Category: Human Rights Act 1998
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Bernard Keenan and Ewan Smith: Proscription, Proportion and Palestine Action – Part 2
Introduction Part 1 of this post explained the central problem in the Ammori litigation. We summarized why the Divisional Court ([2026] EWHC 292 (Admin) thought the Home Secretary’s decision to proscribe Palestine Action was unlawful, and why the Court of Appeal ([2026] EWCA Civ 721)) reversed that decision. We also highlighted how each court approached…
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Hleb Buziuk: Downward Self-Correction: The AGNI Reference and the Mirror Principle in Reverse
The literature on section 2 of the Human Rights Act 1998 has largely been preoccupied with a single direction of travel: how far domestic courts may go beyond the Strasbourg case law, or against it. Those are the questions behind Ullah, behind the refusal to follow Strasbourg in Horncastle, and behind the long debate over whether there is a ‘ceiling’ on domestic rights…
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Adam Tomkins: On ABJ: Proscribed Organisations, Proportionality, and Freedom of Speech
In R v ABJ [2026] UKSC 8 a unanimous Supreme Court ruled that the offence of expressing support for a proscribed organisation, as defined in the Terrorism Act 2000, is not a disproportionate interference with the right to freedom of expression under the European Convention on Human Rights. The Court’s verdict was no surprise: the…
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Chris Rowe: Human rights as ceiling: the government’s asylum reform proposals
When the government announces a ‘crackdown’ or some new tough policy on immigration or asylum, it is important to recognise that what this means (at most) is that migrants will be treated in accordance with the new policy unless their Convention rights require that they are treated otherwise; at most, since often when the policy…
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Kirsty Hughes: The Implications of the Court of Appeal’s Judgment on ‘Family Life’ for the Government’s Immigration Proposals
On 27 November 2025 the Court of Appeal handed down its judgment in IA v SHHD [2025] EWCA Civ 1516 clarifying the correct test to be used when determining whether there is ‘family life’ in immigration cases. The Court of Appeal followed the consistent line of case law from the European Court of Human Rights…
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Alexander Baxter: Common Law Post-ECHR: What Lord Briggs’ Anniversary Lecture Tells Us
Introduction At the 25th Anniversary Conference of the Human Rights Act, Lord Briggs of Westbourne delivered a lecture that quietly advanced a vision of what a post-HRA constitutional framework might look like. Delivered at a moment when political discussion of withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights has gained real momentum, the speech did…
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Kirsty Hughes: Immigration and proposals to amend Article 8 ECHR
Backlash against the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA) is heavily driven by immigration and is often a direct reaction to it. This is not a new phenomenon, but the politics are escalating, both domestically and internationally. On the international plane nine states issued a joint letter earlier this year challenging the…
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Richard Brant and Lauren Butler: Reform UK’s Plans for “Getting Tough on Illegal Immigration”: From Legal Reset to Sunset
On 26 August 2025 Nigel Farage (Leader of Reform UK) and Zia Yusuf (now Head of Policy at Reform UK) unveiled their plan titled, ‘Operation Restoring Justice’. Key points from the plan were also reiterated at the Next Step Conference on 05 September 2025. Reform UK address the topic of immigration in their plan, adding…
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Sanjit Nagi: A Road to Nowhere: Reforming the European Convention on Human Rights
Over the last few weeks criticism of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR/the Convention) and suggestions that the United Kingdom (U.K) should attempt to reform the supranational instrument, and by extension the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA 1998), have dramatically intensified. Interestingly, calls for reform have not just come from the conservative side of…