human rights
24 August 2011 by Adam Wagner
The Human Rights Act has been blamed for many things, but recent suggestions that it caused a series of riots were tenuous by any standards.
A major problem with human rights law is that there is so much disinformation in the public domain. Thankfully, the British Institute on Human Rights is going on tour to try to correct the balance. The organisation is visiting 16 venues around the UK from September to December, seeking to answer the following questions:
What’s the role of human rights in a period of cut backs to public services? What is the role of human rights in protecting the vulnerable? Do human rights offer an effective tool for people wishing to challenge the impact of service cuts or changes? How do we make sure we balance one person’s rights against the interests of society as a whole?
The full list of venues and dates here and you can book here.
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25 July 2011 by Melina Padron
The Lord Chief Justice
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. You can also find our table of human rights cases here.
by Melinda Padron
In the news last week…
In a short speech to the Lord Mayor’s dinner for HM Judges, Lord Judge LCJ referred to 2011 as a difficult year for the judiciary amid attacks on individual judges and the judiciary as a whole for doing what is appropriate for judges to do: applying the law as they find it to be. The LCJ, however, reminded all that in a moment of crisis, such as the phone hacking scandal, the judiciary has a key role to play because of its recognised independence and impartiality.
The Government has accepted all recommendations made by Lady Justice Hallett, the coroner in the 7/7 inquests (see our previous post for the full recommendations), all of which are aimed at improving the work of the security services and medical emergency services. Whilst within the subject of terrorism, Simon Hetherington wrote a post for Halsbury’s Law Exchange regarding emergency extension of custody limits of suspects in terrorism investigations from 14 to 28 days. In such procedure there is a balancing exercise to be made between the competing interests of an individual’s liberty and national security. Hetherington then considers what happens to this balancing exercise when Parliament is not involved in scrutinising a given case and concludes that the balance tilts in favour of security. See also Adam Wagner’s review of recent developments in terrorism law.
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14 July 2011 by Alasdair Henderson
The decisions by the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights in Al-Skeini and Al-Jedda, handed down last Thursday, have generally been hailed as leap forward for human rights protection. We have already provided a summary of the decisions and pointed to some of the commentary here.
However, it is worth considering the core parts of these rulings a little more carefully. Without wishing to put too much of a dampener on the initial excitement from human rights campaigners about the outcome, the Court’s reasoning is perhaps not quite the radical breakthrough it first appeared to be. In fact, as Judge Bonello pointed out in his concurring opinion (which has drawn a lot of attention for his comments about ‘human rights imperialism’), the principles governing jurisdiction under Article 1 of the ECHR are not that much clearer following these decisions.
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7 July 2011 by Adam Wagner
Updated | The legal blogs have been busy reporting on this morning’s important decisions of the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights in Al-Skeini and Al-Jedda – see my post.
There has been coverage already from PHD Studies in Human Rights, the Human Rights in Ireland Blog (update – see also EJIL: Talk: “Let me put this as strongly as I can: this is as close as we’ve ever come to the European Court overruling Bankovic. And good riddance – except, as we will see, the Court’s disavowal of Bankovic is only half-hearted at best.”). The Guardian has also published an article on the case in which Phil Shiner of Public Interest Lawyers claims that the decisions will reopen the case for a wider public inquiry into alleged detainee mistreatment in Iraq; the firm recently failed in a judicial review of a decision not to hold a public inquiry on behalf of 127 Iraqis.
Many thanks to Antoine Buyse of the ECHR Blog for highlighting the lyrical and eminently quotable concurring opinion of Maltese Judge Giovanni Bonello, who since writing the judgment has retired from the court. Bonello said that he would have applied a slightly different “functional jurisdiction” test to decide whether the applicants fell within the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom.
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7 July 2011 by Adam Wagner
Al-Skeini v. United Kingdom, European Court of Human Rights Grand Chamber (Application no. 55721/07) – Read judgment / press release
Al-Jedda v. the UK (Application No. 27021/08)- Read judgment / press release
The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights has ruled that from 1 May 2003 to 28 June 2004 the UK had jurisdiction under Article 1 (obligation to respect human rights) of the European Convention on Human Rights in respect of civilians killed during security operations carried out by UK soldiers in Basrah.
The court went on to find in Al-Skeini that there had been a failure to conduct an independent and effective investigation into the deaths of the relatives of five of the six applicants, in violation of Article 2 (right to life) of the Convention. The court awarded 17,000 euros to five of the six applicants, in addition to 50,000 euros in costs jointly.
In Al-Jedda, the court found a violation of Article 5 (1) (right to liberty and security) of the European Convention in relation to the internment of an Iraqi for more than three years (2004- 2007) in a detention centre in Basrah.
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4 July 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:
Having had its second reading in the House of Commons, one of this week’s legal hot potatoes is the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill. A detailed analysis of the Bill can be found on the Law Society Gazette’s website. Of interest, the government’s proposal to provide up to £20million extra for the provision of social welfare legal advice received a cautious welcome from Steve Hyne, director of Legal Action Group. Nonetheless Hyne, writing for the Guardian.co.uk, concludes that the extra funding is no replacement for the continued provision of legal aid, particularly if the money is a one-off. Adam Wagner summarizes early responses to the Bill from the legal-world here.
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27 June 2011 by Melina Padron
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 Melinda Padron
Beginning with sad news, Lord Alan Rodger of Earlsferry, one of the justices of the Supreme Court, died yesterday. A detailed obituary has been published by HeraldScotland.
Last week Ken Clarke’s criminal justice system reform proposals were hit by a change of mind/u-turn (or as Prime Minister David Cameron put it, ‘a sign of strength’) on the part of Government. The most radical features of the proposed criminal justice reforms were dropped, chiefly amongst them the attempt to increase the 33% discount to sentences for guilty pleas to 50%. The move was arguably made as a result of public consultations and in particular pressure from the tabloid press. The announcement came alongside the publication of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill. Joshua Rozenberg gives a brief outline of some of the new proposals which seek to lower the statistics on reoffending.
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13 June 2011 by Graeme Hall
It’s time for 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:
The big UK Human Rights Blog news is the launch of our new Case Table. Click here to see it.
Writing for the UK Constitutional Law Group blog, Professor Gordon Anthony summarizes the Supreme Court’s decision in Re. McCaughey. Following developments in the European Court of Human Rights’ case-law, the Supreme Court ruled that under article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights (the right to life), the procedural obligation to investigate deaths possibly caused by State agents is “detachable” from the State’s substantive obligation to protect the right to life of its citizens.
Whilst concluding that the implications of the McCaughey judgment are probably straightforward, the post outlines the Supreme Court’s criticisms of the European Court’s reasoning, as well as some of the possible consequences of its poorly reasoned judgments. See also Matthew Hill’s post today on this blog.
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6 June 2011 by Graeme Hall
It’s time for 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:
Joshua Rozenberg, critical of the decision to appoint Jonathan Sumption QC to the Supreme Court, reports that Parliament is consulting on whether it should intervene in judicial appointments. Indeed, a guardian.co.uk Editorial has suggested that the best way for the judiciary to defend itself against accusations by Parliament of over-stepping its authority, is to make itself more diverse. Adam Wagner has previously blogged about the (lack of) diversity in the upper echelons of the judiciary and has also published a two-part series on the power of unelected judges here and here.
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31 May 2011 by Graeme Hall
It’s time for 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. Happy post Bank Holiday reading!
by Graeme Hall
In the news:
Whilst the Neuberger Committee’s report is arguably the best place to kick-off any discussion on privacy, freedom of expression and Super-Injunctions, it is not, as Inforrm’s blog concludes, the “last word” on the matter. Indeed, this “overinflated topic” has been tackled with such gusto by the press and blogosphere that the High Court clearly gave a yellow card for “widespread disobedience“.
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16 May 2011 by Melina Padron
Last week’s human rights news received an enormous amount of coverage, which means that we were unable to fit all of them within this humble post. However, we do recommend that you click here to access the full list of some of our favourite articles pertaining to last week’s hotly debated topics.
by Melinda Padron
The week started off with a Twitter account supposedly “outing” a number of individuals who had taken injunctions with anonymity clauses or “superinjunctions”. As we all know, this topic has been the subject of attacks by the press and politicians over the past few weeks. Judith Townend wrote an insightful post on the incident for the Inforrm’s Blog, which contained opinions from media lawyers and experts, and also links to many of the articles featured in newspapers and law blogs alike.
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9 May 2011 by Graeme Hall
It’s time for 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
At the top of the worldwide news agenda is the killing of Osama Bin Laden. In addition to concern over the implications his death will have on the fight against Islamic fundamentalism (click here for some of Adam Wagner’s reflections), the manner in which Bin Laden died has undoubtedly split opinion. Geoffrey Robinson QC strongly condemned the killing when writing in The Independent on Sunday. This is to be contrasted with the assistant editor of the Guardian, Michael White’s opinion, as well as more starkly opposed opinions on the lawfulness of the shooting, an example of which can be found on the Blog of the European Journal of International Law.
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14 April 2011 by Catriona Murdoch
As we posted earlier this week, US State department has released its 35th annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, including an in-depth analysis of human rights in the UK.
The report overall gives a balanced view of the Human Rights Practices in the UK, with some criticism but also some praise. It touches upon many of the issues reported in the UK Human Rights Blog but also misses some important topics that have emerged since the last annual country report.
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14 March 2011 by Melina Padron
It’s time for 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 Melinda Padron
In the news
The government announced that a commission would be set up to look into whether the government should bring in a bill of rights in light of all the controversy surrounding the ECtHR. The commission is reported to be composed of experts such as Lord Lester, Helena Kennedy QC and Martin Howe QC, and its merits are already being called into question.
There have been two strong reminders of the importance of maintaining compliance with and membership to the European Court of Human Rights: Aidan O’Neill QC wrote an excellent piece questioning the legal merits of some of Dr Pinto-Duschnisky‘s proposals in his report Bringing Rights back home: making human rights compatible with parliamentary democracy in the UK; while Sir Konrad Schiemann, judge of the Court of Justice of the European Union, made a strong case that by abiding by its decisions, the UK would be serving the greater good of stability amongst its members.
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28 February 2011 by Melina Padron
It’s time for 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 Melinda Padron
#Without Prejudice – The Law Podcast 1: Assange, EAW, British Bill of Rights, Oversupply of lawyers and Silk
Listen to a one hour discussion between David Allen Green, Carl Gardner, Charon QC and guests about this week’s topical legal issues.
Adoption: new guidance to break down barriers
In order to address the fall in number of children placed for adoption, the government has issued guidance to local authorities whereby people wanting to adopt can no longer be turned away on the grounds of race, age or social background.
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