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29 December 2013 by Adam Wagner
The debate over the European Union’s Charter of Fundamental Rights is already mired with misunderstanding (see this and this), but amazingly Saturday’s Times (£) managed to up the stupid-quotient by another few notches.
The headline was “Ministers to block ‘right to marry’ in EU backlash“. Apparently the Government has “vowed to block a fresh push to introduce new EU human rights, such as the right to marry and the right to collective bargaining, into Britain“. And as the Times’ political editor Francis Elliot (not to be confused with the generally sound legal correspondent Frances Gibb) reported:
The charter enshrines a host of rights not found in other declarations, including personal, work and family relations. One of them is a proposed “right to marry and found a family”.
The only problem is that… the right to “marry and found a family” already exists in the European Convention on Human Rights. It’s in Article 12. It has been there since the UK signed up to the ECHR in 1953. Here it is:
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1 November 2012 by Rosalind English
The Queen on the application of Totel Ltd v The First-Tier Tribunal (Tax Chamber) and The Commissioners for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs [2012] EWCA Civ 1401 – read judgment
Tax litigation is not the most obvious hunting ground for human rights points but if claimants feel sufficiently pinched by what they perceive as unfair rules, there is nothing to stop them appealing to the courts’ scrutiny of the lawfulness of those rules.
Human rights were not raised per se in this appeal but constitutional principles which arguably play the same role made all the difference to the outcome.
This case concerned the removal of a right of appeal by an Order in Parliament that stopped the appellant company (T) in its tracks, so naturally it turned to judicial review to find a remedy that the tax tribunal was not prepared to grant. T prayed in aid a fundamental principle of our unwritten constitution set out in R (Spath Holme Ltd) v Secretary of State for Transport, the Environment and Regions [2000] 2 WLR 15:
Parliament does not lightly take the exceptional course of delegating to the executive the power to amend primary legislation. When it does so the enabling power should be scrutinised, should not receive anything but a narrow and strict construction and any doubts about its scope should be resolved by a restrictive approach.[35]
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16 May 2017 by Sarah Ewart
IN THE NEWS
Three women, including a mother and her daughter, have been charged with conspiracy and attempt in the first all-female terror plot in the UK. This accolade means it is sure to be feverishly anticipated by the press when the charges reach the Old Bailey on May 19th.
The Children’s Society is looking for evidence on the impact of LASPO (2012) on unaccompanied migrant children, and are calling for the participation of legal practitioners in a survey which can be found here. Evidence would be used in the pending review of LASPO and in a strategic litigation case intended by the Children’s Society to bring unaccompanied migrant children under the auspices of legal aid. For more information contact Dr Helen Connolly at helen.connolly@beds.ac.uk or Richard Crellin, Policy Manager at the Children’s Society at richard.crellin@childrenssociety.org.uk.
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18 October 2013 by Guest Contributor
People are going hungry in England because England, to the detriment of the poor, has forgotten its legal history.
Nearly eight hundred years ago, in 1216 English law first recognized a right to food. Yet between April and September this year over 350,000 people received three days’ emergency food from the Trussell Trust food banks, triple the numbers helped in the same period last year.
Although justifiable outrage has been expressed at this increasing hunger in 21st century England, such hunger has not been regarded as an issue of human rights law, but only of charity. The United Nations, however, has made clear that the right to adequate food is indivisibly linked to the inherent dignity of the human person and is indispensable for the fulfilment of other human rights.
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21 June 2012 by Rosalind English
Lee Carter, Hollis Johnson, Dr. William Shoichet, The British Columbia Civil Liberties Association and Gloria Taylor v Attorney General of Canada (2012 BCSC 886) 15 June 2012 – read judgment
Interest in the “locked-in syndrome” cases currently before the High Court runs high. We posted here on the permission granted to locked-in sufferer Tony Nicklinson to seek an advance order from the court that would allow doctors to assist him to die under the common law defence of necessity.
He is also arguing that the current law criminalising assisted suicide is incompatible with his Article 8 rights of autonomy and dignity. The other case before the three judge court involves another stroke victim who is unable to move, is able to communicate only by moving his eyes, requires constant care and is entirely dependent on others for every aspect of his life. (Philip Havers QC of 1 Crown Office Row is acting for him)
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31 December 2012 by David Hart KC
El-Masri v. The Former Yugoslav Republic Of Macedonia, Grand Chamber of ECtHR, 13 December 2012, read judgment
In a hard-hitting judgment, the 17 judges of the Grand Chamber found Macedonia (FYROM) responsible for the extraordinary rendition of Mr El-Masri, a German national, by the CIA to Afghanistan. We have all seen the films and read about this process – but even so the account given by the Court is breath-taking. And in so doing, most of the members of the Court made explicit reference to the importance of a right to the truth – not simply for El-Masri, the applicant, but for other victims, and members of the public generally. And the story is all the more chilling because the whole episode appears to have been caused by mistaken identity.
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17 February 2016 by Guest Contributor
C-601/15 JN (in French only) offers important insights into the detention of asylum seekers. It also somewhat of a double bill, involving not one but two sets of European Human Rights.
In this post I will set out the facts, give a quick refresher of the relationship between the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (Charter). I will conclude with an overview of the decision itself.
The decision contains a number of important elements, but the one I would like to focus on is the “fit” between the ECHR and the Charter. This manifests itself on two levels. The first is the abstract relationship between the ECHR and the Charter (see Marina Wheeler’s recent post on this: A Charter too Far). This is quite straightforward (see below). The more interesting part is the relation between the different ways the ECHR and the Charter protect from unlawful detention. As shall be seen, the former lists narrow criteria for the lawfulness of detention, whereas the second effectively provides a broad protection against unlawful detention. Reconciling the two was at the heart of JN.
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21 September 2020 by Euan Lynch
BC & Others v Chief Constable of the Police Service of Scotland & Others [2020] CSIH 61
Last week, the Inner House of the Court of Session refused a reclaiming motion in relation to the use of racist, antisemitic and sexist WhatsApp messages in misconduct proceedings against ten police officers. The judgment discusses several interesting issues, such as the police officers’ reasonable expectation of privacy when exchanging such messages, which can be found here.
However, the focus of this article shall be on an aspect of the case which was not cross appealed: the existence of a common law right to privacy in Scotland. Despite not being an issue of contention, the Lord Justice Clerk, Lady Dorrian, took the opportunity to express her views on the matter. These now cast doubt over the existence of such a right – one which Lord Bannatyne, from the Outer House, believed was nascently recognised in case law.
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24 July 2015 by Laura Profumo
Laura Profumo delivers the latest human rights happenings.
In the News:
Right to die campaigners have sustained yet another setback, following the judgment of R (AM) v General Medical Council last week.
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13 May 2013 by Sarina Kidd
Welcome back to the UK Human Rights Roundup, your regular chocolate selection gift box 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.
This week, the Government announced plans to curb Article 8 of the ECHR, Grayling continues to cause controversy with his reforms of both the Criminal Justice System and of judicial review, and Qatada may soon be leaving us for pastures new.
by Sarina Kidd
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5 June 2010 by Guest Contributor
The European Convention - now it has its own blog page
We have added a new “ECHR” page where you can access an index of the Articles of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The page can be accessed by clicking here, or by clicking on the “ECHR” tab at the top of any page on the blog.
Each Article has its own separate page with the wording of the Article itself and a brief summary of how it works in law.
You can access this summary by clicking on the “more info” link. You can also click on the “posts” link to see all posts on the UK Human Rights Blog relating to that Article. A few articles don’t have a live link “posts” as we have not posted on it yet. We would welcome your comments on this or on any way we can make the blog better.
The index is reproduced below:
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7 July 2017 by Rosalind English
The Attorney General for Northern Ireland and the Department of Justice (appellants) v The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (respondent) [2017] NICA 42 (29 June 2017) – read judgment
Although the accompanying image is not in any way intended to suggest that Northern Ireland’s law on abortion parallels the situation obtaining in Margaret Atwood’s fictional Gilead, the failure of the legislature and the courts to overhaul the criminal law to allow women access to termination is a bleak reflection of the times. The hopes that were raised by high court rulings from 2015 and 2016 that existing abortion laws breached a woman’s right to a private life under Article 8 have now been dashed.
Let me start with a much quoted proposition derived from Strasbourg law.
when a woman is pregnant her private life becomes closely connected with the developing foetus and her right to respect for her private life must be weighed against other competing rights and freedoms, including those of the unborn child.
Really? Does that mean a woman loses her autonomy, the minute she conceives? Does she become public property, subject to the morals and wishes of the majority? Apparently so, particularly when one reads the opinion of Weatherup LJ:
the restriction on termination of pregnancies pursues the legitimate aim of the protection of morals reflecting the views of the majority of the members of the last [Northern Ireland] Assembly on the protection of the unborn child.
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8 August 2012 by Rosalind English
In his recent book Harvard philosopher Michael Rosen poses the question: what is dignity, exactly, and do we know it when we see it? We are all familiar with the mantra that all humans are endowed with equal dignity, but do we really understand what it means? Since it is a formulation that is increasingly advanced in justifying universal human rights, we should try to get to grips with it, rather than reversing into circularities such as defining it as an intrinsic quality from birth. What makes it intrinsic? And at what point is it acquired? And why do we owe the dead a duty of dignity when they have no rationality and make no choices, autonomous or otherwise?
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21 December 2016 by David Hart KC
Govia GTR Railway Ltd v. ASLEF [2016] EWCA Civ 1309, 20 December 2016 – read judgment
As all domestic readers know, there is a long running industrial dispute between Southern Rail and ASLEF, the train drivers’ union. The issue : DOOP – Driver Only Operated Passenger – Trains. The company says they are perfectly safe, have been used extensively, and there will be no job losses. It claims over 600,000 journeys are being affected per day. The union strongly disputes that the new system of door closing is as safe as the old for passengers, and says that the new system is very stressful for drivers.
Under domestic law, there appears to be no doubt that the strike action is lawful. In the time-honoured phrase, it is in furtherance and contemplation of a trade dispute, and the company accepted that a proper and lawful strike ballot was held – with a 75% turnout of members of whom 90% favoured the strike.
But the company argued that strike action was in breach of EU law, and hence it was entitled to an interlocutory injunction preventing the strike pending trial.
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31 July 2018 by Rosalind English
JT v First Tier Tribunal [2018] EWCA Civ 1735 – read judgment
Between 1968 and 1975 the appellant JT was repeatedly assaulted and raped by her stepfather in her family home. Many years later, her assailant was prosecuted for those crimes and convicted on all counts in 2012. As a victim of violent sexual crime, JT applied for compensation under the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme. Her application was refused on the basis of the “same roof” rule, which stated that an award would not be made in respect of a criminal injury sustained before 1 October 1979
if, at the time of the incident giving rise to that injury, the applicant and the assailant were living together as members of the same family
This criterion may sound odd to anyone with a professional or even mild interest in crime stories, where the prime suspect is considered to be a member of the family of the victim, whether of rape, abuse, or even murder. But the thinking behind the rules – and there has to be a bright line for eligibility – was that there should be a requirement that the victim and the assailant no longer live together. This would at least suffice to ensure that the rapist or abuser would not benefit from the award accruing to his victim, and, if possible, is brought to justice.
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