Search

In light of recent developments this article asks whether the protections offered by art.7 of the ECHR (as currently interpreted) are sllficient in respect of the criminalisation of conduct which principally takes place abroad and the extent to which domestic maximum penalties for criminal liability can be considered properly foreseeable in light of increasing cross-jurisdictional co-operation and enforcement. In particular, it argues that there is a need to give greater consideration to the impact of extra-territorial criminalisation of non-citizens and suggests that recent cases on the international enforcement ofconfiscation orders reveal a requirement for further consideration of what constitutes an "available penalty" under art.7. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Defendant charged with assisting terrorist offender-defendant's statement obtained in breach of police procedures-judge refusing to exclude statement at trial-European Court of Human Rights finding violation of right to fair trial-whether conviction to be quashed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the recognition of equivalence of art. 11 EUCFR and art. 10 ECHR, the CJEU's case law falls behind the standards of protection afforded by the ECtHR to commercial speech. It lacks a systematic or consistent scrutiny of interferences with commercial speech in the light offreedom of expression and the media, as it overall assumes that commercial speech makes no (significant) contribution to public discourse and constitutes a threat to pluralism. This comparative analysis of the case law of the ECtHR with that of the CJEU provides a taxonomy of standards, which the CJEU should apply to restrictions on commercial speech from a fundamental rights perspective, whether these interfere with free movement or result from internal market legislation. Such standards are to build upon the ECtHR s case law, which has produced a fully-fledged set of standards ofscrutiny on a sliding scale, depending on the right involved, the medium used and the contribution, if any, of commercial speech to pluralism. The CJEU may even go further and apply more robust or nuanced standards, not least because it is predominantly concerned with economic matters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been an unproductive artificiality in the current understanding of information technology in employment law which focuses more on procedural hurdles than deliberating upon the substance of the rights in question. This procedural approach has increasingly shown signs of obsolescence as contemporary innovations in information technology contest the more traditional boundaries relied upon in law. This article uses the decision in Barbulescu v Romania as a tool for uncovering the legal considerations regarding the intermingling of information technology, the workplace and employees' private lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The jury direction on adverse inferences from failures to mention facts when questioned is too long. The length of the jury direction is explained by an overcautious approach to decisions of the European Court of Human Rights. There is a good case for revisiting the direction in order to shorten it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past 20 years there have been a number of interesting points of interaction between public international law and the Basic Law. These have included the use of international norms in the interpretation of Basic Law provisions, the relevance of British treaty ratifications to the scope of domestic constitutional guarantees in Hong Kong, the constitutional significance of treaties referenced in Art 39 of the Basic Law, the continuing scope and effect of the common law doctrine of incorporation, and the influence of international norms on the common law grounds of judicial review. This article surveys these developments, considers the proper scope of dualism as a constitutional principle in Hong Kong and evaluates the future relationship between Basic Law and public law norms, on the one hand, and international norms, on the other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Court of Appeal's (CA) recent ruling in ZN v Secretary for Justice on human trafficking is problematic for three reasons. First, it read too much into the People's Republic of China's choice not to apply the Palermo Protocol to Hong Kong. Second, the CA's striking preference for the United Nations Human Rights Committee's General Comments over the European Court of Human Rights jurisprudence contradicts a long line of the Court of Final Appeal case law. Finally, the CA's ruling that the errant employer's abusive conduct towards ZN constituted forced labour, in contravention of art 4(3) of the Hong Kong Bill of Rights, is extraordinary because s7 of the Hong Kong Bill of Rights Ordinance (Cap 383) (BORO) explicitly provides that the BORO does not apply to conduct between private individuals. While deeming it unnecessary for the Hong Kong legislature to enact a specific law on forced labour, the CA ironically established a new common law offence of forced labour under Hong Kong law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the take of Parole Board for England and Wales on release of prisoners on license, and includes topics such as Parliament's deference to several decisions of the European Court of Human Rights; and enactment of Criminal Justice Act of 2003 for addressing the same.

In 2012, the European Court of Human Rights held, for the first time, that the discriminatory treatment of an individual on the grounds of his sexual orientation amounted to a violation of art. 3, alone and in conjunction with art. 14, of the European Convention on Human Rights. This judgment is highly significant given that individuals in Europe have been arguing since 1959 that forms of ill-treatment based on sexual orientation amount to a violation of art. 3 of the Convention. In this article we provide a critical analysis of the evolution of the Court's art. 3 jurisprudence in order to assess the ways in which this has developed the protection of sexual minorities in Europe. We identify major gaps in this protection, most notably in respect of asylum, and argue that the Court's art. 3 jurisprudence should be further evolved to address these. Using the example of same-sex marriage, we conclude with a consideration of how sexual minorities might better and more creatively use art. 3 in the future to address discrimination against them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on violation of human rights caused by disclosure of criminal records by the police and third parties like employers, citing pertinence of a ruling of the European Court of Human Rights, and mentions laws governing disclosure of criminal records like Pt V of the Police Act 1997.

The European Court of Human Rights in Da Silva v United Kingdom has held that the evidential test for bringing prosecutions does not violate any rights of victims to have their crimes effectively prosecuted. This is right, but the true reasons for this are that the standard of the evidential test is not as high as might be supposed, and that decisions not to prosecute are now review able as of right. By contrast, other reasons relied on in Da Silva and in many domestic sources are quite unconvincing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ECtHR's Grand Chamber judgment in Avotiņš v Latvia concerning the execution of default judgments emanating from other Member States strikes a viable balance between admonishment of the Latvian Supreme Court and deference to EU law. The judgment is somewhat less convincing in its assessment of the specific procedural obligations at stake. Any appreciation of EU law mechanisms based on mutual trust should focus on whether doubts as to the respect of fundamental rights in the course of transnational judicial co-operation are effectively addressed in court. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) considered the failure of the highest Italian court to provide a statement of reasons for its refusal to request a preliminary ruling from the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to constitute a violation of article 6 ECHR in Dhahbi and Schipani. These judgments have been criticised for changing the nature of the preliminary reference procedure from a mechanism of inter-judicial co-operation to a mechanism safeguarding the individual right to a fair trial. This article argues that these fears are somewhat exaggerated since the ECJ and national courts have also scrutinised the preliminary reference procedure under an individual fundamental rights-based approach. What is more problematic, however, is the inconsistent approach of the ECtHR. The ECJ should therefore provide guidance to national courts what their obligations are if they refuse to refer. This all the more given that the preliminary reference procedure shows significant shortcomings from the point of view of ejfective judicial protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the codification of the Human Rights Act 1998 with a British Bill of Rights, and mentions incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR); international adjudication of European consensus; and Oliari and Others v Italy court case.

This article identifies four distinct areas of EU law influence on the ECtHR's doctrines: references for informational purposes; references to support an autonomous interpretation; legal transplants; and references in the context of evolutive interpretation. EU law is relevant for both the determination of the scope of Convention rights and for the ECtHR's proportionality analysis, but EU law influence is not confined to the case law of the CJEU. It includes the full spectrum ofEU legal materials. While it welcomes the ECtHR s engagement with developments at EU level, the article expresses a normative critique that is underpinned by a concern that the ECtHR s reasoning is often lacking in clarity and exposition of argument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A commentary is presented on the judgment issued by the European Court of Human Rights on the case of Beuze v. Belgium which found a violation of the right to a fair trial where the defendant had been convicted of premeditated murder based on statements he made after being denied access to a lawyer.

The article relates the judgment issued by the European Court of Human Rights on the case of Beuze v. Belgium which found a violation of the right to a fair trial where the defendant had been convicted of premeditated murder based on statements he made after being denied access to a lawyer.

According to art.267 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), the courts of the Member States may--and sometimes must--refer questions about the validity and interpretation of EU law to the Court of Justice of the EU so that it can make a binding ruling. This article reviews the practice of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) on the demands that art.6 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), on the right to a fair trial, make on Member States' courts when considering making a reference to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling. Among other things, it is pointed out that the ECtHR practice on the requirement to give reasons for not making a reference appears to go further than several of the rulings given by Member States' courts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reflects on the decision of the European Court of Human Rights in the Ali (Abdulla) v United Kingdom related to the press reporting following conviction before retrial for the publication of widespread inaccurate material. It mentions the defendants had the right to a fair trial and the media reporting did not prejudice the due process of law. It also mentions the virulent press campaign could adversely affect the fairness of a trial and influence jurors.

The article discusses the history of the Human Rights Act 1998 along with information on specific reference of the book "Human Rights & the End of Empire" by Brian Simpson and a court case Horncastle v. United Kingdom.

This article investigates the exclusion of public employees from the scope of the right to a fair trial under art. 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights. It discusses the different interpretative techniques used by the European Court of Human Rights to attempt to modify that exclusion. It appears that on the one hand, the Court is drawn towards accepting the "moral truth " that access to justice should pertain to all groups in relation to their (private) rights. On the other hand, "democratic" considerations of subsidiarity and consensus have constrained the full promotion of this truth and hence the full development of human rights protection in this field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article looks at the "Armstrong (Peter) v United Kingdom" case of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). It mentions that the application to the ECtHR has rejected the applicant application that argued that the presence of a retired and serving police officer on the jury violated his right to a fair trial in which he accused of a murder.

This article provides a critical analysis of the textual interpretation of Article 12 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) promulgated by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in respect of same-sex marriage. I argue that the ECtHR's interpretation of art.12 is based on problematic historical claims about the textual construction of the right to marry which, when subject to scrutiny in light of available evidence relating to the drafting process of the ECHR, undermine its conclusion that art.12 extends only to opposite-sex couples. I challenge the ECtHR's interpretation of art.12 by arguing that its understanding of the wording of the right to marry suffers from "historical presentism". I conclude by suggesting that a textual interpretation of art.12 need not lead to the conclusion that same-sex couples are excluded from the right to marry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the implementation of Protocol No.15 by European Court of Human Rights which amends legislations of the European Convention on Human Rights and change the convention's admissibility criteria and impose stricter rules regarding exercise of the right of individual petition.

The article discusses the decision of the Supreme Court of Great Britain and European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on the cases Manchester City Council v. Pinnock and Hounslow LBC v. Powell. Topics discussed include rules of the ECHR related to right to question the proportionality, laws for regulating the cases related to eviction, and laws related to the regulation of tenancy rights.

The article offers information on history, purpose and development in the criminal victims' right under the human rights law of Great Britain. It discusses the role of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in protecting the rights of victims in criminal investigation and prosecution with reference to the British criminal law. It also analyzes the importance of the Human Rights Act 1998 in safeguarding the rights of victims and witnesses.

The article offers information on the history, development and significance of the European human rights law and analyzes its impact upon the criminal justice in Great Britain between 2003 and 2013. It discusses the clash between British Government, the European Court of Human Rights, and the British Supreme Court over exceptions to the hearsay rule, deportation law, and the right to confrontation.

The article offers information on the analysis of the essence of the right to a fair trial under the English common law and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Topics discussed include the use of hearsay statement as evidence in prosecution of a fair trial, the decision of the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights in the case of Al-Khawaja v. United Kingdom and the fundamental human rights guarantee.

The article presents Great Britain Supreme Court case R. (on the application of Yam) v Central Criminal Court which deals with use of sensitive material, in this case the appellant was seeking variation of order to permit use of closed material in application to European Court of Human Rights.

The article looks at the case of Paulet v. the United Kingdom presented to the European Court of Human Rights (Fourth Section). It mentions that that case come to the court as applicant lodged a complaint against the United Kingdom the under Article 34 of the Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.

When and to whom should a person's criminal record be disclosed? What information contained in criminal records should be disclosable? This article considers the British disclosure rules in the context of the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in MM v United Kingdom, and also in the framework of the principles underlying the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 19 74. It argues that, despite recent changes, the UK system still fails to strike the right balance between public protection, the individual s right to privacy, and the criminal justice system s interests in rehabilitation and social reintegration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the modern legal culture of developed countries that emphasizes on human rights, free individual choice, and convergence. Topics discussed include the European Court of Human Rights case Dmitriy Ryabov v. Russia of a Russian father whose parental rights to his son had been restricted, the U.S Supreme Court case Marbury v. Madison that formed the basis for the exercise of judicial review in the U.S and the impact of the human rights culture.

In 2011 and 2012, the European Court of Human Rights bolstered its case law concerning contracting parties' responsibility under the ECHR for acts of international organisations of which they are Member States, with the Court rendering decisions on responsibility with respect to CJEU preliminary rulings, UN sanctions, EU asylum regulations, and ICC defence witnesses. At first sight, these decisions, although partly based on the Court's Bosphorus decision (2005), appear to lack principled guidance. On closer inspection, however, what unites these cases is that the Court is generally reluctant to be drawn into second-guessing the human rights adequacy of the internal procedures of international organisations. It does so by finding no State action, by finding State discretion, or by simply accepting the organisation's internal procedures as adequate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the legality and the public policy meant for prosecuting transgender people for sexual offences. Topics discussed include non-disclosure of the gender history to their sexual partners before intimacy, role of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECtHR) for providing right to privacy and laws made for prosecuting the sexual offences committed by fraud. It also discusses criminalization of deception in context of sexual harassment.

The article focuses on the impact of digital technology on the changing scenarios of the criminal trials and communication. Topics discussed include the admissibility of video-link testimony, right to confrontation by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and the impact of the comparative law on cross-examination. It also discusses the importance of confrontation and the principle of proportionality.

The article offers information on the European Court of Human Rights cases Gillan v. United Kingdom and Colon v. Netherlands which were regarding stop and search by police without suspicion of criminal wrongdoing. Topics discussed include police rights in Great Britain, crime prevention searches in the Netherlands, and criminal justice and public order law in Great Britain.

Owing to the overwhelming number of applications before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), Draft Protocol No.16 proposes the introduction of a new advisory opinion procedure. This procedure aims at alleviating Strasbourg's judicial workload by enabling the domestic courts of the contracting parties to request advisory opinions on alleged human rights violations, which could in turn serve as precedents for future applications. The principal purpose of this article is to present the most important provisions and legal consequences of the newly proposed advisory opinion procedure; but also, as this procedure draws certain inspirations from the European Union's preliminary reference procedure, the article aims to contrast these provisions with their respective counterparts in EU law (with respect to both the implications and legal effects of art.267 TFEU (ex art.234 EC) and Court of Justice case law); to examine the similarities and differences between those two mechanisms; to show legal difficulties that may arise owing to the proposed advisory opinion procedure; and to explore the extent to which Strasbourg could use Court of Justice case law to develop its advisory opinion jurisdiction further. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]