The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has held that an "Extremism Database" maintained by UK police violated an activist's right to privacy under Article 8 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (the Convention).
Read MoreIn a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court has upheld the third iteration of President Trump’s ‘Travel Ban’.
Read MoreIn June this year, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled that a scheme providing for the bulk interception of electronic signals in Sweden for foreign surveillance purposes, was consistent with the rights set out in the European Convention of Human Rights (Convention). The decision cements the high threshold required for the protection of the right to respect for private and family life, the home and correspondence under article 8 of the Convention.
Read MoreThe Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (Court) held, in two separate decisions, that Lithuania and Romania both committed violations of the European Convention on Human Rights (Convention) due to their compliancy in the United States Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) rendition program.
The applicants in both cases were suspected of involvement in carrying out terrorist attacks and were detained by the CIA. It was alleged that Lithuania and Romania, respectively, had allowed the CIA to transport the applicants into their jurisdiction, where they had been subjected to torture and arbitrary detention by the CIA.
Read MoreThe European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has found that the extradition by the Belgian Government of a Tunisian national, Mr Trabelsi, from Belgium to the United States (US), where he was to be prosecuted on charges of terrorist offences and liable to be sentenced to life in prison, was a violation of Article 3 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (Convention). Article 3 prohibits inhuman or degrading treatment. His right to individual petition under Article 34 of the Convention was also found to have been breached.
Read MorePolice stopped David Miranda at Heathrow airport and confiscated encrypted National Security Agency material that had originally been stolen by Edward Snowden. Mr Miranda was carrying the data to assist a Guardian journalist. The High Court of Justice of England and Wales rejected Mr Miranda’s arguments that the stop and search had interfered with his right to freedom of expression under English common law and the European Convention on Human Rights. The Court held that it was a proportionate measure in the circumstances, and was a permissible restriction prescribed by law in the interests of national security and safety.
Read MoreThe Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights held that the extension of the final release date of a person convicted of terrorist offences, on the basis of a new approach adopted by the Supreme Court of Spain after she had been sentenced, amounted to punishment without legal basis (article 7) and a violation of her right to liberty (article 5).
Read MoreBank Mellat v Her Majesty's Treasury (No 1) [2013] UKSC 38 (19 June 2013)
A narrow majority of the UK Supreme Court has ruled that it is entitled to consider "closed materials", being materials only available to one party to a proceeding, in certain cases arising under the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 (Act). The court, in coming to its decision, sought to balance the principles of open justice and a person's right to a fair trial with considerations of national security.
Read MoreAswat v The United Kingdom, ECHR 2013 (Application no. 17299/12) (16 April 2013)
The European Court of Human Rights has unanimously held that the extradition of the applicant from the UK to the US would violate article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights because of the severity of the applicant's mental illness.
Read MoreBabar Ahmad & Ors v United Kingdom [2012] ECHR 609 (10 April 2012)
The European Court of Human Rights was required to consider applications by six men facing extradition from the United Kingdom to the United States on terrorism related charges. The decision of the Court in the case of Babar Ahmad and Others v The United Kingdom indicates the approach the court is taking to the interpretation of article 3 rights under the European Convention on Human Rights. In this case, the Court confirmed that extradition to the US was not a breach of the suspects’ human rights.
Read MoreAbu Qatada v United Kingdom [2012] ECHR 56 (17 January 2012)
The European Court of Human Rights was asked to consider whether the Applicant's rights under articles 3 (torture), 5 (liberty and security), 6 (fair trial) and 13 (effective remedy) of the European Convention on Human Rights would be breached if he was deported to Jordan where he faced criminal proceedings. The Court held that there would be a violation of article 6 as there was a real risk that evidence obtained by torture would be used in a retrial. This is the first instance in which the Court has found that an expulsion would constitute a violation of article 6.
Read MoreFederation of Law Societies of Canada v Canada (Attorney General), 2011 BCSC 1270 (27 September 2011)
In the context of international pressure on states to combat anti-money laundering and terrorism financing, the Supreme Court of British Columbia has held that limitations on solicitor-client privilege imposed by anti-money laundering legislation violate principles of fundamental justice in contravention of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The decision will remove the legal profession from the operation of two pieces of anti-money laundering and terrorist financing legislation in Canada.
Read MoreHome Office v Tariq [2011] UKSC 35 (13 July 2011)
In this case, the United Kingdom Supreme Court considered the nature and scope of the right to a fair hearing and, in particular, the circumstances in which the nature of allegations against a person can be withheld from them in the interests of national security.
Read MoreBB, R (on the application of) v Special Immigration Appeals Commission & Anor [2011] EWHC 336 (Admin) (25 February 2011)
This case considered procedural requirements in the hearing of bail applications made by persons detained on undisclosed national security grounds. The England and Wales High Court concluded that, as a minimum requirement in such applications, government authorities must disclose to the detainees the evidence it used in deciding to deport them. This is so despite the fact that the government can legally detain people pending their deportation on the basis of undisclosed material.
Read MoreAhmed & Anor v The Queen [2011] EWCA Crim 184 (25 February 2011)
The applicant claimed that his prosecution for terrorism offences would amount to an abuse of process, on the grounds that British authorities were complicit in his torture committed abroad by Pakistani authorities. The UK Court of Appeal refused to extend the law of abuse of process to situations where the defendant’s torture does not impact on the trial. The prosecution will only be an abuse of process if the product of torture (for example, a statement) is being used in court to make a case against the defendant.
Read MoreAN v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2010] EWCA Civ 869 (28 July 2010)
A recent decision before the England and Wales Court of Appeal has found that if a control order is legally flawed, or revoked by the Secretary of State, then it shall be quashed ab initio.
Read MoreSecretary of State for the Home Department v AP [2010] UKSC 24 (16 June 2010)
A recent decision of the UK Supreme Court has confirmed that certain control order restrictions may constitute a deprivation of liberty sufficient to engage the operation of art 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Read MoreSecretary of State for the Home Department v AF [2010] EWHC 42 (Admin) (18 January 2010)
The England and Wales High Court recently held that non-derogating control orders imposed on two UK citizens under anti-terrorism legislation were void ab initio. This resulted in a more favourable damages outcome for the complainants in their litigation against the Secretary of State for the Home Department, who had imposed the orders.
Read MoreCanada (Prime Minister) v Khadr, 2009 FCA 246 (14 August 2009)
A majority of the Canadian Federal Court of Appeal recently held that Canada’s discretion to decide whether and when to request the return of a Canadian citizen detained in a foreign country, a matter within its exclusive authority to conduct foreign affairs, was fettered by the application of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Court ordered Canada to request the repatriation of Omar Ahmed Khadr from the United States, by whom he was detained in Guantanamo Bay on terrorism-related charges.
Read MoreSecretary of State for the Home Department v GG [2009] EWCA Civ 786 (23 July 2009)
The Court of Appeal of England and Wales has considered the Home Secretary’s power to restrict a person’s liberty with a control order made under the UK Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005. The Court held that broad powers under the relevant legislation had to be read consistently with the common law principle that fundamental rights must not be abrogated without express parliamentary authority.
Read MoreSecretary of State for the Home Department v AF & Anor [2009] UKHL 28 (10 June 2009)
Nine Lords of the House of Lords have unanimously followed the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg (ECHR) in the decision of A v United Kingdom. That decision clarified that where a person subject to a 'control order' under the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 (PTA) challenges its validity, he or she must be given sufficient information to effectively answer the allegations against them. The reading down of the PTA to include a right to a fair trial means control orders cannot be based entirely on evidence undisclosed to the 'controlee'.
Read MoreKhadr v Canada (Minister for Justice) [2009] FC 405 (23 April 2009)
On 23 April 2009, the Federal Court of Canada handed down a decision which discussed in detail the right of citizens to request their government to provide protection against acts which violate accepted norms of international law during a period of detention in a foreign country.
Read MoreA and Ors v United Kingdom [2009] ECHR 3455/05 [Grand Chamber] (19 February 2009)
In a case relating to the detention of non-national terror suspects in the UK, the European Court of Human Rights held that:
RB (Algeria) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2009] UKHL 10 (18 February 2009)
In this case the House of Lords dismissed appeals by RB and U, Algerian nationals, from the Court of Appeal which had allowed their appeals from the Special Immigration Appeals Commission ('SIAC') and remitted their cases to it for reconsideration. The House of Lords also allowed an appeal by the Secretary of State for the Home Department from the Court of Appeal which had allowed Omar Othman's (aka Abu Qatada, a Jordanian national) appeal on the basis that his expulsion would contravene art 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Read MoreR v Benbrika & Ors (Ruling No 20) [2008] VSC 80 (20 March 2008)
The applicants had been charged with terrorism-related offences under the Commonwealth Criminal Code.They applied to have the trial stayed on grounds of unfairness, arguing the conditions of their incarceration and of their transport to and from Court each trial day were increasingly affecting their capacity to properly defend the charges against them.
Read MoreIn a judgment handed down on 31 October 2007, the House of Lords held that obligations imposed on six men under control orders made by the Secretary of State under the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 (UK) (‘PTA’), deprived those men of their liberty in violation of art 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Read MoreImmigration and Refugee Protection Act 2001 (Can)
On 23 February 2007, the Supreme Court of Canada overturned provisions of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act 2001 (Can) relating to the detention of permanent residents and foreign nationals on the basis that the provisions contravened the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Canadian Parliament was given one year to rewrite the IRPA in accordance with the Charter.
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