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admin - 10th January 2014
“What business is it of the South African authorities when torture on a widespread scale is alleged to have been committed by Zimbabweans against Zimbabweans in Zimbabwe? It is that question that is at the heart of this appeal.” (Judge Navsa, National Commissioner of the South African Police Service v Southern African Human Rights Litigation […]
Neil Shah - 10th December 2013
The recent case of CF v Security Service provides an early indication of how the courts will treat the newly-implemented Justice and Security Act 2013. The claimants in this case were British citizens of Somali descent, who were detained in Somaliland for two months prior to their removal to the UK. They argued that they […]
Chintan Chandrachud - 3rd December 2013
Secret executions of death row prisoners are increasingly becoming the order of the day in India. At least three (two ‘successful’, one failed) have been attempted in the last few months. These incidents have been characterised by three kinds of secrecy. First, where the prisoner sentenced to death was not informed in advance about the […]
Claire Overman - 2nd October 2013
Debate has recently been ignited in the UK about whether Muslim veils can be accommodated in court, stemming from Judge Peter Murphy’s decision in R v D. In her post on this blog, Prof Carolyn Evans provides a thorough overview of the judgment. In summary, the defendant, a Muslim woman, had been charged with witness intimidation. […]
Carolyn Evans - 1st October 2013
In a recent Crown Court case The Queen v. D(R), His Honour Judge Murphy had to rule on whether a defendant charged with witness intimidation should be allowed to keep her face covered during trial in compliance with her religious belief. The defendant (D) in this case was a Muslim woman who wore a niqaab […]
Thalia Anthony - 19th September 2013
Bugmy v The Queen provides the High Court of Australia with its first opportunity in thirty years to rule on the significance of Indigenous background in sentencing. The overrepresentation of Indigenous offenders in Australian prisons has doubled in the last twenty years: in the early 1990s indigenous offenders represented 14 per cent of the prison population, today they […]
Ilke Meissner - 9th August 2013
In the landmark 1991 judgement of the Namibian Supreme Court in Ex Parte: Attorney-General, In Re Corporal punishment by Organs of State, Berker CJ remarked in a separate judgement, that little “agreement exists in respect of the desirability or otherwise of corporal punishment in schools.” 22 years later this statement still rings true. In highly […]
Nicolás Espejo-Yaksic - 23rd July 2013
In Mendoza et al. v. Argentina, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (ICHR) has determined that life sentences against children constitute a breach of the American Convention on Human Rights (ACHR). In an historic decision that follows recent developments in children’s rights from Inter-American Human Rights Law, the ICHR found the Government of Argentina guilty […]
Natasha Holcroft-Emmess - 12th July 2013
The European Court of Human Rights’ recent decision in Vinter v UK will inevitably come under fire for infringing abstract notions of subsidiarity and the Court criticised for meddling in national affairs (see the prediction in Claire Overman’s blog post for the Oxford Human Rights Hub earlier this week). The present post outlines some of the […]
Claire Overman - 10th July 2013
The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights has ruled, in the case of Vinter and Others v United Kingdom, that whole life orders of imprisonment violate Article 3 of the European Convention of Human Rights, which prohibits inhuman and degrading treatment and torture. As the Court pointed out at paragraph 12, the […]
Guest Contributor - 10th May 2013
By Yaliwe Clarke Given international gains in legislation that protects women’s right to abortion, it is concerning that Zambia’s current draft constitution has put this matter back into national political debate. Due to the inclusion of Article 28 (1) in the new draft constitution that states that “…life begins at conception,” a new and seemingly […]
Import Import - 6th May 2013
Last Autumn, the world witnessed a fleeting frenzy when The Gambia’s eccentric President Jammeh resumed executions for prisoners condemned to death. These executions—the country’s first in 27 years—were soon halted amidst international protest, but not before nine lives had been lost. Media reports decried the popular vacation spot, revealing for a moment its more troubled […]