We are very pleased to welcome this guest post from Michelle Farrell, a lecturer in law at Liverpool University. As I was writing this post, my sister reminded me that I am not a film critic and, as such, I would probably be better off sticking to the torture aspect of Zero Dark Thirty. She’s(…)
Last Friday the Queen’s Bench Division of the High Court in London decided (in the Mutua case) that three Kenyans could pursue claims for damages against the UK Government for its use of torture during the Kenya Emergency of 1952-1960. In the UK and Ireland today the events in 1950s Kenya, as the colonial authorities(…)
We are very pleased to welcome this guest post from Maeve O’Rourke of Justice for Magdalenes. This morning, Justice for Magdalenes (JFM) published our NGO follow-up report to the UN Committee against Torture (CAT), setting out our views on the government’s failure to implement the Recommendation on the Magdalene Laundries which CAT made in its(…)
When it comes to errors of law in Westminster politics, you live by the sword and you die by the sword. Teresa May, the UK home Secretary, made huge capital at her last Conservative Party Conference in 2011 by trashing the human rights judgment that, as she described it, prevented an illegal immigrant from being(…)
In line with the Government’s new policy of openness in appointments the Minister for Justice for Justice and Equality is seeking expressions of interest from suitably qualified and experienced persons for consideration for appointment as the Irish member on the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or(…)
Over the next few days in Geneva, Ireland will appear before the UN Committee against Torture. Established as the treaty enforcement and monitoring body for the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the Committee receives and hears reports from individual states and can also receive and hear(…)
Today The Guardian has released a Guardian Investigation film on police brutality in Northern Ireland prior to the policing reforms and the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement. The investigation, which can be viewed in full here, reveals that there was widespread RUC brutality including beatings, genital burning and emotional abuse that was used in order to acquire(…)
Extraordinary rendition did not start on 11 September 2001; rather the practice of transferring individuals across borders without any due process was long a part of US policy although it usually consisted of ‘rendition to trial’ (such as in the infamous case of Adolf Eichman). It was miniscule in scale, however, compared to the extraordinary(…)
Yesterday the UK’s Special Immigration Appeals Commission decided that a number of suspected terrorists (the so-called ‘Pathway Students’) could not be deported to Pakistan as they faced a real risk there of being subjected to torture, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment in contravention of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The(…)
Further to Yvonne’s post last week it is worth noting that the decision by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture to present an interim report to the Minister for Justice was a highly unusual step, one only taken when there is ‘a glaring example of where care is lacking’. In its report, which(…)
