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UK Human Rights Blog - 1 Crown Office Row
Search Results for: puberty blockers consent/page/45/Freedom of information - right of access) [2015] UKUT 159 (AAC) (30 March 2015)
The Guardian reports that Prime Minister Cameron is considering denouncing the ECHR on a temporary basis in order to facilitate the deportation of Abu Qatada. As tennis legend John McEnroe might have put it ‘you cannot be serious!’ In order to remove one man from the jurisdiction the government is contemplating removing the protection of human rights for all. One suspects that this announcement by Downing Street was little more than ‘dog-whistle’ politics with the local elections looming next week. But what if the government is really serious? Two quick thoughts come to mind.
Firstly, the UK is on the face of it able to denounce the ECHR under the terms of Article 58, though see below. But even after a denunciation the ECHR will remain fully applicable for six months. Presumably the government would wait for the six months to expire. It would then seek within domestic law to remove Qatada. As this would also require the suspension or repeal of the Human Rights Act 1998 this would require an Act of Parliament. No doubt a political and constitutional storm would break as a result. This would of course not be the end of the matter because the decision would be judicially reviewable, no doubt under an enhanced form of anxious scrutiny. How further forth would the government be then?
This case is a sequel to C-128/09 Boxus, CJEU, 18 October 2011, for which see my post. Boxus was a reference from the Belgian Conseil d’Etat. Solvay was a reference from the Belgian Constitutional Court, with a wide set of questions asking, in effect, whether ratification by the Walloon Parliament of various airport and railway projects got round various challenges set by the Aarhus Convention, the EIADirective, as amended, and the Habitats Directive.
Commission v. UK, Opinion of Advocate-General Kokott, 12 September 2013 read opinion here
“It is well known that in United Kingdom court proceedings are not cheap” – a masterly understatement opening this opinion from our pictured AG to the CJEU about whether the UK system on legal costs complies with the obligation now in two EU Directives about environmental assessment and pollution control. The AG thinks that our way of doing costs is not up to scratch – with the origin of this obligation to be found in the UN-ECE Aarhus Convention to which the EU has subscribed (albeit abstemiously when the EU comes to its own affairs – funny that).
Bit of context – the EU has been warning the UK about costs for some years, with formal warnings going back to 2007 – and the Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee has been doing likewise from Geneva. But the EU courts are more scary – all the ACCC can do is wrap the odd knuckle. And on this topic, we have one individual case which has been to the CJEU (Edwards, where the UK does not look in good shape – see my post), and now this case saying that the UK has a systemic problem with excessive costs.
But one thing we must remember. The law according to the AG looks at the law before the UK had a go at sorting the problem out – see my post, as above. on the new UK regime. There is some important stuff about how the old system did not comply, which will have implications for the new rules.
Access to environmental justice is as topical asever. Delegates at the recent conference of the United Kingdom Environmental Law Association (UKELA), held in late June at UEA in Norwich (yards from the Climatic Research Unit much in the news) argued that the current regime in this country is unsatisfactory – because of the cost, but also, and less predictably, because of a lack of basic fairness.
One QC who specialises in planning law pointed to the fact that a developer who is dissatisfied with a planning decision can appeal it, but an affected third party (often a disgruntled resident) cannot. He commented off the record that in his experience both as an advocate and as a decision-maker, decisions were affected by the knowledge that developers could readily challenge refusals, whereas third parties could not challenge grants other than by way of judicial review.
As Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza begins, commentators and key global organisations are assessing whether international law is being broken by either side in the conflict. The UN said as early as 10th October that both Hamas and the Israeli military may have committed war crimes and that it is gathering evidence for potential prosecutions. Hamas’ terrorist attack of 7th October, which killed hundreds of noncombatants and abducted others for use as human shields and hostages, has already been labelled a crime under international humanitarian law. Meanwhile, Israel’s siege of Gaza, which includes shutting down food, water and electricity supplies and preventing humanitarian relief, may constitute the crime of collective punishment, according to the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross. Karim Khan, the British barrister who currently acts as the ICC prosecutor, has said the ICC will pursue investigations into the 7th October attack as well as Israel’s activities in Gaza and the West Bank.
Donald Trump’s sons have taken the stand in their father’s fraud trial in New York. This case concerns the Trump family’s property business, and the prosecution hold that members of the family including Eric and Donald Trump Jr falsely inflated its finances and falsified records. Both sons of the property magnate denied wrongdoing and instead suggested an accountancy firm were to blame, with Trump Jr remarking in testimony that ‘I leave it to my accountants.’ Eric Trump was confronted with email evidence that, despite his assertions, he was in fact closely involved with the construction of the company’s financial statements. The prosecution are seeking a fine of $250m and a ban on Donald Trump and his adult sons doing business in the state.
The Isle of Man Parliament has progressed an assisted-dying legalisation bill. The private members bill was brought by Alex Allinson MHK (Member of the House of Keys), who labelled the proposal a move towards “compassion, choice, and autonomy,” while other MHKs spoke against the bill on the grounds that safeguards against coercion would be difficult to put in place. The bill has it that those eligible would have to conform to several criteria: terminally-ill, over the age of 18, resident on the Isle of Man for at least 12 months, and to have the legal capacity of make the decision and a “clear and settled intention to end their life.” Rob Callister MHK raised the concern that the island become a “death tourism” hotspot, should the bill be passed with its current residency minimum. The campaign group Dignity in Dying has called for the central government in Westminster to follow suit, the Royal College of Surgeons having recently withdrawn its opposition to the proposal.
In other news
The chair of the Bar Council has proposed a solution to the over-use of Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation (SLAPP). SLAPPs typically involve a powerful individual or organisation targeting financially-weaker journalists or publishers with the threat of bringing onerous legal actions. They have been the subject of much public criticism lately, and are described as undermining the democratic principles of free speech and the rule of law. Nick Vineall KC has suggested that those who cynically pursue claims in order to shut down legitimate criticism and public debate should be liable in damages for acting contrary to the public interest. “The public interest is damaged by not having access to information which should never have been restrained, while the reputation of the claimant is unjustifiably protected for a period because something which ought to have been said about them is not said for a period of time, and sometimes of course forever.” Speaking at the IBA conference in Paris, Vineall made a comparison to the practice of applicants for injunctions accepting an undertaking to pay damages in case their claim turns out to be unjustified and the injunction causes harm to the defendant. Listen to our interview with Greg Callus on the subject of SLAPPs on Law Pod UK here.
A leading thinktank has warned that Britain’s public services are stuck in a “doom loop” of recurrent crises as a result of government’s short-term planning. The Institute for Government said that, due to prioritising short-term goals over long-term solutions, underfunding public services, and reversing policy decisions within short periods of time, the British state is underperforming across a range of public services and organisations. “The result is crumbling schools, NHS computers that don’t turn on, and not enough prison cells to house prisoners.” The report cites the crown court backlog, standing in June at a record high of 64,709 cases, and concludes the prison system is “at bursting point” due to over-crowding and under-staffing.
The Scottish government has released a legislative proposal that would give ministers the power to assess and ‘remediate’ (repair or remove) buildings with unsafe cladding without owners’ consent and to evacuate the occupants of unsafe buildings. The Housing (Cladding Remediation) Bill creates a new offence for obstructing or failing to assist with assessment, and introduces the concept of a Scottish ‘responsible developers’ scheme, which would encourage developers to fund remediation work.
In the courts
In Scottish Association of Landlords v Lord Advocate [2023] CSOH 76, the Scottish Court of Session determined that the Cost of Living (Tenant Protection) (Scotland) Act 2022 did not disproportionately interfere with article 1 of the ECHR protocol 1, which states that ‘every natural or legal person is entitled to the peaceful enjoyment of his possessions.’ The court held that the Scottish government’s assessment of proportionality, in bringing a bill that caps rent and places a moratorium on evictions in private residential tenancies, did not proceed manifestly without reasonable foundation.
Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government v. Venn, Court of Appeal, 27 November 2014 – read judgment
Back to Aarhus and the constant problem we have in the UK making sure that the cost of planning and environmental litigation is not prohibitively expensive.
Article 9 of the Aarhus Convention (to which the EU has subscribed) says that members of the public should be able to challenge environmental decisions, and the procedures for doing so shall be adequate and effective and “not prohibitively expensive”. If this means nothing to you, you might want to limber up with my bluffers guide to Aarhus – here -not least on how to pronounce it and how it fits into domestic law.
Ms Venn wanted to stop the owner of land next door to her London property “garden-grabbing”, namely building another dwelling in his garden. The local authority had refused permission, the landowner successfully appealed to a planning inspector, and on further review, Ms Venn said that the inspector had failed to have regard to emerging planning policy in determining the appeal against her.
Lang J gave Ms Venn a protective costs order (PCO), limiting her costs exposure to £3,500 if she lost. The CA reversed this. As ever, the devil is in the detail. Had her appeal been by way of judicial review, she would have got an order in her favour. So why didn’t she?
The purpose of the bill, first previewed in January by the Counter-terroism review (see my post), is to abolish control orders and make provision for the imposition of terrorism prevention and investigation measures (so-called “TPIMs”). For more information on the human rights controversies surrounding control orders, see my post: Control orders: what are they are why do they matter?
Some useful links for more information on the bill:
In R (Patton) v HM Assistant Coroner for Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire [2022] EWHC 1377 (Admin), Mrs Justice Hill quashed a ruling that the Article 2 general (or systemic) duty has not been potentially engaged by the death of Kianna Patton.
Kianna had been found hanging aged 16 at a time when she was under the care of Specialist Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services with a history of self harm. She was living with a friend, whose mother had let her use cannabis. This caused her mother (the Claimant) significant anxiety, given Kianna’s mental health issues. Her mother sought assistance in relation to Kianna from social workers and Police officers before her death. She believes there were serious failings in the way they responded and in the care S-CAMHS provided to Kianna. Following the Coroner’s ruling that Article 2 was not engaged, a Health Board’s report that was disclosed identified several issues with care delivery and the way that Kianna’s risk had been assessed, in particular, noting that safeguarding screening had not been completed once it was identified that she was no longer living at home.
The House of Commons privileges committee has issued its response to the legal opinion of Lord Pannick KC and Jason Pobjoy (on behalf of Boris Johnson) in respect of its inquiry into ‘partygate’. Pannick’s opinion criticised the committee’s proposed conduct by identifying 6 areas where a ‘fundamentally flawed approach’ has been adopted. The most substantial criticism was that the committee did not consider intent to be necessary in proving that Johnson misled the House. The weight behind this argument was that there would be a ‘chilling effect’ on Ministerial comments if unintentional mistakes were held to be contempt. In their response, the committee described this proposition as ‘wholly misplaced and itself misleading’. The response also says that the opinion is ‘founded on a systemic misunderstanding of the parliamentary process and misplaced analogies with the criminal law’. Questions have been raised as to both the method of publication of the opinion (which was not shown to the committee as is convention) and why the matter was not arranged by the government legal service.
The Home Office plans to re-open immigration detention centres as Suella Braverman indicates that she will take a harder line on immigration than Priti Patel, her predecessor. The plans are for 2 centres to open in order to detain 1,000 male asylum seekers, and to increase the number of people the Home Office can imprison. The plan is specifically linked to the detainment of people before they are sent to Rwanda, at a projected cost of £399m. The new contracts come after the former prison ombudsman, Stephen Shaw, published two comprehensive and highly critical reports on immigration detention, though officials stress they will take this into consideration.
FB v. Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust [2017] EWCA Civ 334, 12 May 2017, Court of Appeal – read judgment
All the advocates in this case were from 1 Crown Office Row, Elizabeth-Anne Gumbel QC for the claimant/appellant FB, and John Whitting QC and Alasdair Henderson for the hospital. None of them were involved in the writing of this post.
FB fell ill with meningitis when she was just one. The illness was diagnosed too late, and she suffered brain damage. This appeal was against the judge’s dismissal of the claim against the hospital, where she was seen, some time before she was admitted and the infection treated. All agreed that avoiding the time between being seen and being admitted would have led to the brain damage being avoided.
But should the junior doctor have picked up enough about her condition to admit her?
The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (“ECtHR”) has held that the risks to the applicant’s psychiatric health posed by his expulsion to Turkey did not reach the threshold for the application of Article 3.
The decision demonstrates the extremely high evidential threshold which applicants bringing such complaints will have to meet in order to establish that there are “substantial grounds” for believing that there is a real risk of a violation of Article 3, i.e., to pass the first stage of the Article 3 analysis articulated in the ECtHR’s case law.
J v B (Ultra-Orthodox Judaism: Transgender) [2017] EWFC 4 (30 January 2017) – read judgment
The Court of Appeal has granted permission to the father to appeal against the decision of the High Court earlier this year. Briefly, Peter Jackson J denied a father, who now lives as a transgender person, direct contact with his five children who live with their mother in the heart of a Charedi community of ultra-orthodox Jews.
The judge said that he had reached the “unwelcome conclusion”
that the likelihood of the children and their mother being marginalised or excluded by the ultra-Orthodox community is so real, and the consequences so great, that this one factor, despite its many disadvantages, must prevail over the many advantages of contact.
The appeal hearing, estimated to last one day, will take place on 15 November 2017. Continue reading →
On 1 October 2020, the Lord Chancellor, Robert Buckland QC, gave a speech at Temple Church to mark the opening of the legal year. He praised the “enduring success” of our legal system, our “healthy democracy”, and the “commitment to the Rule of Law” which steered the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.
The Lord Chancellor delivered his speech two days after the controversial Internal Market Bill cleared its final hurdle in the House of Commons with ease, by 340 votes to 256. Earlier in September, Brandon Lewis, the Northern Ireland secretary, told the House of Commons that the government’s plans would “break international law in a very specific and limited way.” On September 29, the Lord Chancellor voted against a proposed amendment to the Bill “requiring Ministers to respect the rule of law and uphold the independence of the Courts.” He was joined in doing so by the Attorney General, Suella Braverman, and the Solicitor General, Michael Ellis.
Help Refugees Ltd, R (on the application of) v Secretary of State for the Home Secretary [2018] EWCA Civ 2098 – read judgment
This was an appeal by Help Refugees Ltd against the refusal of its application for judicial review of the secretary of state’s consultation process regarding the relocation of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children under Section 67 of the Immigration Act 2016.
Background law and facts
This provision was passed in response to the mass migration into Europe of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children (UAS children) from the Middle East and North Africa. Section 67 established a scheme whereby the secretary of state was required to arrange for the relocation of “specified number” of UAS children. That number was to be determined by the secretary of state in consultation with local authorities. Because the s.67 scheme was not the only route by which UAS children might lawfully enter the UK, the specified number was to represent the highest number of s.67 UAS children that the local authorities could reasonably accommodate. It is inherent in the provision that the interests of UAS children in being located in the UK have to be balanced against the interests of other children for whom local authorities are responsible, and the public interest in ensuring that there is reasonable resource capacity in the system to accommodate the UAS children. In late 2015 – 2016 the number of migrants hugely accelerated in France, reflected in the increase in attempts to make unauthorised access to the UK from France through ports in Kent. This in turn imposed a huge burden on the local authorities in that region to fulfil their obligations under the Children Act, necessitating relocation to other parts of the UK.
On 8 September 2016, the Home Office wrote to all local authorities asking each to specify the number of children it could accept under s.67. By October, when the refugee camps in Calais were being cleared, UAS children in France were assessed for transfer under s.67 against published criteria, such as age, length of time in Europe, and country of origin (with older Sudanese and Syrian UAS children being allowed in). UAS children in France were assessed for transfer against these published criteria. For practical purposes, those who satisfied the criteria were transferred; and those who did not were not. The latter were told simply that they had not met the eligibility criteria –
“Age 18+” or “Criteria not met”.
The charity challenged both the lawfulness of the consultation process and the adequacy of the reasons given to the rejected children. The Divisional Court rejected both grounds of challenge ([2017] EWHC 2727 (Admin)).
The charity argued that the secretary of state had (1) failed properly to discharge her duty to consult; (2) breached her common law duty of procedural fairness by failing to give adequate reasons to the rejected children.
Hickinbottom LJ, giving judgment for the Court, allowed the appeal.
Serdar Mohammed and Others v Secretary of State for Defence [2015] EWCA Civ 843 – read judgment
The Court of Appeal has held that UK armed forces breached both Afghan law and Article 5 of the ECHR by detaining a suspected Taliban commander for longer than the 96 hours permitted by ISAF policy.
The MOD was therefore potentially liable at both public and private law for the failures to make arrangements for extended detention and to put in place such procedural safeguards as were required by international human rights law. Moreover, the defence of ‘act of state’ was not available against either the public or private law claims. Continue reading →
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The Guardian reports that Prime Minister Cameron is considering denouncing the ECHR on a temporary basis in order to facilitate the deportation of Abu Qatada. As tennis legend John McEnroe might have put it ‘you cannot be serious!’ In order to remove one man from the jurisdiction the government is contemplating removing the protection of human rights for all. One suspects that this announcement by Downing Street was little more than ‘dog-whistle’ politics with the local elections looming next week. But what if the government is really serious? Two quick thoughts come to mind.
Help Refugees Ltd, R (on the application of) v Secretary of State for the Home Secretary [2018] EWCA Civ 2098 – 
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