Tag: proportionality

Smith v Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities & Anor

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Court of Appeal, Sir Keith Lindblom, Holroyde and Coulson LJJ, [2022] EWCA Civ 1391, 31 October 2022

The claimant/ appellant successfully appealed the refusal of her application to quash a decision dismissing her appeal against a refusal of her application for planning permission for a permanent site for Gypsies and Travellers. The definition of “Gypsies and Travellers”, set out in the policy document “Planning Policy for Traveller Sites” (“PPTS 2015”) had been amended in 2015 to remove the express inclusion within the category of “Gypsies and Travellers” of those who permanently ceased to travel as a result of, inter alia, disability or old age. The effect of the exclusion was that the claimant was not regarded for planning purposes as a Traveller. Continue reading →

R (Jwanczuk) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions

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Queen’s Bench Division, Administrative Court, Kerr J, [2022] EWHC 2298 (Admin), 7 September 2022

The High Court ruled that the exclusion from entitlement to a bereavement support payment (‘BSP’) of the widower of a woman who had, by reason of disability, paid no national insurance contributions (because she was unable to work) breached Article 14 ECHR read with A1P1. In doing so the judge reached the same conclusion as Northern Ireland’s Court of Appeal had in O’Donnell v. Department for Communities [2020] NICA 36. Continue reading →

R (Efthimiou) v Mayor and Commonalty and Citizens of the City of London

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Queen’s Bench Division, Administrative Court, Cotter J, [2022] EWHC 1588 (Admin), 23 June 2022

This was a challenge brought under the EqA and the HRA to increases in the charges for use of Hampstead’s Ladies’ Pond. The claim was that the increased charges breached the defendant’s duty to make reasonable adjustments for disabled persons under ss20, 21 & 29 EqA and indirect discrimination against disabled people contrary to s19 EqA and Article 14 ECHR read with Article 8 and/or Article 1 Protocol 1. Continue reading →

L. F. v The United Kingdom

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European Court of Human Rights (Fourth Section) (App. No. 19839/21) [2022] ECHR 19839/21, 16 June 2022

This was an appeal to the ECtHR from the decision of the Supreme Court in R (Z & Anor) v Hackney LBC & Anor [2020] UKSC 40 (see previous post). The European Court of Human Rights dismissed the application to the Court as inadmissible.  The Applicant complained that the preferential treatment of members of the Orthodox Jewish Community (“OJC” below) breached her Article 8 and 14 ECHR rights. The Court accepted that Article 8 was engaged for the purposes of Article 14 but found that the preferential treatment in issue was proportionate and lawful. (References to LBH and AIHA below are to the London Borough of Hackney and the Orthodox Jewish housing association which managed the accommodation whose tenancy criteria Z challenged.) According to the Court: Continue reading →

R (Vanriel & Anor) v Secretary of State for the Home Department

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Administrative Court; Bourne J, [2021] EWHC 3415 (Admin), 16 December 2021

The claimants relied, inter alia, on Articles 14 and 8 in challenging decisions to deny them citizenship. Both were wrongfully prevented from entering the UK at a time when they had or were entitled to indefinite leave to remain in the UK (“ILR”), subsequently applied under the Windrush Scheme and were granted ILR before applying for British citizenship. These applications were denied on the basis that they failed to satisfy Schedule 1 para 1(2)(a) of the British Nationality Act 1981, which requires that a citizenship applicant has been physically present in the UK five years prior to the application (“the 5 year rule”). The question for the Court was whether the 5 year rule could be challenged by reason of the HRA.  Bourne J ruled that the absence of discretion or flexibility within the five year rule amounted to Thlimmenos discrimination against the claimants contrary to  Article 14 in conjunction with Article 8, but that a Convention compatible reading was possible under section 3 HRA by permitting the defendant to deem that an individual had complied with the 5 year rule..

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SM (a child, by his father and litigation friend) and another v Hackney LBC

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Queen’s Bench Division (Planning Court): Kerr J, [2021] EWHC 3294 (Admin), 7 December 2021

This was an unsuccessful challenge under Articles 8 and 14 and s149 EqA (the PSED) to experimental traffic orders (ETOs) made by the respondent which took effect from 9 November 2020. The applicants complained that they are severely prejudiced by increased car journey times to and from their school. The challenge was brought under paragraph 35, Part VI, Schedule 9 to the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 rather than by way of judicial review, and so did not require permission, but Kerr J pointed out at §4 that the same principles applied. He expressed sympathy for the applicants who he accepted had been disadvantaged by the ETOs but upheld them as proportionate measures in pursuit of legitimate aims of reducing congestion, improving air quality, road safety and accessibility, encouraging active travel to school and social distancing (applying R (SC) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2021] UKSC 26, [2021] 3 WLR 428 [and see earlier blog]. He rejected the PSED claim on the basis that, taken in the round, the respondent had taken sufficient steps to comply with the duty of due regard.

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Banks v Revenue and Customs Commissioners

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[2021] EWCA Civ 1439, [2021] STC 2199

Court of Appeal: Sir Julian Flaux C, Henderson and Nicola Davies LJJ, [2021] EWCA Civ 1439, [2021] STC 2199, 6 October 2021

The Court of Appeal considered a challenge brought by Arron Banks in respect of a finding of the Revenue and Customs Commissioners that donations of almost £1 million made by him to the UK Independence Party (“UKIP”) were ineligible to be exempted from the inheritance tax liability attaching to his estate by reason of being gifts to political parties because UKIP at the material time failed to meet the threshold established in the Inheritance Tax Act 1984 (s24) of having at least two members in the House of Commons or one member plus at least 150,000 votes in the relevant election.” The claimant sought to rely on Article 14 of the ECHR read with Article 1 of the First Protocol to the ECHR, Article 10 and/or or Article 11 (freedom of assembly) of the ECHR and/or on Articles 10 and/or 11. The Upper Tribunal had overturned a decision by the First-tier Tribunal that  Mr Banks had been discriminated against on grounds of his political opinion contrary to Article 14 (though no remedy had be granted to him as it was not possible to construe s24 of the 1984 Act in a Convention-compliant manner and it was not open to the tribunal to make a declaration of incompatibility under s4 HRA).  The appellant appealed on the grounds, inter alia, that the Upper Tribunal erred in law in failing to hold that s24 directly or indirectly discriminated against him on the grounds of his political opinion in breach of Article 14 taken with A1P1, also that it erred in dismissing his claim that he was discriminated against on the grounds of being a supporter of a party which did not have any MPs following the 2010 General Election, alternatively that he was a victim of discrimination against UKIP on the grounds that it had no MPs following the 2010 General Election. He also claimed that the UT had erred in concluding that any discrimination (which it had not accepted had occurred) was justified. The Court (Henderson LJ with whom the Chancellor and Davies LJ agreed) dismissed his appeal. Continue reading →

R (Cornerstone (North East) Adoption and Fostering Services Ltd) v OFSTED

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Court of Appeal: Peter Jackson, Asplin and Nicola Davies LJJ, [2021] EWCA Civ 1390, [2021] IRLR 993, 24 September 2021

This was an appeal from the decision reported previously in this blog. The claimant was an independent fostering agency which sought to recruit (exclusively) evangelical Christian foster carers whose conduct was consistent with “traditional Biblical Christian” standards of behaviour, which did not include same-sex sex. The High Court rejected its challenge to an Ofsted report which found that its policy of accepting only heterosexual evangelical Christians as the potential carers of fostered children breached the EqA 2010 and the HRA 1998, ruling that the policy discriminated unlawfully on grounds of sexual orientation and was not saved by s193 EqA (see further below) or, because it provided services on behalf of a public authority, by para 2 of Sch 23. It required that Cornerstone alter the policy. Cornerstone was granted permission to appeal the High Court’s ruling on direct and indirect sexual orientation discrimination under the EqA and on the application of s193 EqA, though not on on the application of para 2 of Sch 23. It was also permitted to appeal the High Court’s findings that  that Cornerstone had breached prospective foster carers’ Convention rights, and that Ofsted had not breached Cornerstone’s Convention rights.

The appeal was dismissed on all grounds. (Peter Jackson LJ, with whom Asplin and Nicola Davies LJJ agreed, ruled that Cornerstone’s recruitment policy involved direct sexual orientation discrimination and was disproportionate to the aims pursued, this with the effect that the statutory defence did not apply, the discrimination by Cornerstone breached foster carers’ rights under Article 14 and 8 and Ofsted had not breached cornerstone’s rights under Article 9 ECHR. Continue reading →

R (SC) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions

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Supreme Court [2021] UKSC 26, [2021] 3 WLR 428, 9 July 2021

Lord Reed P, Lord Hodge DP, Lady Black, Lords Lloyd-Jones, Kitchin, Sales and Lord Stephens

This is a very important decision of the Supreme Court concerning a challenge brought under Articles 8 and 12 ECHR, read alone and with Article 14, to the restriction of the individual element of child tax credit to an amount calculated by reference to two children.  The Supreme Court rejected the challenges under Articles 8 and 12 and, of more relevance to this blog, rejected arguments about direct and indirect discrimination against children, though it accepted that there were prima facie cases of sex discrimination and of direct discrimination against children living in households with more than two children, as compared with children living in households with two or fewer children.

The challenge ultimately failed on justification grounds but the case, which has been cited extensively in virtually every Article 14 decision of the domestic courts since it was decided, is significant because the Court revisited the “manifestly without reasonable foundation” which had been the orthodox approach to Convention challenges to economic/ social policy in the domestic courts since at least 2012.  The case was also significant in that it reimposed an orthodox approach to the treatment of unincorporated international obligations (here the Convention on the Rights of the Child) and included extensive consideration of the reliance which might be placed by the courts on Parliamentary debates and other Parliamentary material when considering whether primary legislation is compatible with Convention rights.

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R (Z & Anor) v Hackney LBC & Anor

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Supreme Court, [2020] UKSC 40, 16 October 2020

Lords Reed, Kerr, Kitchen and Sales and Lady Arden

Introduction

The case involved a challenge to Hackney’s allocation of about 1% of its social housing via a charitable housing association (Agudas Israel Housing Association/ AIHA) which prioritized applicants from the Orthodox Jewish Community. The reasons for the priority were, inter alia, that Orthodox Jewish families were disadvantaged in access to general social housing by reason of their tendency to have large families; that they suffered from significant economic disadvantage and discrimination in access to private sector accommodation; and that they needed to live in proximity to each other for religious reasons and because of antisemitism. The decision is an important one in rejecting the argument that a narrow approach should be taken to the parameters of lawful positive action.

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