Detaining the Dangerous: Legal and Ethical Implications of the Government's Proposals for High-Risk Individuals

2002 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith M. Laing
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
High Risk ◽  
White Paper ◽  
European Convention ◽  
Ethical Implications ◽  
Mental Health Legislation ◽  
Human Rights Act ◽  
Human Rights Act 1998 ◽  
The Government ◽  
Health Legislation

In December 2000, the government in England and Wales published a White Paper proposing a radical overhaul of current mental health legislation. Part II of the White Paper contained controversial new proposals to detain indefinitely ‘high-risk’ disordered individuals. These proposals have attracted a large amount of criticism in both legal and medical circles and may contravene the European Convention on Human Rights. This article will outline the proposals for reform and highlight some of the legal and ethical implications, in particular focusing on the extent to which the proposals may be open to challenge under the Human Rights Act 1998.

7 The Human Rights Act 1998: Bringing Rights Home

1998 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 125-146
Author(s):  
Stephanie Palmer
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
European Convention ◽  
Bill Of Rights ◽  
Labour Government ◽  
House Of Lords ◽  
Human Rights Act ◽  
Human Rights Act 1998 ◽  
The Government ◽  
Domestic Law

The Labour government has quickly acted on its election promise to introduce a bill of rights into domestic law. The Human Rights Act 1998 partially incorporates the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) into United Kingdom law. This legislation is part of a wider constitutional package including devolved government for Scotland and Wales and reform of the House of Lords. The government’s programme is intended to modernise and indeed transform the British constitutional structure. According to the government, the Human Rights Act will bring rights home. Individuals will be able to argue for their Convention rights in the United Kingdom’s own courts and tribunals and judges will be able to adjudicate directly on Convention issues. All new laws will be carefully scrutinised to ensure compatibility with Convention rights.

Suppressing human rights? A rights-based approach to the use of pharmacotherapy with sex offenders

Legal Studies ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen Harrison ◽  
Bernadette Rainey
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Sex Offenders ◽  
Satellite Tracking ◽  
European Convention ◽  
Viable Option ◽  
The Public ◽  
Mental Health Legislation ◽  
The Government ◽  
Health Legislation ◽  
Tracking Technology

The use of pharmacotherapy (more emotively known as chemical castration) is the use of drugs to treat and help manage the risk that sex offenders, and in particular paedophiles, pose to society. Due to the increased climate of public fear of this risk, the government recently published aReview of the Protection of Children from Sex Offenders(the Review). This Review, published in June 2007, sought to explore how the protection of children could be improved and how greater reassurance to the public on the management of sex offenders could be provided. The Review makes several proposals with regard to managing high-risk sex offenders. Amongst the list of 20 actions, the trialling of polygraph tests, satellite tracking technology and the use of anti-libidinal suppressants is included. This paper examines the latter, pharmacotherapy, and assesses how concepts such as dignity and consent underpin the human rights' implications of its use. The paper will also assess the recent changes to mental health legislation and evaluate whether such treatment for incompetent or competent offenders is a viable option given the UK's obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights.

The Impact for the Church of England of the Human Rights Act 1998

2000 ◽  
Vol 5 (27) ◽  
pp. 431-439 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Hill
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
European Convention ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
European Court ◽  
Human Rights Act ◽  
Human Rights Act 1998 ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Domestic Law

Though the first nation state of the Council of Europe to ratify the European Convention on Human Rights on 18th March 1951, and though permitting individual petition to the European Court in Strasbourg since 1966, the United Kingdom declined to give effect to the Convention in its domestic law until the government recently passed the Human Rights Act 1998. The Act received the Royal Assent in November 1998 and will come into force on 2nd October 2000.

The Human Rights Act 1998: Bringing Rights Home

1998 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 125-146
Author(s):  
Stephanie Palmer
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
European Convention ◽  
Bill Of Rights ◽  
Labour Government ◽  
House Of Lords ◽  
Human Rights Act ◽  
Human Rights Act 1998 ◽  
The Government ◽  
Domestic Law

The Labour government has quickly acted on its election promise to introduce a bill of rights into domestic law. The Human Rights Act 1998 partially incorporates the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) into United Kingdom law. This legislation is part of a wider constitutional package including devolved government for Scotland and Wales and reform of the House of Lords. The government’s programme is intended to modernise and indeed transform the British constitutional structure. According to the government, the Human Rights Act will bring rights home. Individuals will be able to argue for their Convention rights in the United Kingdom’s own courts and tribunals and judges will be able to adjudicate directly on Convention issues. All new laws will be carefully scrutinised to ensure compatibility with Convention rights.

scholarly journals The European Convention on Human Rights Act 2003 – Ten Years On

2014 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-96
Author(s):  
Ronagh JA McQuigg
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
The State ◽  
European Convention ◽  
General Level ◽  
Human Rights Act ◽  
Human Rights Act 1998 ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

The European Convention on Human Rights Act 2003 has now been in force in Ireland for ten years. This article analyses the Act itself and the impact which it has had on the Irish courts during the first decade of its operation. The use of the European Convention on Human Rights in the Irish courts prior to the enactment of the legislation is discussed, as are the reasons for the passing of the Act. The relationship between the Act and the Irish Constitution is examined, as is the jurisprudence of the Irish courts towards the interpretative obligation found in section 2(1), and the duty placed upon organs of the State by section 3(1). The article ends with a number of observations regarding the impact which the Act has had on the Irish courts at a more general level. Comparisons will be drawn with the uk’s Human Rights Act 1998 throughout the discussion.

R v Secretary of State for the Home Department, ex parte Brind [1991] UKHL 4, House of Lords

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas E. Webb
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
European Convention ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Secretary Of State ◽  
House Of Lords ◽  
Human Rights Act ◽  
Human Rights Act 1998 ◽  
Home Department ◽  
Editorial Decisions

Essential Cases: Public Law provides a bridge between course textbooks and key case judgments. This case document summarizes the facts and decision in R v Secretary of State for the Home Department, ex parte Brind [1991] UKHL 4, House of Lords. The case considered whether the Secretary of State could restrict the editorial decisions of broadcasters as regards the way in which messages from spokespersons for proscribed organizations were broadcast. The United Kingdom was a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) when the case was heard, but the case also predates the passage of the Human Rights Act 1998. There is discussion of the legal position of the ECHR under the common law in the United Kingdom, and the concept of proportionality in United Kingdom’s domestic jurisprudence. The document also includes supporting commentary from author Thomas Webb.

Regulation

2020 ◽  
pp. 106-130
Author(s):  
Julian Petley
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Press Freedom ◽  
European Convention ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
Corporate Power ◽  
Private Lives ◽  
The Press ◽  
Privacy Breach ◽  
Human Rights Act ◽  
Human Rights Act 1998

This chapter examines the laws which have had a particular bearing on the practice of journalism in newspapers in England and Wales in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. These relate to defamation, privacy, breach of confidence, official secrecy and terrorism. In particular it focusses on the recent impact of the European Convention on Human Rights and the Human Rights Act 1998 on how courts have interpreted and applied the various laws affecting press freedom in these particular areas. It argues that whilst much of the press has chafed against laws which prevent it from invading people’s private lives and unjustly defaming them, it has been remarkably insouciant about those which make it difficult to reveal abuses of state and corporate power.

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