“Fifteen living relatives of the monarch, the last English king to die in battle almost 500 years before the European convention on human rights came into force, are threatening to launch a legal challenge seeking the Richard III’s reburial in York Minster, rather than the proposed Leicester Cathedral. An application for judicial review is to be lodged by lawyers in Leeds on behalf of the Plantagenet Alliance to bring the action against the Ministry of Justice, which granted the archaeological excavation licence to Leicester University, the Guardian reported.”
Daily Telegraph, 27th March 2013
Source: www.telegraph.co.uk
“Human rights judges have adjourned until September consideration of more than
2,300 legal cases against the UK over prisoner voting rights.”
BBC News, 26th March 2013
Source: www.bbc.co.uk
“Last year the Divisional Court upheld the Home Secretary’s decision to prevent a dissident Iranian politician coming to the United Kingdom to address the Palace of Westminster: see that decision here and my post discussing the ‘Politics of Fear’.”
UK Human Rights Blog, 22nd March 2013
Source: www.ukhumanrightsblog.com
“Deirdre Fottrell, barrister of Coram Chambers, reviews recent cases involving human rights issues which are of significance to family lawyers.”
Family Law Week, 22nd March 2013
Source: www.familylawweek.co.uk
Swift v Secretary of State for Justice [2013] EWCA Civ 193; [2013] WLR (D) 118
“The exclusion of a person, cohabiting for less than two years with another who had subsequently died, from the classes of family members entitled to claim damages for loss of dependency under the Fatal Accidents Act 1976, as amended, was a proportionate means of pursuing the legitimate legislative aim of confining the right to recovery to those who had relationships of some degree of permanence and dependence. Accordingly, section 1(3)(b) of the 1976 Act, as substituted by section 3(1) of the Administration of Justice Act 1982, was not incompatible with article 14, in conjunction with article 8, of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, and the choice made by the legislature was not manifestly without foundation and was one Parliament was entitled to make. And even if the section amounted to an interference with the right to respect for family life in breach of article 8.1, the interference was justified under article 8.2.”
WLR Daily, 18th March 2013
Source: www.iclr.co.uk
“From the beginning of April 2013 the chances of getting help with legal bills will be slim. The Law Society estimates 650,000 cases will no longer qualify, including 20,000 employment cases and 200,000 in family law.”
The Guardian, 23rd March 2013
Source: www.guardian.co.uk
“The Commission delivered its Report – A UK Bill of Rights? – The Choice Before Us – to the Government in December 2012. It is an odd document, dominated by the lack of agreement in the Commission as to the role that any human rights’ instrument in Britain should play. That was unsurprising since at the inception of the Commission the Coalition partners appeared to want it to play two different roles – defending or attacking the HRA. From the very outset the Commission and the idea of a Bill of Rights (BoR) was relied upon by Cameron and other senior Conservatives to allay anger in the Conservative party, and among some voters, directed at decisions made under the Human Rights Act. David Cameron announced the Commission’s inception in March 2011 at Prime Ministers’ Questions as a reaction to criticism of the decision of the Supreme Court that sex offenders should be able to challenge their inclusion on the Sex Offenders’ register. He indicated that a BoR would address the concerns expressed (17.3.11; see the Telegraph in relation to R and Thompson v SSHD). The idea that a BoR could right the wrongs of the HRA – would provide a panacea for the HRA’s ills – had apparently been embedded in the Conservative party psyche for some years: David Cameron in a speech to the Centre for Policy Studies in 2006 Balancing freedom and security – A modern British Bill of Rights said that the HRA should be repealed: ‘….The Human Rights Act has a damaging impact on our ability to protect our society against terrorism…. . I am today committing my Party to work towards the production of a Modern Bill of Rights’. In contrast, the 2010 Liberal Democrat election manifesto promised to ‘Ensure that everyone has the same protections under the law by protecting the Human Rights Act.'”
UK Constitution Law Group, 21st March 2013
Source: www.ukconstitutionllaw.org
“Rapid expansion of human rights obligations at the European and international levels arguably undermines the system of International Human Rights Law. Countries like the UK, which place strong emphasis on the need to protect individuals from abuses, are faced with ever more obligations stemming from rights inflation. One crucial way in which this occurs is through rights replication.”
UK Human Rights Blog, 20th March 2013
Source: www.ukhumanrightsblog.com
“Human rights will be a politically live issue at the next election. Leading on the issue will by the Conservative Party, urged on by elements in the media such as the Daily Mail with a commercial interest in resistance to any law on privacy deriving from human rights. So, the Working Men’s College has done well to identify this topic for exploration. This evening is a celebration of the college’s stated aim to ‘engage positively with the past, while finding new ways to pursue its founders’ aims into the 21st century.’ ”
UK Human Rights Blog, 20th March 2013
Source: www.ukhumanrightsblog.com
“In Catt v ACPO and others; T v Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis and another [2013] EWCA Civ 192, the Court of Appeal considered two appeals regarding the powers of the police to collect and retain personal information about members of the public. Both cases turned on the application of Article 8 of the Convention; in both, the Court held that there had been an interference with the Article 8(1) right to respect for private life, and that the interference was not justified under Article 8(2).”
Panopticon, 20th March 2013
Source: www.panopticonblog.com
“Newspapers likely to take action over regulations that will require huge payouts when stories are wrong.”
The Guardian, 19th March 2013
Source: www.guardian.co.uk
“The retention by the police of personal information on an individual stored on a police national database, or the issue of a warning notice against a person accused of harassment and its retention in police records, involved an interference with a person’s right to respect for his private and family life, within the meaning of article 8 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, and such retention would breach the right unless justified.”
WLR Daily, 14th March 2013
Source: www.iclr.co.uk
Should the Decision of the Foreign Secretary be Justiciable?
Louise Christian, Senior Consultant and Head of Public Law, Christian Khan Solicitors
Inner Temple Reader’s Lecture Series, 18th February 2013
Source: www.innertemple.org.uk
“Swift v. Secretary of State for Justice, Court of Appeal, 18 February 2013. Ms Swift lost her live-in partner in an accident at work caused by negligence. She was pregnant with her partner’s child, but had only been living with him for 6 months. Had she been with him for 2 years, she could have claimed damages for his death under section 1(3) of the Fatal Accidents Act – set out at [1] of the CA judgment. She would then have been a ‘dependant’ as defined under the FAA. So she argued that her rights under Articles 8 (family) and 14 (discrimination) of the ECHR were not properly respected by the law governing damages for the death of a relative – there was no justification for this stark cut-off – 1 year 11 months no claim, 2 years a claim. The judge refused to grant a declaration of incompatibility between the ECHR and the Fatal Accidents Act, and the Court of Appeal has just upheld his decision.”
UK Human Rights Blog, 18th March 2013
Source: www.ukhumanrightsblog.com
Are Bills of Rights Necessary in Common Law Systems?
Justice Dyson Heydon AC
Inner Temple Reader’s Lecture Series, 21st January 2013
Source: www.innertemple.org.uk
“Esther Lieu, a Pupil at Coram Chambers, and Adam Weiss, Legal Director, The AIRE Centre, explain the ECtHR’s recent decision in Raw v France which considered, amongst other matters, the enforcement of court orders and the circumstances in which a parent could represent their children in Strasbourg proceedings.”
Family Law Week, 18th March 2013
Source: www.familylawweek.com
“The recent case of Birmingham CC v Beech contains a wealth of legal issues but sadly for the Defendant, none of them was decided in her favour. Mrs Beech’s parents had been joint tenants of a 3 bedroom property at 31 Tilshead Close, Birmingham since 1967. Mrs B’s father passed away in 1994 and her mother succeeded to the tenancy. Mrs B moved in to the property with her new partner in 2007 in order to provide care for her mother. Between 2008 and 2009, five offers of accommodation were made to Mrs B and these were refused for a variety of reasons. Mrs B’s request for her name to be added to the tenancy for Tilshead Close was also refused.”
NearlyLegal, 17th March 2013
Source: www.nearlylegal.co.uk
“The Supreme Court could use secret evidence in a ruling for the first time in a landmark case this week despite previously banning such material from civil courts.”
Daily Telegraph, 18th March 2013
Source: www.telegraph.co.uk
“David Anderson QC, the Independent Reviewer of terrorism legislation, has released his first report into the operation of Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures, introduced in 2011 with the aim of protecting the public from persons believed to have engaged in terrorism, but who can neither be prosecuted nor deported.”
UK Human Rights Blog, 14th March 2013
Source: www.ukhumanrightsblog.com
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