Search Results for: puberty blockers consent/page/46/Freedom of information - right of access) [2015] UKUT 159 (AAC) (30 March 2015)

Dr Naik, hate speech and the principle of expectation

29 December 2011 by Rosalind English

The Queen on the application of Naik v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2011] EWCA Civ 1546 – read judgment

The Court of Appeal has confirmed that the exclusion of an Indian Muslim public speaker  from the United Kingdom after making statements which breached the Home Office’s “unacceptable behaviours policy” was lawful,  and that any interference with his rights was justified.

We posted previously on the original exclusion of Dr Naik from the United Kingdom, and reported on his subsequent address by sattelite link to the Oxford Union.

The appellant had regularly visited the UK since 1990 on public lecture tours. In 2008 he was granted a five-year multiple entry visitor visa. In 2010, two days before he was due to arrive in the UK on a lecture tour, the secretary of state excluded him and revoked his visa. She considered that he had made a number of statements which were supportive of terrorists, such as Osama Bin Laden, and breached the “unacceptable behaviours policy” for exclusion from the UK.

The decision was based on the fact that several of his statements fell within the Home Office’s “Unacceptable Behaviour Policy”, an indicative guide to types of behaviour which would normally result in grounds for exclusion, and that his presence would not be conducive to the public good.The Administrative Court dismissed Dr Naik’s application for judicial review of this decision, holding that the Secretary of State’s responsibility for the protection of national security is a central constitutional role, and encompasses a duty owed to the public at large. It could not be overridden by reference to any representation or practice relating to an individual entrant.
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Shadow Justice Secretary speaks to lawyers on “The State of Human Rights”

30 March 2010 by Adam Wagner

We have been following with interest the debate over the proposed “Bill of Rights” which all of the major parties are considering in some form. Dominic Grieve QC, the Shadow Justice Secretary, gave a speech last week to the Human Rights Lawyers Association which touched upon the Conservative Party’s proposals. Francis Klug wrote in The Guardian that:

Some of us asked Grieve to clarify the effects of these proposed interpretation clauses at yesterday’s meeting. I am not sure we were any the wiser. The purpose appears to be to free our judges from the approach of the Strasbourg court (they are already free from slavishly following the case law) where rights are not absolute. The text of the ECHR could still be used, Grieve says (although he suggests this is only his personal preference, not necessarily his party’s). But it is not at all clear that the human rights framework for balancing or limiting rights – based on preventing harm rather than creating eligibility criteria – will survive these suggested “interpretation clauses”.

The text of the speech has not been published, but Mr Grieve has published a speech on the same topic on his website, given in November 2009. In that speech he made clear that the Human Rights Act would not be replaced without a wide public consultation. However, he did provide some clues as to the nature of the “interpretation clauses”, saying:

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Parliament Square protesters lose eviction appeal [updated]

16 July 2010 by Adam Wagner

Hall & Ors v Mayor of London (On Behalf of the Greater London Authority) [2010] EWCA Civ 817 (16 July 2010) – read judgment

The Mayor of London has won a court order to evict a camp of protesters from Parliament Square, with the Court of Appeal upholding a decision of the High Court stating that the Mayor’s response to the protest was proportionate and not a breach of the protesters’ human rights.

The protesters had gained a temporary reprieve by appealing the decision to the Court of Appeal, but that appeal has now been rejected. The BBC report that Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, said “I think it’s wonderful that as a city we can protest. But it is nauseating what they are doing to the lawn“.

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Equality, human rights and religion or belief: time to get out of the courtroom? – Alice Donald

24 August 2012 by Guest Contributor

The interaction between the law and religion or belief is rarely out of the headlines. Debate rages about whether Article 9, the human right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, receives sufficient – or too much – protection in the courts.  There has been a considerable amount of litigation, much of it contentious (see, for example, here, here and here) 

A new report for the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) by researchers at London Metropolitan University, including myself, explores these controversies. It is based largely on interviews and roundtable discussions with around 100 religion or belief groups, human rights and/or equality organisations, employers, public service staff, academics and lawyers. It is concerned as much with differing perceptions and understandings of the law as with the law itself. It also examines the practical application of the law in the workplace and public services.

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Pardon and Amnesty – when is there money in it?

16 May 2011 by Rosalind English

When does being not guilty make you innocent? This question arose coincidentally in two rulings, just over a month of each other, from the highest courts of the UK and South Africa respectively.

The Citizen and others v McBride concerned libel proceedings which had been brought against a former member of the armed wing of the ANC. McBride had been convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1986 after killing three women in a bomb attack. Nine years later he was granted an amnesty by the SA Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The question before the Constitutional Court was whether a person convicted of murder, but granted amnesty under the Reconciliation Act, can later be called a “criminal” and a “murderer” in comment opposing his appointment to a public position.

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The Tale of the Black Spider: The Supreme Court speaks

27 March 2015 by Matthew Flinn

Photo credit: The Guardian

Matthew Flinn

And so, the long legal saga of the Black Spider Letters finally comes to a close.

I last blogged about this case back in October 2012. At that time, the Attorney General had ignited controversy by invoking a little-known power under section 53 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA).

Under that provision, he issued a certificate which effectively vetoed a decision of the Upper Tribunal that a number of items of correspondence sent by Prince Charles to seven Government Departments (characterised as “advocacy correspondence” as opposed to personal letters) had to be disclosed to Mr Rob Evans of the Guardian newspaper.

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Supreme Court endorses judicial review over other remedies – in some cases

3 November 2024 by Rosalind English

McKleenon, re Application for Judicial Review (Northern Ireland) 2024 UKSC 31

Following our recent Law Pod UK episode on judicial review, this case contains some useful guidelines to the differences between the kinds of remedy available via judicial review versus statutory appeal, private civil actions, private prosecutions and other avenues for compensation.

It involved an application for judicial review of decision-making by the regulator of landfill maintenance, where the regulator argued that the claimant had an adequate alternative remedy such that judicial review should be refused.

The applicant, Noeleen McAleenon, had claimed that the regulator had not taken appropriate action to prevent harmful chemical gases and noxious smells escaping from a neighbouring landfill site. But the public bodies maintained that judicial review should be refused because Ms McAleenon had adequate alternative remedies, in that she could herself launch a private prosecution against the owner of the site: Section 70 of the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act (Northern Ireland) 2011 (“the 2011 Act”) provides that a person aggrieved by the existence of a statutory nuisance may make a complaint to the magistrates’ court for an order requiring abatement of the nuisance and prohibiting its recurrence and the imposition of a fine.) Alternatively, the defendants said, she could bring a nuisance claim against them in private law.

The first instance judge dismissed the alternative remedies defence. He observed (para 92) that the case concerned the public law issues of regulation and enforcement, whereas any private prosecution in the magistrates’ court under section 70 would centre on the issue of whether a nuisance had been caused. Whilst there is of course an overlap between the two questions, the two kinds of litigation have quite different purposes:

“a member of the public with sufficient interest is entitled to hold regulators to account by pursuing any public law wrongdoing. It would be an unfortunate and unattractive position if a regulator could effectively be immune from suit in this sphere by reference to alternative proceedings in the magistrates’ court”.

Jailing jokers, killing burglars and homophobic prisons – the Human Rights Roundup

15 October 2012 by Wessen Jazrawi

Updated |
Welcome back to the UK Human Rights Roundup, your weekly buffet 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. 

Many of the articles in the blogosphere this week have concerned the conviction and jailing of Matthew Woods for offensive jokes made about the abducted five year old April Jones which came in the same week as a man was jailed for wearing an offensive t-shirt about police deaths. Lawyers, comedians and others have expressed their concern about the sentence and its implications for freedom of expression in this country. The other key news of the week is the statement by our new Minister for Justice, Chris Grayling, that householders will be allowed more leeway in the force used against burglars in their home. Meanwhile, the Attorney-General has come out in support of the European Convention of Human Rights.

by Wessen Jazrawi

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The Round-up: 21/7 bombers in Strasbourg and other news

7 June 2015 by acwessely

Photo credit: Guardian

This week’s Round-up is brought to you by Alex Wessely.

In the news

Three high profile cases concerning the UK government have been granted hearings in the European Court of Human Rights grand chamber, putting the relationship between the government and the ECHR “in the spotlight“.

• Ibrahim and Others v. the United Kingdom concerns four men convicted of offences relating to the 21 July London terror plot. The men were initially interviewed by police before they were allowed to consult a lawyer (on the grounds that the urgent situation meant no delay was permissible), which they claim is a breach of their Article 6 rights (right to a fair trial).
• The second case, Hutchinson v UK, concerns the politically charged issue of whole life tariffs – prisoners who have been told they will never be released from jail. Ian Hutchinson, sentenced in 1983 for triple murder and rape, argues that this constitutes a violation of his Article 3 rights (protection against torture and inhumane and degrading treatment). This argument was rejected in February, but is now being re-heard.
• The third case is brought by the family of Jean Charles de Menezes, who was killed by police in 2005 when they mistakenly thought he was planning a suicide attack at Stockwell station. This is covered by Inquest, the Guardian and Evening Standard.

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Privacy: the way ahead? Part 2 – Hugh Tomlinson QC

2 May 2011 by Guest Contributor

This is Part 2 of a three part series which originally appeared on Inforrm’s Blog. Part 1 can be read here and Part 3 is coming tomorrow.

The “new law of privacy” has not been uncontroversial.  Over the past week the press has complained bitterly about “gagging orders” and “judge made law”.  These criticisms are not new.  More than four years ago, with characteristic restraint, the commentator Melanie Phillips described the process of the development of privacy law in these terms:

“Driven by a deep loathing of the popular press, the judges have long been itching to bring in a privacy law by the back door. Thus free speech is to be made conditional on the prejudices of the judiciary …” (Melanie Phillips, “The law of human wrongs”, Daily Mail, 6 December 2006)

Her editor at the Mail, Paul Dacre, has been equally firm in his views:

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Redress for ‘historical’ child abuse in care: what can Scotland learn from Ireland? — Dr Maeve O’Rourke

21 October 2020 by Guest Contributor

The Redress for Survivors (Historical Child Abuse in Care) (Scotland) Bill is currently undergoing parliamentary scrutiny.

How survivors experienced Ireland’s institutional abuse ‘redress’ schemes (the Residential Institutions Redress Board (RIRB) and the Magdalen Restorative Justice Ex-Gratia Scheme) over the past two decades can tell us a great deal about the elements of good practice in the Scottish Bill and the areas requiring amendment.

The Scottish Bill improves greatly on some problems that have beset Irish redress schemes by proposing a non-adversarial approach, provision of legal and other assistance throughout a survivor’s engagement with the scheme, freedom of expression for survivors, and a prohibition on the review body reducing the payment proposed at first instance.

However, the Bill’s shortcomings include the waiver requirement, the five-year time limit for applications, the anticipated obligation on survivors to provide documentary evidence ‘in all but exceptional cases’, and the exclusion of corporal punishment from the scheme’s scope. My recent correspondence to the Scottish Parliament’s Education and Skills Committee discusses all of these issues.

Here, I focus on the waiver. This requires that a survivor must trade their right to sue the State and any institution that has made ‘fair and meaningful contribution’ to the scheme in exchange for a payment of up to £80,000.

Scotland has the opportunity to use this redress scheme to support survivors who wish to pursue litigation against the State and/or other entities, by contributing to these individuals’ psychological and financial security in the short term. Instead of the current waiver proposal, the Bill could direct the courts to reduce any future damages award by the amount already paid by the relevant Defendant under the scheme. This approach would recognise the absolute and inalienable human right of survivors of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment to accountability for such abuse, and to compensation commensurate with the gravity of the harm suffered. Such recognition would strengthen current and future protections against torture and ill-treatment while redressing past failings.

A1P1 and public policy: compensation for not fishing?

22 June 2016 by Jessica Elliott

R (Nigel Mott) v Environment Agency [2015] EWHC 314 (Admin) Read Judgment

An interesting Court of Appeal decision concerning the science of migratory salmon, and the circumstances in which compensation will be granted when an interference with Article 1 Protocol 1 is found.

For over forty years, Mr Nigel Mott has fished for salmon at Lydney on the River Severn with putcher ranks: rigs of conical baskets which trap adult salmon as they swim upstream in order to spawn.

Putchers had long enjoyed a privileged status as against other means of fishing. Owing to their designation as a “historic installation”, they were spared the controls and conditions which applied to rods and nets, and which have increasingly regulated fishing activity since the first Salmon Fisheries Acts in 1861.

Freedom to fish without restriction allowed Mr Mott to make his living from this ancient method: at £100 per salmon, his annual catch of 600 fish brought him a gross turnover of £60,000.

In 2011, new statutory powers enabled the Environment Agency (“the Agency”) to impose catch conditions on fishing licences granted in respect of historic installations “where it considers that it is necessary to do so for the protection of any fishery”.

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A newcomer to the world of injunctions

19 December 2023 by Guest Contributor

Factual background

The appeal in Wolverhampton City Council and others v London Gypsies and Travellers and others [2023] UKSC 47 concerned injunctions obtained by over 38 different local authorities between 2015 and 2020 to prevent unauthorised encampments by Gypsies and Travellers. These “newcomer injunctions” as they are known, are a wholly new form of injunction, granted without prior notice, against persons unidentified at time of the grant of the injunction and who have not yet performed, or even threatened to perform the acts which the injunction prohibits. They therefore apply “to potentially anyone in the world” [143(i)].

Local authorities sought to use such injunctions, due to the inefficacy of obtaining an injunction against named Gypsies or Travellers who, by the time proceedings have commenced, have left, and been replaced by another group, against whom the injunction has no effect.

Beanstalks, bad press and the death of juries? – The Human Rights Roundup

21 June 2011 by Graeme Hall

Welcome back to the human rights roundup, a regular bulletin of all the law we haven’t quite managed to feature in full blog posts. The full list of links, updated each day, can be found here.

by Graeme Hall

In the news:

Continuing with their assessment of the UK’s law and legal system, the Law and Lawyers’ blog has produced the latest in its series, No. 4:  Juries. This comes at an opportune moment given the recent jailing of a juror for contempt of court after using Facebook to contact an acquitted defendant. This case has seen a possible dichotomy of opinion arise: passionate supporters of trial by jury, such as barrister Felicity Gerry and Tory politician David Davis; or that of Joshua Rozenberg who poses the thorny question; “Whom would you prefer to be judged by – a highly trained, publicly accountable circuit judge? Or 12 people like [jailed juror] Joanne Fraill?”.

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Will the Detainee Inquiry be human rights compliant?

8 August 2011 by Matthew Flinn

Ten human rights campaign groups and the lawyers for a number of detainees alleging UK involvement in their mistreatment have confirmed that they will be boycotting the impending Detainee Inquiry.

We recently posted on the publication of the Terms of Reference and the Protocol for the Detainee Inquiry and set out some of the reaction to it. At the time, a number of lawyers representing those who claimed to have suffered mistreatment threatened to boycott the inquiry, claiming it would be a whitewash. As the BBC has reported, they have now been joined by a number of Human Rights organizations, and it seems that the clear intention is for the boycott to go ahead.

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