scholarly journals Servitude, slavery and Scots law: historical perspectives on the Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Scotland) Act 2015

Legal Studies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 353-375
Author(s):  
Jonathan Brown
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Human Trafficking ◽  
European Convention ◽  
High Court ◽  
Historical Perspectives ◽  
The Status ◽  
Definition Of

AbstractSection 4(1)(a) of the Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Scotland) Act 2015 states that it is an offence for any person to hold another person in servitude or slavery. In February 2018, John Miller and Robert McPhee appeared at the High Court in Glasgow, charged on indictment with this offence. In defining both ‘servitude’ and ‘slavery’, the court was obliged, per s 4(2) of the 2015 Act, to have due regard to the understanding of these terms which has evolved out of the jurisprudence of Article 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). ‘Slavery’, then, was said to denote ‘the status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the rights of ownership are exercised’. If, however, the definition of ‘slavery’ necessarily ‘involves rights of ownership’, then it follows that any enactment of law specifically proscribing slavery is nugatory. Indeed, in Miller, the court ultimately held that ‘there was no evidence upon which they could hold that the complainer had been held in a state of slavery’. This paper consequently asks whether or not in passing s 4(1)(a) of the 2015 Act, Parliament criminalised an impossible action.

Bringing People Down

2021 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 433-466
Author(s):  
John Vorhaus
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Corporal Punishment ◽  
European Convention ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
European Court ◽  
The Status ◽  
Relational Concept ◽  
Degrading Treatment ◽  
As If

Under Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, degrading treatment and punishment is absolutely prohibited. This paper examines the nature of and wrong inherent in treatment and punishment of this kind. Cases brought before the European Court of Human Rights (the Court) as amounting to degrading treatment and punishment under Article 3 include instances of interrogation, conditions of confinement, corporal punishment, strip searches, and a failure to provide adequate health care. The Court acknowledges the degradation inherent in imprisonment generally, and does not consider this to be in violation of Article 3, but it also identifies a threshold at which degradation is so severe as to render impermissible punishments that cross this threshold. I offer an account of the Court’s conception of impermissible degradation as a symbolic dignitary harm. The victims are treated as inferior, as if they do not possess the status owed to human beings, neither treated with dignity nor given the respect owed to dignity. Degradation is a relational concept: the victim is brought down in the eyes of others following treatment motivated by the intention to degrade, or treatment which has a degrading effect. This, so I will argue, is the best account of the concept of degradation as deployed by the Court when determining punishments as in violation of Article 3.

scholarly journals The normative framework of the protection of personal data in the field of (bio)medicine

Temida ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 99-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natasa Rajic
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Personal Data ◽  
European Convention ◽  
International Treaties ◽  
Normative Framework ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Right ◽  
Treatment Procedures ◽  
Biomedical Treatment

This paper discusses the normative framework of regulating the right to protection of personal data relating to biomedical treatment procedures of patients as human rights. The subjects of analysis are the European Convention, the Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine and the relevant provisions of the Constitution of the Republic of Serbia. The right to protection of personal data in the field of biomedicine is analyzed comparatively in terms of the content of this right and in terms of basis for limiting this right. The analysis is carried out to find answers to the question if the constitutional framework is consistent in terms of exercising this right, taking into account the constitutional provision on the direct application of human rights guaranteed by international treaties and other provisions that determine the status of international sources of law in our legal system.

The Idea of Human Rights in Conditions of Hospital Treatment

2016 ◽  
pp. 1147-1165
Author(s):  
Bogusław Sygit ◽  
Damian Wąsik
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Civil Liberties ◽  
European Convention ◽  
Hospital Treatment ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
Cultural Rights ◽  
European Court ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Right

The aim of this chapter is describing of the influence of universal human rights and civil liberties on the formation of standards for hospital care. The authors present definition of the right to life and the right to health. Moreover in the section it is discussed modern standards of hospital treatment under the provisions of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: availability, accessibility, acceptability and quality. The authors discuss in detail about selected examples realization of human rights in the treatment of hospital and forms of their violation. During the presentation of these issues, the authors analyze a provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and European Convention on the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and use a number of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights issued in matters concerning human rights abuses in the course of treatment and hospitalization.

12. Hearsay in criminal cases

2020 ◽  
pp. 349-411
Author(s):  
Adrian Keane ◽  
Paul McKeown
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
European Convention ◽  
Criminal Proceedings ◽  
Criminal Cases ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter discusses the meaning of hearsay in criminal proceedings and the categories of hearsay admissible by statute in such proceedings. It considers the relationship between the hearsay provisions of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 (the 2003 Act) and Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights as it relates to hearsay; the definition of hearsay and its admissibility under the 2003 Act, including admissibility under an inclusionary discretion (section 114(1)(d)); and safeguards including provisions relating to the capability and credibility of absent witnesses, the power to stop a case and the discretion to exclude. Also considered in this chapter are: expert reports; written statements under section 9 of the Criminal Justice Act 1967; and depositions of children and young persons under section 43 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933.

16. Protecting Private Life, The Home, and Correspondence

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernadette Rainey ◽  
Elizabeth Wicks ◽  
Andclare Ovey
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Living Environment ◽  
Private Life ◽  
European Convention ◽  
Definition Of

This chapter examines Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and its protection of private life, the home, and correspondence; analyses the scope of the protection of private life under ECHR; and provides the Convention definition of private life, home, and correspondence. It also discusses the judgments made by the Strasbourg Court in several relevant cases, including those involving freedom from interference with physical and psychological integrity, freedom to develop one’s identity, issues of health and sexuality, protection of one’s living environment, and protection of prisoners’ correspondence.

1 The Court Over Sixty Years

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nussberger Angelika
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
European Convention ◽  
Peace Treaty ◽  
Member States ◽  
Human Rights Protection ◽  
Rights Protection ◽  
European Court ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Violent Conflicts

This introductory chapter provides a background of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), a multilateral treaty based on humanism and rule of law. Similar to the—albeit non-binding—Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the ECHR is a document that marks a change in philosophy and gives a new definition of the responsibility of the State towards the individual. It fixes basic values in times of change and paves the way towards reconciliation in Europe. Unlike in a peace treaty, not all wartime enemies participate in its elaboration, but, one by one, all the European States accede to it, signalling their consent to the values fixed by a small community of States in the early 1950s. Seven decades later, forty-seven European States have ratified the Convention. Admittedly, the new start based on common values could not prevent the outbreak of violent conflicts between Member States. At the same time, the resurgence of anti-democratic tendencies could not be successfully banned in all Member States, but such tendencies could be stigmatized as grave human rights violations in binding judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). Thus, it is not surprising that the European model of human rights protection has been attractive and inspirational for other parts of the world. Nevertheless, there was and is a debate in some Member States to withdraw from the Convention as the Court’s jurisprudence is seen to be too intrusive on national sovereignty.

scholarly journals Old age psychiatry and the law

2002 ◽  
Vol 180 (2) ◽  
pp. 116-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin Jacoby
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Old Age ◽  
Case Law ◽  
European Convention ◽  
The Status ◽  
Human Rights Act ◽  
Old Age Psychiatry ◽  
Human Rights Act 1998 ◽  
Incapacitated Patients ◽  
Do So

BackgroundOld age psychiatry is no less subject to increasing legal and quasi-legal restraint than other branches of the profession, but the emphases are different. Two themes predominate: first, that of capacity or competence; and second, to what extent formal legal measures should be implemented in cases where incapacitated patients do not dissent from, as opposed to giving active consent to, admission to hospital or receiving treatment.AimsTo discuss the issues of capacity or competence, especially in relation to recent legislation and judgements and to proposed legislation in England and Wales.MethodSelective review and discussion of recent case law and current and proposed statute law.Results and conclusionsThe Bournewood case threatened but ultimately failed to upset the status quo. However, the European Convention on Human Rights and the British Human Rights Act 1998 may yet do so.

Cestaro v. Italy: The European Court of Human Rights on the Duty to Criminalise Torture and Italy’s Structural Problem

2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 567-585
Author(s):  
Domenico Carolei
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Criminal Code ◽  
European Convention ◽  
Structural Problem ◽  
European Court ◽  
The One ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Normative Content ◽  
Italian Legislation

In April 2015, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruled that Italian legislation is inadequate to criminalise acts of torture (Cestaro v. Italy). Following the ECtHR’s decision, the Italian Parliament approved the bill A.C. 2168 which aimed to introduce the crime of torture (Article 613-bis) in the Italian Criminal Code. The bill does not seem to comply with the definition of torture provided by international law, and also neglects the legislative guidelines outlined by the ECtHR in Cestaro v. Italy. The purpose of this article is twofold. On the one hand, it will assess the ECtHR’s decision focusing on Italy’s structural problem and its duty to enact and enforce efficient criminal provisions under Article 3 of the European Convention. On the other hand, it will analyse the normative content of Article 613-bis in order to highlight its weaknesses and propose, on each of them, suggestions for amendment.

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