Search Results for: puberty blockers consent/page/45/Freedom of information - right of access) [2015] UKUT 159 (AAC) (30 March 2015)
14 October 2024 by Catherine Churchill
In UK News
Last week, the Government published the new Employment Rights Bill – a bill Deputy PM Angela Raynor has said seeks to “turn the page on an economy riven with insecurity, ravaged by dire productivity and blighted by low pay”. Among the measures included are steps towards ending “exploitative” zero-hour contracts, the introduction of a statutory probation period for new hires, and the removal of the two-year qualifying period for claims to unfair dismissal. The bill places significant emphasis on flexible working as the future of employment, stating that it will be “default for all, unless the employer can prove it is unreasonable”. With various aspects of the bill strengthening protections to women in the workplace, Jemima Olchawski, CEO of the Fawcett Society, has called the bill “a win for women”. However, the bill is not without its critics. Sharon Graham, the general secretary of Unite union, claimed in a post on X (formerly Twitter) that the bill has “more holes than Swiss cheese”, leaving loopholes for employers to evade the provisions on zero-hour contracts and fire & rehire. Whistleblowing charity Protect have also expressed regret that the bill does not go far enough to strengthen protections for whistleblowers.
The Tory leadership race continued last week as the candidates were whittled down to a final two: Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick, both considered to be on the right of the party. Membership of the ECHR has become an increasingly central issue in the race. While Jenrick has promised to leave the ECHR immediately if ever elected PM – calling the issue one of “leave or remain” – Badenoch told Sky News she believes that focusing on the ECHR “shuts down the conversation we need to have with the entire country” about migration. Both candidates have been the subject of criticism for comments made during the party conference. Jenrick, in support of his campaign to leave the ECHR, has controversially claimed that special forces are opting to kill instead of catch terrorists as otherwise the “European Court will set them free”. The charity Action on Armed Violence have stated that Jenrick’s comments “do a disservice to the serious allegations at hand” in the inquiry into SAS killings in Afghanistan, which must be “allowed to proceed without political interference”. Badenoch has come under fire for comments insinuating that maternity pay is “excessive” and that “about 5 to 10%” of civil servants are so bad that they “should be in prison”. She has backtracked on both fronts, claiming her comments were “misrepresented”.
In Other News
A UN report published last Thursday – three days after the one-year anniversary of the October 7th attacks – contains findings that “Israel has perpetrated a concerted policy to destroy Gaza’s healthcare system”, committing war crimes in doing so. The report further states that Israeli security forces have “deliberately killed, detained and tortured medical personnel”, with children having “borne the brunt” of the health system’s “collapse”. It was further found that the “institutionalised mistreatment” of Palestinian detainees had taken place under direct orders from Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israeli National Security Minister. On Friday, in a statement from its mission in Geneva, Israel took strong objection to the report, calling its conclusions “outrageous” and a “blatant attempt to delegitimise the very existence of the State of Israel and obstruct its right to protect its population, while covering up the crimes of terrorist organisations”. Israeli representatives have accused the commission behind the report, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, of creating an “alternate reality” and refused to cooperate with the investigations preceding the report’s compilation.
On Wednesday, the United Nations Human Rights Council in their 57th session adopted a resolution on Afghanistan in response to the escalating crisis in the country, extending the mandate of the UN Special Rapporteur on Afghanistan. The report resulting from resolution 54/1 to carry out a “stocktaking” of accountability options on Afghanistan was also presented at the session. The report detailed a variety of recommendations to Afghan de facto authorities, including the establishment of a moratorium on executions and the implementation of victim-centred transitional justice measures. While Amnesty International celebrated that the stocktaking marked the “first time in recent years that the UN is debating how to address serious accountability gaps”, the measure was nevertheless “inadequate” in the face of the crimes under international law being committed in Afghanistan. Amnesty also criticised the resolution adopted this week, claiming the council have “shied away from sufficiently supporting justice for the people of Afghanistan who have placed their hopes in the international community” by failing to establish an independent international accountability mechanism.
In the Courts
Last week, the European Court of Justice ruled that European Member States are obligated to recognise legal gender identity changes conducted in other Member States. The Court held that Romania’s refusal to recognise the applicant’s UK Gender Recognition Certificate constituted a violation of his right to move and reside freely within the Member States of the European Union. In a press release accompanying the ruling, the CJEU stated that “gender, like a first name, is a fundamental element of personal identity; […] a divergence between identities resulting from such a refusal of recognition creates difficulties for a person in proving his or her identity in daily life as well as serious professional, administrative and private inconvenience”. The applicant’s legal counsel, human rights lawyer Iustina Ionescu, told charity Transgender Europe that the “verdict has shown that trans people are equal citizens of the European Union”.
The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that Cyprus’ immediate return to Lebanon of Syrian asylum seekers intercepted at sea constituted a violation of their human rights – in particular, the prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment. There had also been a violation of Article 4 of Protocol No. 4 (prohibition of the collective expulsion of aliens). Cyprus had failed to consider the risk of lack of access to asylum in Lebanon, the risk of refoulement, and the individual situations of the asylum seekers. The Court paid significant attention to a Human Rights Watch report published in September 2020 which revealed systematic mistreatment of asylum seekers by Cypriot authorities. The report had been referenced in the applicants’ arguments and was not challenged by counsel for the Government. Cypriot Government spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis has stressed that the events concerned occurred in 2020, under the previous administration, and has denied the allegation that the government has been carrying out further refugee pushbacks since the ruling.
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1 June 2015 by Thomas Raine
Main v Scottish Ministers [2015] CSIH 41, 22nd May 2015 – read judgment
The Court of Session’s appeal chamber – the Inner House – has had to decide whether the scheme of indefinite notification requirements for sexual offenders in Scotland is compatible with Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
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20 September 2010 by Adam Wagner
Updated, Tue 21 Sep | It is being reported that Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, is looking to end the ban on prisoners voting in elections. If the law were to change, it would represent the end of a very long road for campaigners. However, they have been waiting since 2005 and may well be waiting for longer yet.
The Times apparently reported this morning (I haven’t confirmed this as it is behind a pay wall) that the deputy prime minister is backing plans for prisoner enfranchisement.
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4 July 2017 by Poppy Rimington-Pounder
Women from Northern Ireland who travel to the UK seeking abortions will now be able to access the procedure without charge on the NHS. See the Supreme Court decision on this, posted by Rosalind English, which brought the whole matter to light. You can hear a discussion of the various issues in this case on our new podcast series.
The government changed its policy on the matter amid fears that Conservative MPs were planning on supporting an amendment to the Queen’s speech, put forward by Labour MP Stella Creasy, to provide Northern Irish women with access to free abortions in England; with the new Conservative government’s much reduced majority, Prime Minister Theresa May could not afford to risk a rebellion from her own MPs.
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22 November 2018 by Guest Contributor
The Scottish Government sets itself apart from its UK counterpart in its approach to protecting human rights. The SNP vocally opposed proposals to withdraw the UK from the ECHR and repeal the Human Rights Act. An expert group appointed by the First Minister Nicola Sturgeon will report this year with recommendations on how Scotland “can continue to lead by example in human rights”, and appears to be considering incorporating a range of rights from international human rights law into the Scottish legal system.
In environmental rights however, the lack of progress is conspicuous. As David Hart QC explained, the Aarhus Convention aims to protect the right to live in an environment adequate to health and wellbeing – the foundation on which other human rights are built. It recognises the rights of NGOs and members of the public to access information, participate in decision-making, and access justice. These rights encourage citizens to get involved in environmental decision-making. Article 9 requires that NGOs and members of the public must be able to challenge situations where their Convention rights are denied or national environmental laws are broken. Critically, access to justice must be “not prohibitively expensive”.
Yet environmental litigation (mainly judicial review) in Scotland is extortionate. Litigants face six figure bills if they lose. The Convention’s Meeting of the Parties and Compliance Committee (ACCC) have found Scotland to be non-compliant with the requirements of Article 9 (the latter has done so repeatedly). Instead of recognising this deficiency, recent Scottish Government consultation documents note Scotland’s “ongoing compliance” and disparage the Compliance Committee as “not a judicial body”.
2018 brings a new development. New protective expenses orders rules for environmental litigation in Scotland were created last week. This post examines these rules, and argues that they remain out of line with the Convention.
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25 August 2010 by Caroline Cross
A Local Authority v Mrs A, by her Litigation Friend, the Official Solicitor, and Mr A [2010] EWHC 1549 (Fam) – Read judgment
In the first case of its kind, the court was asked to consider whether a young married woman lacks capacity to decide whether to use contraception, and whether it would be in her interests to be required to receive it.
Mrs A was a 29-year-old woman who suffered from serious learning difficulties, which put her intellectual functioning at approximately 0.1% of adults her age. In 2004 she gave birth to a daughter, and in 2005 she had a son. Both children were removed from her at birth because she did not have the capacity to take care of them.
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18 October 2012 by Guest Contributor
There has been much in the press recently about the UK Government being minded to opt out, and/or in, of EU criminal justice measures. The implications of this decision will be significant to the UK’s ability to investigate and prosecute crime. So what does it all mean?
Opting out of what?
The UK managed to negotiate the quite remarkable article 10 to protocol 36 of the Lisbon Treaty which allows for the UK to exercise a power that no other member state of the Union holds. The Lisbon Treaty finally incorporates EU criminal justice measures (which are referred to as the area of police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters) into the main body of treaty law.
In order to do so, it allowed a transitional period of five years (which expires in December 2014), at the end of which, all measures adopted under the earlier treaty provisions (in what was known as the third pillar) are ‘Lisbonised.’ What this means is they become directives rather than framework decisions (and various other equivalents). The difference between the two is that directives are enforceable before the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and decisions are not.
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6 April 2012 by Richard Mumford
DL v A Local Authority & Others [2012] EWCA Civ 253 – Read judgment
Where adults have capacity under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA 2005), does the “great safety net” of the High Court’s inherent jurisdiction still exist to guard them from the effect on their decision making of undue influence, coercion, duress etc? In its judgment handed down on 28 March 2012, the Court of Appeal confirmed that it does.
DL proceeded in the High Court and the Court of Appeal on assumed (as opposed to agreed) facts, many if not all of which were contested by the appellant. For the court’s purposes however, it was assumed that DL, a man in his 50s who lived with his mother and father (90 and 85 respectively), had behaved aggressively towards his parents, physically and verbally, controlling access to visitors and seeking to coerce his father into transferring ownership of the house into DL’s name, whilst pressuring his mother into moving into a care home against her wishes. The Court of Appeal’s judgment uses the term “elder abuse” for such a situation.
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14 October 2018 by Thomas Hayes
Baking takes up supreme court time on both sides of the Atlantic, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees makes an appearance in the Court of Appeal, Unexplained Wealth Orders make an entrance and more…
The biggest news of the week arguably came out of Northern Ireland. However, mercifully this blog can ignore the ongoing speculation regarding a Brexit settlement, the attitude of DUP MPs, the potential presence of border infrastructure and whether or not veterinary inspections and customs checks are of loose equivalence (well, at least for now…).
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14 July 2011 by Rosalind English
Farouk Sabeh el Leil v France (29 June 2011) – read judgment
When a diplomatic employee takes action for compensation for unfair dismissal, the host country’s courts cannot simply rule out the possibility of a claim on the basis that the employer has state immunity. This would impair the very essence of his right of access to a court under Article 6 of the Convention.
The applicant, a French national, had been employed as an accountant in the Kuwaiti embassy in Paris since August 1980. He was promoted to head accountant in 1985. In March 2000, the Embassy terminated his contract as part of a cost-cutting exercise. His application to the local employment tribunal was initially successful but ultimately failed before the Paris Court of Appeals which found that the State of Kuwait enjoyed jurisdictional immunity on the basis of which it was not subject to court actions against it in France.
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1 March 2011 by Rosalind English
Like many points of European law, the question whether the UK and Polish protocol to the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights amounts to a full opt-out is mired in confusion and political prejudice.
Its characterisation as an opt out or a mere “clarification” depends on where one stands on the eurosceptic/europhile spectrum. So where do we find a practical rather than an ideological answer to this important question? Certainly not in the political or academic record.
First, a reminder of what the Charter is all about. From the very early days of the European Community the Court of Justice (ECJ) has relied on fundamental principles of human rights as an interpretative tool, and the key provisions of the Charter are derived from the ECHR, which is uncontroversial enough. However a large number are drawn from the Community Social Charter 1989 and the Council of Europe’s Social Charter 1961. These are the so-called “social and economic rights” which appear to transform aspirational norms into judicially enforceable ones, like the right to work or healthcare. These “rights” are largely to be found in the “Solidarity Title” of the Charter, and it is to this part of the Treaty that the UK secured an opt out at the European Council in 2007.
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29 July 2025 by Jonathan Metzer
In HM Attorney General for England and Wales v British Broadcasting Corporation [2025] EWHC 1669 (KB), the Divisional Court (the Lady Chief Justice,the President of the King’s Bench Division, and Chamberlain J) gave judgment in relation to the deployment of evidence by MI5 in proceedings concerning the BBC’s reporting on a covert human intelligence source (CHIS), referred to as “X”. The judgment is quite extraordinary, including substantial criticism of the approach taken by MI5 in this case and specific guidance as to the way that evidence from an agency such as MI5 should be presented in future.
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31 January 2022 by Byul Ryan-Im
In the news:
The Metropolitan Police have been criticised for their request to Sue Grey not to prejudice their investigation into parties held at Downing Street during lockdown. Ms Grey has yet to publish her report into the parties, but a “heavily redacted” version is expected “imminently” according to the Guardian. The Met requested the report to make “minimal reference” to the parties, not that it be delayed or otherwise limited, but it has caused some to question the motives and/or competence of the police. It is possible that their investigation will go beyond current public knowledge and if criminal charges result in a jury trial the police do have to ensure potential jurors are not prejudiced. On the other hand, human rights barrister Adam Wagner has questioned why a civil service report on alleged breaches of Covid regulations would prejudice a police investigation.
In other news:
The Equality and Human Rights Commision (EHRC) has come under fire from LGBTQ+ campaigners and Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon for its response to the Scottish government’s plans to simplify the process for legal gender recognition, and the UK government consultation on banning conversion therapy. The EHRC said “more detailed consideration is required before any change is made” to the Gender Recognition Act 2004. Ms Sturgeon noted that this was a “significant change in position” for the EHRC and that she was concerned that the Commission’s response “doesn’t accurately characterise the impact of the Bill.” In its response to the consultation on conversion therapy, the EHRC said that a ban should initially focus on attempts to change sexual orientation, while a ban on “conversion therapy attempting to change a person to or from being transgender should follow, once more detailed and evidence-based proposals are available”. A clause to allow “informed consent” to conversion therapy in the Conversion Therapy (Prohibition) Bill has been condemned by activists but was not criticised in the EHRC’s response. LGBTQ+ charity Stonewall said the EHRC’s response disregarded the expert opinion on of the UN Independent Expert on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity and violated the ‘Paris Principles’ of promoting and protecting human rights as a UN-accredited National Human Rights Institution.
The Joint Committee on Human Rights has launched its investigation into proposals to reform the Human Rights Act. The Committee will examine government proposals to replace the Human Rights Act with a “Bill of Rights”, which would reduce the impact that case law from European Court of Human Rights has on domestic law.
In the courts:
Pwr (Appellant) v Director of Public Prosecutions (Respondent) and Akdogan and another (Appellants) v Director of Public Prosecutions (Respondent) [2022] – this case concerned section 13(1) of the Terrorism Act 2000, which makes it a criminal offence for a person to display an article in public, in a way that arouses “reasonable suspicion that he is a member or supporter of a proscribed organisation”. The appellants had carried flags of the Kurdistan Workers Party (the PKK), a proscribed organisation, at a demonstration. The Supreme Court dismissed their appeals, finding that section 13(1) is: a) a strict liability offence, such that there is no necessary mental element beyond the defendant knowing they are displaying the relevant article; and (b) compatible with article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR). Section 13(1)’s interference with the Article 10 right to freedom of expression is justified by being prescribed by law; in pursuit of legitimate aims; and necessary in a democratic society and proportionate to its legitimate aims.
R (Binder, Eveleigh, Hon and Paulley) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2022] EWHC 105 (Admin) – the High Court allowed a judicial review claim by four disabled adults and granted a declaration that the government’s National Disability Strategy is unlawful. While there was no common law or statutory duty on the defendants to consult before publishing the Strategy, the Court held that their “UK Disability Survey” amounted to a voluntary consultation (which the defendant denied), and as such the common law principles of consultation fairness (“the Gunning principles”) applied. The Survey breached the second Gunning principle to “enable intelligent consideration and response” due to its lack of information (it did not outline or allow for comments on specific policy proposals), and format (the questions were all multiple choice except four open-ended questions with word-limits). The Court rejected the Claimants’ additional submission that the defendant breached the Public Sector Equality Duty per section 149 of the Equality Act 2010.
R (D4) (Notice of Deprivation of Citizenship) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2022] EWCA Civ 33 – ‘D4’ was a British and Pakistani dual citizen who has been detained at a camp in Syria for three years. On 27 December 2019 she was deprived of her British citizenship under Regulation 10(4) of the British Nationality (General) Regulations 2003, which permits the Home Secretary to “serve notice” of a deprivation of British citizenship merely by putting the notice on a person’s Home Office file. On 28 September her solicitors requested the Foreign Office’s assistance in repatriating and it was then that the deprivation of her citizenship was first communicated to either D4 or her advisors. This case was a judicial review of Regulation 10(4) and the Court of Appeal found the regulation ultra vires; it went beyond the Home Secretary’s powers under the British Nationality Act 1981 and was therefore unlawful. However, if the Nationality and Borders Bill is passed, it will remove the requirement to give notice if it is “in the public interest” and will apply to this case retrospectively, effectively making lawful D4’s deprivation of citizenship without personal notice. (see last week’s round-up for more on deprivation of citizenship)
On the UKHRB:
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17 August 2010 by Adam Wagner
Hoovering up the latest human rights news
We recently started adding links to interesting new articles and case-law on the right the sidebar under the heading “Selected news sources”.
As of last week, these articles now appear on our Twitter feed (@ukhumanrightsb) and Facebook fan page too. Below is a quick rundown of some of the most recent stories. The full list of links can be found here.
17 Aug | Privacy law to stop rise in gagging orders by judges – Telegraph: We have posted on the coming libel reform and super-injunctions; Lord Neuberger is leading a review which may, according to the Telegraph, lead to a statutory law of privacy. The Head of Legal Blog queries whether this would be any different from Article 8 of the ECHR in any case.
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18 August 2020 by Joanna Curtis
Makuchyan and Minasyan -v- Azerbaijan and Hungary (Application No. 17247/13)
This recent judgment from the European Court of Human Rights arises from the 2012 transfer from Hungary to Azerbaijan of prisoner Ramil Safarov, a member of the Azerbaijani army, following his conviction in Hungary for the murder of an Armenian officer in 2004. In particular, the Court considered Article 2 ECHR (the right to life) in the context of (a) when a state can be held responsible for the actions of an individual carried out in a private capacity, and (b) the obligations on a state who transfers a prisoner to see out their sentence in their home state.
RS’s crimes, transfer and release
In February 2004, Azerbaijani army officer Ramil Safarov (RS) murdered Gurgen Margaryan (GM), one of two Armenian participants in a NATO-sponsored English language programme in Hungary, by decapitating him with an axe while he lay asleep. RS then tried to break down the door of the other Armenian participant, Hayk Makuchyan (HM), allegedly yelling, “Open the door, you Armenian! We will cut the throats of all of you!”, before he was stopped by the Hungarian police.
RS was tried and sentenced in Hungary to life imprisonment, with a possibility of conditional release after 30 years. During the criminal investigation in Hungary, RS gave evidence that he strongly disliked Armenians because he had lost relatives in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between the two countries, and that on several occasions during the programme GM and HM had provoked him and mocked both him and the Azerbaijani flag.
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