EU law

Will the European Union be brought under the Human Rights Convention?

12 August 2010 by Adam Wagner

It is possible that the European Union will soon sign up to the European Convention on Human Rights. The change would have interesting implications for European human rights law, as well as for UK citizens seeking redress for alleged human rights violations.

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It may sound odd that whilst member states are signed up to the European Convention, the European Union as a corporate body is not. But negotiations began last month (see this Council of Europe press release) on the European Union’s accession to the European Convention. The Vice-President of the EU’s Commissioner for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship said “We are now putting in place the missing link in Europe’s system of fundamental rights protection, guaranteeing coherence between the approaches of the Council of Europe and the European Union”.

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Boost for economic and social rights after landmark Court of Appeal ruling [updated]

13 July 2010 by Rosalind English

R (on the application of S) (Claimant) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (Defendant) & (1) Amnesty International & AIRE Centre (2) United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (Interveners) (2010) – Read judgment

The Court of Appeal has ruled that the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (“the Charter”)  could be directly relied on in the UK in a decision on the removal of an Afghan asylum seeker to Greece.

This Charter combines the rights guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights and Freedoms 1950 (“ECHR”) with the fundamental social rights set forth in the European Social Charter and in the Community Charter of Fundamental Social Rights of Employees. The decision could see the introduction of “social and economic” rights into the UK for the first time, but it could also place an unmanageable burden on member states to comply with the wide-ranging charter.

A reference to the European Court of Justice will now be made in respect of the application of the Charter in the context of return of asylum seekers to Greece under the Dublin Regulation. The Regulation is the cornerstone of EU refugee law, establishing a system of determining responsibility for examining asylum claims and ensuring that each claim is examined by one Member State rather than allowing multiple applications for asylum submitted by the same person in several Member States with the sole aim of extending their stay in the EU.

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Feature | The duty to investigate deaths under human rights law: Part 1

12 July 2010 by Matthew Hill

Silih v Slovenia (2009) 49 E.H.R.R. 37 – Read judgment, McCaughey and Quinn’s Application [2010] NICA 13 – Read judgment

This is Part I of Matthew Hill’s feature. Click here for Part II.

A recent decision of the Strasbourg Court has reopened the issue of the State’s obligation to investigate deaths under the European Convention on Human Rights, leaving a tension between the European Court’s view and that of the highest UK court.

In Silih v Slovenia (2009) 49 E.H.R.R. 37, the European Court looked again at the question of whether the investigative obligations under Article 2 ECHR have retrospective effect in domestic law. A majority of the Court held that Slovenia’s failure to provide an effective independent judicial system to determine responsibility for the death of a patient receiving medical treatment violated Article 2 even though the death itself took place before the Convention came into force in that state.

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European Court to discipline UK for smacking children [updated]

27 April 2010 by Adam Wagner

A number of newspapers reported yesterday that the Council of Europe, is to criticise the UK for failing to introduce a total ban on smacking children. The coverage splits along predictable lines, with the Daily Express and The Star both referring to “meddling” bureaucrats telling British parents what to do with their children.

The foreshadowed comments will apparently come in a debate to be held later today on “The smacking ban 30 years on: international debate“, where advocates against the corporal punishment of children will take stock of how far the smacking debate has come since Sweden banned corporal punishment 30 years ago, becoming the first country to forbid all forms of violence against children, including at home.

The Council of Europe, which monitors States’ compliance with the European Convention, have recommended that all states should secure to everyone within their jurisdiction, including children, the right to be protected from torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (Article 3 ECHR), the right to liberty and security (Article 5), and the right to a fair trial (Article 6).

The Independent sums up the position in the UK, where smacking in most schools but not at home is banned:

Though we have a partial ban in place and are about to close an eccentric loophole in that law which allows private tutors to whack their pupils (“reasonably”) our right to cuff our own children is still protected. Sir Roger Singleton, the Government’s independent adviser on child safety, recently published a report – Physical Punishment: Improving Consistency and Protection – which essentially recommended that smacking should be banned everywhere except in the home, by parents and those in loco parentis.

Read more:

• Council of Europe Integrated Strategy against Violence
• Independent report by Sir Roger Singleton, Chief Adviser on the Safety of Children
• Update 30/04/10 – Libby Brooks writing in The Guardian: “Only the Liberal Democrats have committed in their manifesto to incorporating the UN convention into British law, which is probably about as hopeless a daydream as proportional representation. But, in the meantime, we cannot rely on benign self-regulation by parents alone. Smacking is assault, however you dress it up. It brings with it all the guilt, shame and assumptions of weakness and power that come with any attack on another human.“