Big Brother Watch and Others v UK [GC], App. Nos. 58170/13, 62322/14 and 24960/15, 25 May 2021
Written by: Prof. Philip Leach Background Big Brother Watch and 14 other civil liberty groups and individuals (including ACLU, Amnesty International, English Pen and Liberty) sought to challenge the scope and magnitude of the electronic surveillance programmes operated by the UK Government (through GCHQ), in the aftermath of revelations made by Edward Snowden in 2013 […]
Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz & Ors v Switzerland (Grand Chamber) (App. No 53600/20), 9 April 2024
Written by: Anirudh Mathur Background This complaint concerning alleged climate-related human rights violations was brought before the European Court of Human Rights by a Swiss non-profit association along with four retired Swiss women. The first applicant was a non-profit association established to promote and implement effective climate protection on behalf of its members, the general […]
R (Miranda) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2016] EWCA Civ 6
Written by: Zoe McCallum Background Edward Snowden stole hundreds of thousands of documents from the US National Security Agency to expose far-reaching and entirely covert global surveillance programmes run by the US and its “Five Eyes” intelligence counterparts (including Britain). He was the source for journalists at The Guardian and The Washington Post (who broke […]
R (Osborn) v The Parole Board [2013] UKSC 61
Written by: Tim James-Matthews Background The Parole Board has the power to determine whether to release a prisoner from prison on the papers, without an oral hearing. Such decisions carry significant consequences for the liberty of the prisoner concerned, and they also entail a careful assessment of the risk which the prisoner may pose to […]
R (Bridges) v South Wales Police [2020] EWCA Civ 1058
Written by: Ian Helme “You can’t ban technology. Sure, that might lead to a dystopian future or something, but you can’t ban it”: David Scalzo, co-founder of Clearview AI, quoted in Your Face Belongs To Us by Kashmir Hill, Simon & Schuster, 2023. Background In 2017 South Wales Police (“SWP”) began trialling the use […]