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The Europe effect

22 June 2012 / Roger Smith
Issue: 7519 / Categories: Opinion , Human rights
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Roger Smith rounds up recent human rights developments

Some may hate it, but Europe (through both the Council of Europe and the EU) plays an increasing role in policy-making both here and elsewhere. Increased travel, more expatriate residence and more international transactions contribute to the growing importance of the European dimension to issues once able to be seen as clearly domestic or obviously foreign.

May: the overt attack

Theresa May continued her vendetta against judicial decisions in immigration cases by announcing that the House of Commons would pass a resolution declaring how it thought Art 8 should be interpreted.

May comments were more than somewhat Delphic: “[The right to family life] is not an absolute right…In the interests of the economy, or controlling migration or public order, those sort of issues, the state has a right to qualify the right to a family life.” She plans a Parliamentary vote on government policy which she expects the judges to “follow and take into account”. She had a threat: “If they don’t we will have

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Writing in NLJ this week, Manvir Kaur Grewal of Corker Binning analyses the collapse of R v Óg Ó hAnnaidh, where a terrorism charge failed because prosecutors lacked statutory consent. The case, she argues, highlights how procedural safeguards—time limits, consent requirements and institutional checks—define lawful state power
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