“It’s hard to see how any system that captures data from millions of law-abiding citizens satisfies our right to privacy”
The Guardian, 18th June 2013
Source: www.guardian.co.uk
“The families of soldiers killed in Iraq can pursue damages against the government under the Human Rights Act, the Supreme Court has ruled.”
BBC News, 19th June 2013
Source: www.bbc.co.uk
“A fundamental shift in the relationship between the government and the governed is taking place: by restricting access to the law, the state is handing itself an alarming immunity from legal scrutiny. There are several aspects to this: the partial or total withdrawal of state financial support for people who lack the means to pay for legal advice and representation; and for those who can pay, a restriction on which kinds of decision by public bodies can be challenged. In the area in which I work, criminal law, defendants who receive legal aid will lose the right to choose who represents them in court. Meanwhile, the misleadingly named Justice and Security Act, passed earlier this year, enables the government to conceal evidence from litigants by using national security as a trump card. All this is accompanied by an unbending hostility to human rights law, tainted by its association with Europe, even though this legislation at least offers the weak the possibility of redress for abuses by public authorities.”
London Review of Books, 6th June 2013
Source: www.lrb.co.uk
“Supreme Court judges will rule later on whether relatives of soldiers killed in Iraq can sue the government for damages under the Human Rights Act.”
BBC News, 19th June 2013
Source: www.bbc.co.uk
“Counsel for the defendant in this recent case, heard at Clerkenwell & Shoreditch County Court, provided a skeleton argument on the morning of the hearing, ignoring the set aside (it being conceded there was no merit in this) but rather arguing that the Court’s lack of discretion to delay execution of a possession order by over six weeks was incompatible with Article 8. It followed that he was seeking a transfer to the High Court for declaration purposes (CPR 30.3(2)(g)).”
Hardwicke Chambers, 3rd June 2013
Source: www.hardwicke.co.uk
“The provision in section 15(4) of the Commons Act 2006, allowing an application for registration of land as a town or village green to be made up to five years after a cessation of qualifying user predating the commencement of section 15, was not incompatible with the landowner’s right to peaceful enjoyment of possessions under article 1 of the First Protocol to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.”
WLR Daily, 14th June 2013
Source: www.iclr.co.uk
O’Neill v HM Advocate (No 2); Lauchlanv Same [2013] UKSC 36; [2013] WLR (D) 231
“The right to a trial within a reasonable time under article 6.1 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms was a separate right from the right to a fair trial under that article. Consequently the time when a person was ‘charged’ with an offence for the purposes of time starting to run under the reasonable time guarantee might be different from the time when he should have had access to a lawyer for the purposes of ensuring a fair trial under article 6.1 read with article 6.3(c).”
WLR Daily, 13th June 2013
Source: www.iclr.co.uk
“The theory that there is no smoke without fire is one which often looms large where teachers are accused of sexual offences against pupils. Even in the face of a decision by the CPS that there is insufficient evidence to proceed with a prosecution or an acquittal following a criminal trial, a teacher who has been accused of sexual offences may find it hard to escape the tainting effects of the allegations. Of course, a critically important issue for the teacher in question is whether the allegations will ultimately find their way into any enhanced criminal record certificate (ECRC). This is an issue which has been considered by the High Court in two recent cases.”
Panopticon, 13th June 2013
Source: www.panopticonblog.com
“The attorney general, Dominic Grieve, has urged the supreme court to dismiss legal challenges by two convicted murderers who are seeking the right for prisoners to vote.”
The Guardian, 11th June 2013
Source: www.guardian.co.uk
“Iain Duncan Smith and parliament have conspired to undermine the basic rights of hundreds of thousands of jobseekers by enacting retrospective emergency legislation, according to the contents of a legal filing sent to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).”
The Guardian, 11th June 2013
Source: www.guardian.co.uk
“Two convicted murderers have taken their fight for the right to vote while in prison to the UK’s highest court.”
The Independent, 10th June 2013
Source: www.independent.co.uk
“Following news of payments over Mau Mau insurgency, more claims likely from Kenya, Cyprus and other former colonies.”
The Guardian, 6th June 2013
Source: www.guardian.co.uk
“A man wrongfully convicted of possessing ammunition after forensics staff mixed
up his £3 keyring and a live bullet is suing the government.”
BBC News, 7th June 2013
Source: www.bbc.co.uk
“There has been a lot of commentary on the Report of the Bill of Rights’ Commission, and the ‘damp squib’ analysis of the Report (see Mark Elliott) as a whole is one most commentators appear to assent to (see eg Joshua Rozenberg for the Guardian here). My view in general is that the squib could reignite post-2015 if a Conservative government is elected, not in relation to the very hesitant ideas as to the possible future content of a Bill of Rights that the Report put forward, but in relation to its majority recommendation that there should be one (see further my previous post on the Commission Report here). If a BoR was to emerge under a Conservative government post-2015 I suggest that it would reflect the ideas of the Conservative nominees on the Commission which assumed a far more concrete form in the Report than the majority recommendations did (eg see here at p 192). This blog post due to its length is not intended to examine the probable nature of such a BoR based on those ideas in general, but to focus only on two aspects: the idea of curtailing the effects of an equivalent to Article 8 ECHR (right to respect for private and family life), and of requiring domestic courts to disapply Strasbourg jurisprudence under a BoR in a wider range of situations than at present under s2HRA (see Roger Masterman’s post on s2 on this blog here). In respect of the latter issue the potential impact of so doing will only be linked to selected aspects of Article 8 jurisprudence of especial actual and potential benefit to women.”
UK Constitutional Law Group, 5th June 2013
Source: www.ukconstitutionallaw.org
“Joshua Rozenberg returns for another series of Law in Action. This week, Joshua asks the president of the European Court of Human Rights, Dean Spielmann, what he makes of the fierce criticism levelled at his court by some in Britain. The short answer: not much. Also in the programme: what are we really agreeing to when we accept internet companies’ terms of service? And are pornography laws in England and Wales working?”
BBC Law in Action, 4th June 2013
Source: www.bbc.co.uk
“Britain would face ‘political disaster’ and may have to leave the EU if it wants to pull out of the European Convention on Human Rights, Europe’s leading judge on the issue has warned.”
Daily Telegraph, 4th June 2013
Source: www.telegraph.co.uk
“Reporting restrictions on proceedings concerning a life prisoner should be discharged since the public interest in allowing media organisations to publish reports outweighed the prisoner’s human rights.”
UK Human Rights Blog, 3rd June 2013
Source: www.ukhumanrightsblog.com
Abdulrahim v Council of the European Union and another (Case C-239/12P); [2013] WLR (D) 208
“Despite the removal of his name from a ‘terrorist watch list’, established by Council Regulation (EC) No 881/2002 imposing restrictive measures directed against certain persons and entities associated with Usama bin Laden, the Al-Qaida network and the Taliban, to which his name had been added by Council Regulation (EC) 1330/2008, the applicant retained an interest in having the courts of the European Union recognise that he should never have been included on the list since the removal of his name did not dispose of his constitutional claims.”
WLR Daily, 28th May 2013
Source: www.iclr.co.uk
“Sleeping rough on the streets of London is not an appealing prospect. It is all the more unappealing for anyone with two young children in the grip of an unseasonably cold winter. It was in order to avoid this fate that, in January 2012, the parents of MN and KN (the claimants in this case) approached their local authority, the London Borough of Hackney, and asked for assistance.”
Hardwicke Chambers, 24th May 2013
Source: www.hardwicke.co.uk
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