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Conor Monighan brings us the latest updates in human rights law.
Credit: The Guardian
In the News:
An independent report into building regulations, commissioned by the government in the wake of the Grenfell disaster, has called for the current regulatory system to be overhauled.
However, the report surprised some because it did not recommend a ban on flammable cladding. It also declined to recommend stopping so-called ‘desktop studies’, where materials are tested without setting them on fire. The chairman of Grenfell United expressed disappointment at this conclusion. The Royal Institute of British Architects expressed support for banning inflammable cladding and the government has said it will consult on the issue. The Prime Minister has also pledged £400 million to remove flammable cladding from tower blocks.
The author of the report, Dame Judith Hackitt, said that banning the cladding was insufficient. Instead, she stated that a ‘whole system change’ is needed. Dame Hackitt warned that cost was being prioritised over safety and that ‘banning activities and particular materials […] will create a false sense of security’.
The report recommended fundamental changes to building regulations, saying that the process which drives compliance with the regulations are ‘weak and complex’. Dame Hackitt found that there was a ‘race to the bottom’ in the building industry that was putting people at risk. She also wrote that product testing must be made more transparent, and that residents’ voices were not being listened to.
The Grenfell Inquiry will open this week. For the first two weeks, the lives of those who died will be remembered in a series of commemorations. Continue reading →
Dominic Ruck-Keene posted earlier on the order from the High Court that Google “delist” links in its search results to articles about the spent conviction of a businessman. You can hear him discussing the so-called “right to be forgotten” with Rosalind English in the latest episode of Law Pod UK.
The main recommendation in the report is that autonomous power to hurt, destroy or deceive human beings should never be vested in artificial intelligence. The committee calls for the Law Commission to clarify existing liability law and considers whether it will be sufficient when AI systems malfunction or cause harm to users. The authors predict a situation where it is possible to foresee a scenario where AI systems may
malfunction, underperform or otherwise make erroneous decisions which cause harm. In particular, this might happen when an algorithm learns and evolves of its own accord.
The authors of the report confess that it was “not clear” to them or their witnesses whether “new mechanisms for legal liability and redress in such situations are required, or whether existing mechanisms are sufficient”. Their proposals, for securing some sort of prospective safety, echo Isaac Asimov’s three laws for robotics.
A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
But these elaborations of principle may turn out to be merely semantic. The safety regime is not just a question of a few governments and tech companies agreeing on various principles. This is a global problem – and indeed even if Google were to get together with all the other giants in this field, Alibaba, Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and Tencent, it may not be able to anticipate the consequences of building machines that can self-improve. Continue reading →
In our continuing reposts of Professor Catherine Barnard’s series on the legal steps to Brexit, we have reposted her episode on the Draft EU Withdrawal Agreement – the Brexit political agreement turned into a legal document. Professor Barnard gives Boni Sones her own analysis of the text.
Law Pod UK is available for free download on iTunes, Audioboom, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts. If you like what you hear, please subscribe, rate and leave a review to support our podcast.
Our very own Commissioning Editor, Jonathan Metzer, is discussing with Rosalind English the right of appeal against refusal of a residence card under the EU immigration rules for family and extended family members of UK citizens. He has also written a post on this and the reference to the European Court of Justice in Banger (Unmarried Partner of British National) [2017] UKUT 125 (IAC) .
Law Pod is also available for free download in iTunes, Audioboom, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts. If you like what you hear, please subscribe, rate and leave a review to support our podcast.
The second in Professor Catherine Barnard’s series on the legal milestones of the Brexit process is now up on iTunes and Audioboom. And today we have posted Isabel McArdle talking to Rosalind English about the Supreme Court ruling on police liability in Robinson v West Yorkshire Police.
Law Pod UK is available for free download on iTunes, Audioboom, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts. If you like what you hear, please subscribe, rate and leave a review to support our podcast.
ABC v Thomson Medical Pte Ltd and others, Singapore Civil Court of Appeal [2017] SGCA 20 – read judgment
It is a trite reflection that law should change with the times but every so often we see the hair-pin bends in law’s pursuit of modern technology. This case from Singapore about reproductive rights and negligence in an IVF clinic is just such an example. As the judge said at the outset, the need for the law to adjust itself to the changing circumstances of life is clearest in the area of medical science,
where scientific advancement has made it possible for us to do things today which would previously have been unimaginable a few decades ago. This has brought untold prosperity to many, and hope to those who previously had none; but it has also given us greater capacity for harm.
Background facts
The Appellant, a Chinese Singaporean, and her husband, a German of Caucasian descent, sought to conceive a child through in-vitro fertilisation . The Appellant underwent IVF treatment and delivered a daughter, referred to in the judgment as “Baby P”. After the birth of Baby P, it was discovered that a serious mistake had been made: the Appellant’s ovum had been fertilised using sperm from an unknown Indian third party instead of sperm from the Appellant’s husband. It turned out that the clinic had processed two semen specimens inside one laminar hood at the same time and failed to discard the disposable pipettes that had been used after each step of the IVF process. This had resulted in a baby being born on 1 October 2010, whose DNA did not match her father’s. Continue reading →
In the cooperative spirit of podcasting, Professor Catherine Barnard of Cambridge University has kindly agreed to allow Law Pod UK to repost the enlightening podcasts from her series 2903CB, charting the transitional stages that need to be negotiated as we progress towards 29 March 2019, when the UK will be no longer part of the EU (CB being Catherine Barnard). Here’s the first one: UK Law Pod No 21: Outlining the legal milestones to Brexit, also available as part of the UK Law Pod series on iTunes.
We hope to continue to rebroadcast her series, along with our own output of interviews and seminars from 1 Crown Office Row on all manner of subjects.
Charlotte Gilmartin if you remember recently unpacked the planning dust-up over the Eagle Wharf redevelopment in Regent’s Canal in her recent post on the High Court judgment. More on this important decision and its implications for planners in her discussion here.
And the case of the Islamic state school of Al-Hijrah in Birmingham which attracted so much attention when the High Court ruled in favour of Ofsted’s critical report continues to make waves. Rajkiran Bahey analysed it here and ponders the many issues involved in discussion with Rosalind English here.
Law Pod UK is available for free download on iTunes, Audioboom, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts. If you like what you hear, please subscribe, rate and leave a review to support our podcast.
Chief Inspector of Education, Children’s Services and Skills v The Interim Executive Board of Al Hijrah School [2017] EWCA Civ 1426 – read judgment
Update: Listen to the Law Pod UK podcast episode 20, available for free download from iTunes or from Audioboom here.
This fascinating judgment, delivered by the Court of Appeal on 13 October 2017, found that a policy of gender segregation in a co-educational school amounted to unlawful gender discrimination.
Background
Al-Hijrah School taught children from ages 4-16 according to an Islamic ethos. At age 9, children were segregated completely by gender in lessons, breaks, school trips, clubs etc. Following an inspection in June 2016, Ofsted published a report criticising segregation as gender discrimination. Continue reading →
If you download Episodes 17 and 18 from iTunes or Audioboom, you will hear Jim Duffy discussing the proposed inquiry into the contaminated blood scandal which took place during the eighties and nineties. Episode 18 features a discussion between former historians now barristers Matthew Hill and Gideon Barth on inquiries in general, particularly ones that have been set up to investigate events which took place in the distant past.
Law Pod UK is available for free download on iTunes, Audioboom, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts. If you like what you hear, please subscribe, rate and leave a review to support our podcast.
We have just posted a discussion here between 1 Crown Office Row recruit Thomas Beamont and Rosalind English on the reach of Artificial Intelligence into the legal world: click on Episode 10 of our podcast series.
Law Pod UK is freely available for download on iTunes
R (Salman Butt) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] EWHC 1930 – read judgment
In the wake of the London and Manchester attacks, the government’s counter-terrorism strategy is increasingly in the news and under scrutiny. Radicalisationis a difficult concept to map on to a system like ours, which separates the definition of criminal behaviour and punishment from civil sanctions. In this week’s podcast, Marina Wheeler discusses some of the ways the law is trying to cope (Law Pod UK Episode 8, available free on iTunes). She and others from 1 Crown Office Row will be discussing this and related issues at a seminar on Monday 11 September.
At the end of July 2017, Mr Justice Ouseley upheld one element of the government’s counter-terrorism strategy – the Prevent Duty Guidance to universities (and other further and higher education bodies) which aims at “stopping extremists from radicalising students on campuses”. He also rejected a complaint that the work of the Home Office’s Extremism Analysis Unit (EAU), breached the Article 8 privacy rights of the claimant, Dr Salman Butt.
We posted a summary of this ruling last week. 1 Crown Office Row’s Oliver Sanders and Amelia Walker represented the Secretary of State. Paul Bowen QC and Zahra Al-Rikabi represented Dr Butt.
In 2011 the Strategy was revised to cover the journey from extremism towards terrorist-related activity (including by the far-right). This attracted criticism, examples of which were collated and presented to support the claimant’s challenge to the lawfulness of the measures. But Ouseley J dismissed all heads of claim, observing that he was
not concerned with whether some oppose the CTSA, or regard the Prevent Duty as counter-productive or have made it so, deliberately or through misunderstanding it.
What was decisive in this case was the absence of evidence that the Prevent Duty Guidance had had a chilling effect on free speech or academic freedom, as claimed. The Prevent Duty Guidance, under section 26 of the CTSA, only came into force in 2015. As those who apply it gain experience and confidence, they will make better judgments. But there will always be some mistakes. One way to avoid these is to have constructive discussion about the process, informed by evidence, not drowned out by “clamorous” criticism. Continue reading →
1 Crown Office Row have launched a new regular podcast, Law Pod UK, with presenter Rosalind English, to discuss developments across all aspects of civil and public law in the UK.
It comes from the creators of the UK Human Rights Blog and is produced by the barristers at 1 Crown Office Row. Post production by Whistledown Studios.
Episode 5: Further ruling on NI abortion rights, Charlie Gard, and transgender in Ultra-Orthodox Jewish community (6 July 2017).
Sarah Jane Ewart and Rosalind English discuss the latest developments in access to abortion for Northern Irish women, the lessons to be learned from the Charlie Gard case, and the difficult decision that the courts had to reach when considering the best interests of children in an Ultra-Orthodox Jewish family, where the father had left the community as a transgender person.
Episode 4: Supreme Court rules on NI abortion case (19 June 2017)
Rosalind English discusses the recent Supreme Court judgement on the case of women from Northern Ireland who seek abortions on the NHS in England.
Episode 3: Negligence Ruling in Meningitis case (28 May 2017)
David Hart QC and Rosalind English discuss the implications of a recent negligence case involving a young doctor’s failure to diagnose a child with meningitis.
Episode 2: Female terror plot trial, legal aid for unaccompanied minors, Value For Justice & post-Brexit legal landscape (18 May 2017).
Sarah Jane Ewart and Rosalind English discuss the prospect of the first all female terror plot trial, legal aid for unaccompanied minors in immigration cases, the Bar Council’s manifesto “The Value of Justice”, the law post-Brexit, and shift sleeping and the minimum wage
Episode 1: Election pledges on human rights, citizenship for third country EU nationals, CAGE case latest (26 May 2017).
Poppy Rimington-Pounder and Rosalind English discuss party election pledges and the Human Rights Act, the Muslim advocacy group CAGE’s forthcoming legal battle, a freedom of conscience ruling for members of the armed forces in the Bahamas, and citizenship rights for the children of third country nationals in Europe.
You can subscribe to Law Pod UK via Audioboom here. They will shortly be available for subscription and download from iTunes.
Please get in touch if you would like to collaborate on any future episodes.
FB v. Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust [2017] EWCA Civ 334, 12 May 2017, Court of Appeal – read judgment
The UK Human Rights Blog is not only for the reading eye. Here’s an audio version of David Hart’s post on the case of a junior doctor, a sick baby and the question of what we expect of senior house officers on busy Accident and Emergency admissions.
These audio files will soon be searchable in iTunes or wherever you like to find your podcasts for download onto your phone, to listen to on the train, in the gym, on your bike or gardening. We will let you know as soon as they become available.
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