Sims (Appellant) v Dacorum Borough Council (Respondent) – Supreme Court
Sims (Appellant) v Dacorum Borough Council (Respondent) [2014] UKSC 63 (YouTube)
Supreme Court, 12th November 2014
Category: human rights
Article 6 – the Right to a fair trial – and discrimination in the Armed Forces – Cloisters
‘At a time when the UK’s membership of the European Convention of Human Rights (“ECHR”) and our domestic Human Rights Act 1998 (“HRA”) is a hot political topic, it is timely that the Employment Appeal Tribunal (“EAT”) has handed down a judgment considering Article 6 ECHR in relation to special time limit provisions for discrimination complaints brought by those in the Armed Forces: Duncan v Ministry of Defence.’
Cloisters, 23rd October 2014
Source: www.cloisters.com
Human Rights: The Law – Gresham College
‘An exploration of Human Rights law as it developed and which draws criticism from the general public. The audience will be invited to consider what, if anything, they complain of in what is nowadays referred to as Human Rights law. The lecture will deal with topics raised and those which are more generally the subject of criticism. Time will be allowed for (structured and time limited) contributions from the audience.’
Full story
Gresham College, 5th November 2014
Source: www.gresham.ac.uk
A prisoner’s right to vote: straining European relations – Cloisters
‘In this article, I argue that there is an urgent need for a more rational approach to the debate about prisoners’ rights to vote – which has become an emotive issue in the United Kingdom. This is particularly so in light of the recent response from the United Kingdom government to ECtHR rulings, demonstrating an unparalleled defiance towards Strasbourg rulings. Due to this, the implications of the debate over prisoners’ voting rights extend beyond individuals, bringing into sharp focus a matter of broader significance to us all, namely the United Kingdom’s approach to democracy and human rights and its relationship with the European Court and the EU itself.’
Cloisters, 13th November 2014
Source: www.cloisters.com
My Achy, Breaky Tenancy: Supreme Court rules it human rights-compatible for one tenant’s unilateral Notice to Quit to end a joint tenancy – Zenith Chambers
‘Something that can take some housing practitioners by surprise is a Notice to Quit served, not by a landlord on a tenant, but by a tenant on a landlord (sometimes referred to by housing officers as a “notice to terminate”).’
Zenith Chambers, 13th November 2014
Source: www.zenithchambers.co.uk
Private Law Remedies in Environmental Law – Mouse or Lion? – Thirty Nine Essex Street
‘With statutory regulation covering an ever increasing area in Environmental Law, the question arises as to whether private law remedies have a meaningful role to play in that arena?’
Full story (PDF)
Thirty Nine Essex Street, September 2014
Source: www.39essex.com
Conor Gearty: On Fantasy Island: British politics, English judges and the European Convention on Human Rights – UK Constitutional Law Association
‘My first encounter with the fantasies that underpin English public law came in the 1980s. I had just starting teaching constitutional law and was taking my first year students through Dicey: the independent rule of law; the availability of remedies to all, without fear or favour; the common law’s marvellous protection of civil liberties; how great we were, how terrible the continent; and all the rest of it. Outside the classroom, striking miners were being routinely beaten up by the police, their picketing disrupted by road blocks, their liberty eroded by mass bail conditions. The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament was having its marches banned and its protests inhibited by ‘no-go’ areas arbitrarily erected by the police around American bases into which it had been decided to move a new generation of nuclear weapons. Some of my students were even beaten up themselves, on a march against education cuts in London – much to their surprise given what I was teaching them.’
UK Constitutional Law Association, 13th November 2014
Source: www.ukconstitutionallaw.org
Yarl’s Wood: Undercover tour of detention centre with dreadful reputation for its treatment of asylum seekers – The Independent
‘The Detention Centre in Bedfordshire – privately run, but publicly funded – has a dreadful reputation for its treatment of asylum seekers. Cole Moreton found a way inside to see if its notoriety is deserved.’
The Independent, 16th November 2014
Source: www.independent.co.uk
Government may weigh rights against national security without courts’ interference – UK Human Rights Blog
‘R (on the application of Lord Carlile of Berriew QC and others) (Appellants) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (Respondent) [2014] UKSC 60. The exclusion of a dissident Iranian from the UK, on grounds that her presence would have a damaging impact on our interests in relation to Iran, has been upheld by the Supreme Court.’
Uk Human Rights Blog, 12th November 2014
Source: www.ukhumanrightsblog.com
Regina (Lord Carlile of Berriew and others) v Secretary of State for the Home Department – WLR Daily
‘The Home Secretary’s decision to maintain an order excluding the entry into the United Kingdom of a dissident Iranian politician, invited by members of the Houses of Parliament to meet them in London to discuss human rights and democratic issues in Iran, was not a disproportionate interference with their right to freedom of expression under article 10 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms: the Home Secretary was entitled to accept the recommendation of the Foreign Secretary that to permit such entry would risk jeopardising the United Kingdom’s diplomatic and economic interests and might provoke a violent reaction in Iran resulting in damage to British property and endangering the safety of British and local personnel.’
WLR Daily, 12th November 2014
Source: www.iclr.co.uk
Human Rights and the Common Law – Where Next after Kennedy v the Charity Commission? The Jan Grodecki Lecture 2014
‘Human Rights and the Common Law – Where Next after Kennedy v the Charity Commission? The Jan Grodecki Lecture 2014 by Michael Tugendhat at the University of Leicester School of Law on 23rd October, 2014.’
University of Leicester, 23rd October 2014
Source: www.le.ac.uk
Be wary of judicial slogans – Jonathan Sumption – UK Human Rights Blog
‘In his lecture to the Administrative Law Bar Association earlier this month, Lord Sumption surveys the concept of “anxious scrutiny” – a judicial method which he characterises as a forerunner to the principle of proportionality. The term was actually coined by Lord Bridge in Bugdaycay (1986), and was meant to apply where the rights engaged in a case were sufficiently fundamental, and stretched the traditional “Wednesbury” test to public authority decisions or actions which were not, on the face of it, irrational. (The citation given in the PDF of the speech incidentally is incorrect). The same way of thinking had been arrived at in the US courts a few years earlier, with their “hard look” doctrine, but to Lord Sumption there was something peculiarly English about the “crab-like” way in which our courts approached and eventually acknowledged this doctrine, hitherto alien to the judicial toolbox.’
UK Human Rights Blog, 10th November 2014
Source: www.ukhumanrightsblog.com
Delays in prisoner rehabilitation did not breach Convention – Strasbourg Court – UK Human Rights Blog
‘Two prisoners have failed in their human rights protest against prison rehabilitation courses in the United Kingdom.’
UK Human Rights Blog, 7th November 2014
Source: www.ukhumanrightsblog.com
Control and restraint techniques used on people being removed from UK are lawful, says Court of Appeal – UK Human Rights Blog
‘R (on the application of FI) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2014] EWCA Civ 1272. The Court of Appeal has held that the physical restraint of persons being removed from the UK by aircraft is subject to a sufficient framework of safeguards to fulfil the state’s obligations under Articles 2 and 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Further, the decision of the Home Secretary not to publish aspects of the applicable policy on the use of such control and restraint is lawful.’
UK Human Rights Blog, 7th November 2014
Source: http://ukhumanrightsblog.com/
Deportation of Lebanese man with Down’s ‘inhumane’ – Vince Cable – The Guardian
‘The proposed deportation of a Lebanese man with Down’s syndrome has been branded “fundamentally inhumane” by the business secretary, Vince Cable. Wadih Chourey, 44, has lived in Twickenham, south-west London, for the past 17 years after seeking refuge from abuse in Beirut. But both his parents have since died and his brother Camil, 52, said he would be unable to care for himself in Lebanon.’
The Guardian, 6th November 2014
Source: www.guardian.co.uk
Anxious Scrutiny – Speech by Lord Sumption
Anxious Scrutiny (PDF)
Lord Sumption
Administrative Law Bar Association Annual Lecture, 4th November 2014
Source: www.supremecourt.uk
Letting in a chink of light to closed material cases : Bank Mellat again – UK Human Rights Blog
‘Fireworks here from Collins J in making sure that Bank Mellat got some disclosure of information in its fight to discharge a financial restriction order against it.’
UK Human Rights Blog, 5th November 2014
Source: www.ukhumanrightsblog.com
VB (Appellant) v Westminster Magistrates’ Court (Respondent); EN (Appellant) v Westminster Magistrates’ Court (Respondent); CM (Appellant) v Westminster Magistrates’ Court (Respondent); CU (Appellant) v Westminster Magistrates’ Court (Respondent) – Supreme Court
Supreme Court, 5th November 2014
Supreme Court to rule on Rwandan genocide extradition this week – The Independent
‘Supreme Court judges will be asked this week to rule whether five men accused of taking part in the 1994 Rwandan genocide should be extradited to face trial.’
The Independent, 2nd November 2014
Source: www.independent.co.uk
