Search Results for: puberty blockers consent/page/35/Freedom of information - right of access) [2015] UKUT 159 (AAC) (30 March 2015)

Strasbourg Court opens door to complaints by refugees displaced during conflict – Aarif Abraham

22 June 2015 by Guest Contributor

Chiragov and Others v. Armenia (App No 13216/05) – read judgment

In two important decisions, the Grand Chamber of the Strasbourg Court has held that the forced displacement of peoples from the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh during the armed conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia constituted a violation of Article 1 of Protocol 1 (right to the peaceful enjoyment of property) and Article 8 (right to a private and family life) of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The case of Chiragov which concerned the forced displacement of Azerbaijani nationals was decided in parallel with the Grand Chamber judgment in Sargsyan v Azerbaijan (found here). Sargsyan was delivered on the same day and reached the same conclusions in respect of Armenian nationals forced to flee from Azerbaijani territory.
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Is the UK shackled by its deportation rules?

7 April 2012 by Rosalind English

R (on the application of Amada Bizimana) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2012] EWCA Civ 414

In the wake of France’s apparently unencumbered expulsion of individuals on public interest grounds there has been a fresh outcry from the press about the shackles imposed by the Human Rights Convention on the UK authorities which other signatory states seem to ignore with impunity. The Times leader column, headed “Sarko’s way”, asks “Why is it that the French can deport their foreign undesirables but we in Britain cannot?” –

Bish, bosh, no problem, it seems. Although all three men, apparently have the right to appeal against their sudden lack of access to France, they will have to exercise it from afar. And at this point one can only wonder how on earth they can do it in France, but we cannot do it here in Britain…

The actions of the French Government raise the obvious question (as well as a gigantic eyebrow): how come they can do it, and we can’t? What does Nicolas Sarkozy have that David Cameron lacks? France accepts the judgments of the ECHR and is regarded as being as civilised, almost, as we are.

But in truth the Convention is not always to blame in these cases; sometimes deportation can run aground on a strict interpretation of English statute law without the help of human rights, as the case below demonstrates.
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Should atheists be explicitly protected in human rights instruments?

31 May 2012 by Rosalind English

Writing on the Richard Dawkins website, humanist campaigner Leo Igwe-Ieet declares that there is a gaping hole in the protections listed in international rights instruments.

I have heard it proclaimed at the UN that the rights of women are human rights. I have also heard it proclaimed that the rights of gay people are human rights. These proclamations changed the way human rights are perceived around the globe. Personally I have yet to hear it proclaimed at UN, or at our regional and national human rights bodies that the rights of atheists, agnostics and freethinkers are human rights. I do not want these rights to be implied or assumed as currently the case in most countries. I want them to be expressly declared as universal human rights.

The reason why such explicit protection is urgently needed, the writer claims, is because non-believers are particularly vulnerable in some parts of the world, notably Africa. In parts of Africa where fundamentalist belief holds sway, “religious non-believers are treated as if they are not human beings, as if they do not exist or do not have the right to exist.” The right to freedom of religion is of no avail to those who wish to eschew faith altogether. On the contrary,

freedom of religion is often understood as freedom to profess a religion-the religion sanctioned by the state, by one’s family or community- not freedom to change one’s religion or freedom not to profess any religion at all as contained in article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
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Peace campaigner evicted from Parliament Square using new law – Marina Wheeler

17 May 2012 by Guest Contributor

R (on the application of Maria Gallastegui) v Westminster City Council [2012] EWHC 1123 (Admin)  – Read judgment

On 27 April 2012, Maria Gallastegui, a peace campaigner and resident of the East pavement of Parliament Square since 2006, lost her legal battle to continue her 24 hour, tented vigil in protest against the folly of war and in particular the UK’s involvement in armed conflict.

The Court’s main task was to construe a new law enacted to bolster the legal armoury available to control long-term protests in the Square.  Section 143 of the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 – which came into force on 19 December 2011 – gives a local authority the power to stop “prescribed activities” such as using tents (and other structures) to sleep. They are also empowered to seize items used for these prescribed purposes ie the tents.

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Keeping PACE: Searson and Searson v CC of Nottinghamshire Constabulary

11 August 2025 by Guest Contributor

Searson and Another v Chief Constable of Nottingham Constabulary [2025] EWHC 1982 (KB)

By Kian Leong Tan

In Searson v Chief Constable of Nottingham Constabulary [2025] EWHC 1982 (KB), the Appellants successfully appealed against the dismissal of their claim for damages against the Respondent’s police force. The claim arose out of the circumstances of the Second Appellant’s unlawful detention contrary to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (“PACE”). Wall J’s judgment emphasises the need for strict compliance with the spirit of the procedural safeguard of regular reviews of detention in s 40 PACE, which serves to protect the fundamental right of freedom of movement.

The Patentability of Human Genes: more developments

20 March 2013 by Rosalind English

Cancer Voices Australia v Myriad Inc 13 February 2013 – read judgment

Another battle in the war against gene patenting has been lost, this time in Australia.

The US litigation is still ongoing, with the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upholding Myriad’s patents on DNA sequenced in the laboratory: see my post on that judgment. On 30 November 2012, the US Supreme Court announced that it would hear an appeal in the Myriad case. The US law in relation to the patentability is therefore not likely to be settled until the Supreme Court reaches it own decision on the issue.

This Federal Court ruling in Australia has now endorsed the government’s rejection of calls for an outright ban on the patenting of genes  by ruling that  isolated nucleic acid (including isolated DNA and RNA) is patentable.  
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Supreme Court rules that hospital receptionist owes a duty of care to a patient — Owain Thomas QC

11 October 2018 by Guest Contributor

The Supreme Court has unanimously allowed the appeal of Michael Darnley in Darnley v Croydon Health Services NHS Trust [2018] UKSC 50, holding that a hospital receptionist owed a duty of care to a patient at A&E, which was breached by providing him with incorrect information as to how long he was likely to have to wait before being seen or triaged.

The case raised questions as to the existence and scope of the duty of care owed by hospitals to patients who attend and are dealt with non-medical staff. The decision has potential implications for all those who are booked in to A&E even if no-one has professionally assessed their need for care.

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North Sea Oil Licenses, Torture in Ukraine, and Abortion Rights in the Court of Appeal

3 August 2023 by Orry Moore

In the news

Two thinktanks – Civil Exchange and the Sheila McKechnie Foundation – have issued a damning report on the state of freedom of expression and democratic discourse in the UK, condemning the “political attack” on democratic spaces by government ministers. The report, titled “Defending our Democratic Spaces”, laments the attempts by Conservative ministers to portray judges, lawyers, charities, campaigners and parts of the media as a “block to democracy rather than key components of it”. Other key issues highlighted in the report include the increasingly authoritarian anti-protest laws being passed, new ID restrictions on the right to vote, reduced access to judicial review, and the creation by ministers of an “intemperate environment” as part of ongoing culture wars. The result, it is feared, is a “chilling effect” on public campaigning and further polarisation of UK politics. The political attacks on freedom are not just affecting those on the left – we also recently saw the closure of Nigel Farage’s bank account with Coutts on the basis of his political beliefs and the subsequent resignation of Natwest’s CEO.

Hillsborough, a new president and mental health discrimination – The Human Rights Roundup

16 September 2012 by Wessen Jazrawi

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.

by Wessen Jazrawi

Adoptions from Abroad: Article 8 Fails to Assist

12 November 2015 by Gideon Barth

SM (Algeria) v Entry Clearance Officer, UK Visa Section [2015] EWCA Civ 1109

A child (SM) who was adopted in Algeria by a French couple living in the UK was refused an application for a right of entry as a family member. Having been overturned in the Upper Tribunal, the Entry Clearance Officer (ECO) successfully appealed to the Court of Appeal. SM was not, the court held, a family member of Mr M. A keen human rights observer might think this was an apparent infringement of article 8 ECHR (the right to family life).
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Richard III: fairness and public interest litigation

28 May 2014 by David Hart KC

The Plantagenet Alliance Ltd (R o.t.a) v. Secretary of State for Justice and others [2014] EWHC 1662 (QB) 23 May 2014 – read judgment

Some 527 years after his death, Richard III’s skeleton was found beneath a car park in Leicester. The Plantagenet Alliance, a campaigning organisation representing a group of collateral descendants, sought judicial review of the decision taken by the Secretary of State to exhume and re-inter the monarch in Leicester Cathedral without consulting them and a wide audience.

The case had become a bit of a stalking horse for Lord Chancellor Grayling’s plans to reform judicial review: see my post here. Grayling may have backed off for the moment from his specific plans to reform standing rules, though he still has it in for campaigning bodies participating in judicial reviews. As we will see, counsel for MoJ had a go at saying that the Alliance had no standing, but to no avail.

But MoJ had better points, and was successful overall. And this is the moral of the story. You cannot sensibly justify the bringing of entirely meritless judicial review. But it is wrong to seek to defeat a meritorious claim by relying on standing points, without considering the public interest of the underlying case. As I pointed out in my post, the irony of the cases chosen by MoJ last year to make its case that the standing rules were all very awful were ones where government had been behaving unlawfully.

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Reasons and evidence in Europe

22 March 2012 by David Hart KC

Cases T-439/10 and T-440/10, Fulmen & Mahmoudian v. Council of the European Union, read judgment

Fulmen, as many of you will know, means thunderbolt in Latin. So it must have seemed when this Iranian company had its assets frozen. This case is a good example of how general principles of European law were applied to annul measures taken against these Iranian applicants. The measures were part of EU policy to apply pressure on Iran to end nuclear proliferation. Fulmen was said to have supplied electrical equipment on the Qom/Fordoo nuclear site and Mr Mahmoudian is a director of Fulmen. Hence they were both listed in Council Decision 2010/413/CFSP. The upshot was that all of their assets were frozen by the EU.

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What have the Inuit got to do with keeping EU law in check?

20 June 2012 by David Hart KC

In a recent post I mentioned that there has been criticism of the scope of the EU Aarhus Regulation inserting provisions about transparency, public participation and access to justice into EU processes themselves. It struck me just how confusing the whole area of EU challenges to EU measures is, so I thought I would summarise it as best I can in this and a following post. Here goes; the going may get a bit bumpy, but it is important stuff. I hope also to give some EU context to the debate about whether something is or is not a legislative act under Aarhus which I trailed in that post.

The EU signed up to the Aarhus Convention on environmental matters, as have all the member states. And the EU has made member states implement Aarhus-compliant procedures in major areas such as environmental impact assessment and industrial emissions, via the 2003 Public Participation Directive. The EU also requires member states to introduce a wide-ranging right to environmental information, transposed in the UK via the Environmental Information Regulations. The European Court has also chipped in with its own Aarhus gloss in the Slovakian Bear case; whenever a member state is considering some provision of EU environmental law, it must interpret that provision, if possible, so that it complies with Aarhus standards of public participation, even though those standards may be in the parts of the Aarhus Convention which have not received their own direct transposition into EU, let alone domestic, law.

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No Article 10 breach by anti-corruption NGO

3 February 2012 by Guest Contributor

Růžový Panter, OS v. Czech Republic (App No 20240/08) – read judgment (only available in French)

The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section) decided yesterday that there was no violation of Article 10 as a result of a defamation judgment against a Czech anti-corruption NGO, “Pink Panther”. The case arose out of a press release concerning a widely publicised case concerning tax evasion in relation to light heating oils (called “LTO”). The press release asked a number of questions in relation to the case. the

Background

The press release published by the applicant was addressed to IL, the then Vice-President of the Chamber of Deputies, (later Interior Minister) and invited him to clarify his relationship with certain persons, including TP. The relevant part read as follows [6]:

About five years ago IL took part in an expedition to Kilimanjaro where he met, according to him by coincidence, VK who sold light heating oils and who had just been sentenced for preparing a murder. 
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Wikileaks and the arrest of Julian Assange

8 December 2010 by Adam Wagner

Updated | Wikileaks founder Julian Assange was arrested yesterday and refused bail after a hearing at Westminster Magistrates Court.

He was not arrested in relation to the whistle-blowing website Wikileaks, but rather on suspicion of having sexually assaulted two women in Sweden. His lawyers have said that “many believe” the arrest was politically motivated.

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