of the Justice and Security Act 2013 in a civil claim for damages.
In a ruling on preliminary issues, Irwin J made a declaration that the government can make a closed material application to the court in this case. The Court also ruled on PII. The following summary is based on the Court’s press release.
Factual background
CF and Mohammed Ahmed Mohamed are both British citizens of Somali descent. CF left the United Kingdom in 2009, Mohammed Ahmed Mohamed having left in 2007. They were both detained by the Somaliland Authorities on 14 January 2011. They were then detained until removal to the UK on 14 March 2011. Each claims that they were unlawfully detained, tortured and mistreated during the period of detention in Somaliland. Continue reading →
The Director of Public Prosecutions has told the Society of Editors that more court hearings should be televised. The Ministry of Justice have responded by saying that they are considering changes but would want to consult the senior judiciary before making any “firm proposals”.
Starmer is right to say that “shining a light on the workings of the court room can only serve to boost its efficiency and effectiveness”. But before spending time and money opening up more courts to cameras, footage from the supreme court, which is already filmed at great expense, should be made more widely available.
Welcome back to the UK Human Rights Roundup, your regular glass menagerie of human rights news and views. The full list of links can be found here. You can find previous roundups here. Links compiled by Adam Wagner, post by Celia Rooney [note from Adam Wagner – a warm welcome to Celia Rooney, our new rounder upper]
This week, Chris Grayling and the Court of Justice go head to head over the domestic status of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, while the ghost of Winston Churchill comes back to haunt the ‘United States of Europe’ debate. Meanwhile, Theresa May’s plans to deprive terrorist suspects of their British citizenship are under fire, while calls for press accountability are repeated.
SC (Lord Walker, Lady Hale, Lord Brown, Lord Mance, Lord Kerr) March 3 2010
The facts of this case are set out in the report of the Court of Appeal judgment below. In the Supreme Court the stepfather continued his submission that there should be no presumption against a child giving evidence, as that gave insufficient weight to the rights of all concerned under the European Convention on Human Rights 1950.
The High Court in Belfast struck down sections 12 to 16 of the Justice (Sexual Offences and Trafficking Victims) Act (Northern Ireland) 2022 on Friday. The law granted automatic anonymity to people who are suspected of sexual offences where an allegation has been made to the police or the police have taken any step to investigate the offence, prohibiting reporting which might lead to the identification of such an individual. The prohibition only applied pre-charge, but continued for the duration of the suspect’s life and 25 years thereafter. The court found that the law was incompatible with Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights and did not strike a fair balance in public interest journalism cases, observing that “[p]ublic interest journalism serves a vital role in any democratic society”.
In other UK news, three prisoners were taken to hospital on Friday after disorder at HMP Parc, a prison in Bridgend, Wales, which is run by the private security firm G4S. 10 prisoners have died at the prison in the last 3 months. Families of those who have died at the prison had held a demonstration outside the prison earlier the same week. Deborah Coles, the director of INQUEST, said that “[t]he level of death and disorder at prisons like this one shows a complete failure of accountability on the part of government and a loss of control by ministers”.
In international news
An investigation by the Guardian and the Israeli-based magazines +972 and Local Call has alleged that Israel has deployed its intelligence agencies to surveil, pressure, and allegedly threaten senior ICC staff over the last decade. Israeli intelligence allegedly captured the communications of ICC officials, intercepting phone calls, messages, emails and documents. Yossi Cohen, the former head of Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, allegedly threatened Fatou Bensouda, a former ICC prosecutor, in an attempt to pressure her to abandon a war crimes investigation relating to Israel’s activities in the occupied Palestinian territories. The Guardianreported that Cohen’s activities were “authorised at a high level and justified on the basis that the court posed a threat of prosecutions against military personnel”. Cohen is alleged to have told Bensouda “[y]ou don’t want to be getting into things that could compromise your security or that of your family”. A spokesperson for Israel’s prime minister’s office said in response to the investigation: “The questions forwarded to us are replete with many false and unfounded allegations meant to hurt the state of Israel.”
On Wednesday the European Commission announced that it considers that there is no longer a clear risk of a serious breach of the rule of law in Poland, and that it would therefore close the Article 7 procedure against Poland which had been triggered in 2017. Article 7 of the Treaty of the European Union allows the EU to suspend certain rights from a member state. The Commission stated that Poland has introduced legislative and non-legislative measures to address concerns regarding the independence of the judiciary, and that it will continue to monitor the implementation of those measures. Human Rights Watch criticised the move as premature.
In the courts
On Thursday the High Court of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region delivered its verdict for 16 of the 47 activists and former politicians known as the ‘NSL 47’. The 47 were charged with conspiracy to subvert state power under the new National Security Law, which was passed in March this year. 14 were convicted, with two being acquitted and the remaining 31 pleading guilty. The charges arose from the activists’ participation in an unofficial primary election in July 2020 to pick opposition candidates for the 2020 legislative elections, which were then postponed. The UK said the case showed how authorities have used the controversial National Security Law to “stifle opposition and criminalise political dissent”. A spokesperson for Beijing’s Office for Safeguarding National Security defended the prosecution, saying the OSNS supported the Hong Kong judiciary’s decision to “punish acts and activities endangering national security according to the law, with no tolerance for any interference by external forces in the rule of law in Hong Kong.”
Iorworth HOARE v the United Kingdom – 16261/08 [2011] ECHR 722 (12 April 2011) – Read decision
Potential future US president Donald Trump once said that “Everything in life is luck“. Sometimes a case arises from such an unlikely factual scenario that it raises questions about the relationship between justice, fairness and luck. This is such a case.
Iorworth Hoare was convicted 1989 for attempted rape. He was a serial sex offender, so was sentenced to life imprisonment. As life in prison does not usually mean actual life in prison, he was released on 31 March 2005. In what could be considered a not quite minor reversal of Hoare’s deservedly poor fortune up to that point, in 2004, while on day release, he bought a National Lottery ticket, and won £7m. Home Office rules allowed prisoners in open conditions to play the lottery.
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The Guardian claims to have access to key findings of the long awaited inquiry into the Bloody Sunday killings of 30 January 1972, and some of the soldiers implicated may now face prosecution almost 40 years after the event.
It’ll all be over by Christmas: that’s what the coalition promised when it established the 
The Director of Public Prosecutions 
Iorworth HOARE v the United Kingdom – 16261/08 [2011] ECHR 722 (12 April 2011) – 
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