Echr Art 8 Notes

Con&Ad: ECHR Article 8, Private & Family Life

Article 8

• ‘the least defined and most unruly of Convention rights’ (Stanley Burnton J, R (Wright) v SoS Health (2003)).

• Art 8(1) covers 4 aspects:

  1. Private life

  2. Fam life

  3. Home

  4. Correspondence

• Art 8 is a ‘qualified’ right: state can interfere if ‘legit’ aim in art 8(2) and ‘necessary in a democratic society’.

• The breadth of Scope of Art 8, Laws LJ in R (Wood) V Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis (2009), CA:

  • ‘ ... the content of the phrase “private and family life” is very broad indeed ... .[well beyond close personal relationships] ... any attempt to encapsulate the right’s scope in a single idea can only be undertaken at a level of consideration abstraction’.

• Remember obligations on state under ECHR:

  • Negative obligation

  • Marper v UK: the police practice, under legislation, of retaining DNA, as challenged as an unlawful interference with private life.

  • Positive obligation (Osman v UK):

  • Osman v UK: the schoolboy who was stalked by his teacher. ECHR held: importance of positive obligation on state to prevent third parties interfering with the rights of other citizens.

  • Von Hannover v Germany (no 1): ‘Art 8 ... does not merely compel the State to abstain from such interference ... in addition to the primarily negative undertaking, there may be positive obligations inherent in an effective respect for private or family life ... [eg] the adoption of measures designed to secure respect for private life even in the sphere of the relations of individuals between themselves’. .

(1) Private Life

• The categories of private life not a closed list—Convention is a ‘living instrument’.

• R (Countryside Alliance) v AG (2006), CA: CA forced to identify the outer limits of Art 8; challenge arose from ban on hunting with dogs by Hunting Act 2004; applicants argued they were using their own land for hunting (and that a decline in hunting was likely to jeapordise their homes and livelihood); CA held: Art 8 was not engaged; the consequences of the ban did not cause a lack of respect for applicant’s private/family life. The claim was based on an overly wide definition of Art 8.

• Right to private life has included:

(a) Physical, mental and moral integrity

• Costello-Roberts v UK (1995): HELD: private life does cover a person’s ‘physical and moral integrity’. Costello-Roberts a young boy at boarding school; given corporal punishment; argued breach of Arts 3 and 8. HELD: not breach of Art 3, and not sufficient interference with ‘physical and moral integrity’ to engage Art 8.

• Von Hannover v Germany (2004):

• Challenge by Princess Caroline of Monaco against press. HELD ECHR: Art 8 ‘extends to aspects relating to personal identity’, eg a person’s name or picture, and could cover a ‘zone of interaction of a person with others, even in a public context, which may fall within the scope of ‘private life’’.

• Private life includes a person’s ‘physical and psychological integrity’.

• Osman v UK (1998): re the schoolboy stalked by teacher; the physical and psychological integrity aspect of Art 8 also places positive obligations on the state in appropriate circumstances the state might owe positive obligations to offer protection to an individual against threats to bodily integrity from another individual.

• Purdy v DPP (2009), HL:

• Debbie Purdy, a ‘right to die’ campaigner, argued that Suicide Act 1961, s2(1), was unlawful interference with Art 8 rights (in relation to uncertainty surrounding the policy on prosecutions).

• HELD: agreed with that. As a result, DPP published a new set of policy guidelines re prosecuting those who accompany/assist people in ending lives.

• R (Nicklinson and another) v Ministry of Justice (2014), SC: first applicant had become completely paralysed following a severe stroke; wanted court to make a declaration that it would be lawful for a Dr to assist him in ending his life; or, in the alternative, that the current state of UK law was incompatible with his rights to a private life and autonomy under Art 8.

  • 5 of the Justices HELD: the court had the constitutional authority to make a declaration that the general prohibition on assisted suicide in s2 Suicide Act is incompatible with Art 8. 3 of the five declaration to grant DOI (Under s4 HRA); but Lady Hale and Lord Kerr indicated they would have done so.

  • The remaining 4 Justices were more cautious: the issue of incompatibility involved a consideration of issues which Parliament is inherently better qualified than the courts to assess; court should respect Parliament’s assessment.

• R (F & Thompson) v SSHD (2010), SC

• Re murder of James Bulger.

• A challenge to provision of Sexual Offences Act 2003, s82(1)—required those convicted of a particular sexual offence to provide lifelong notification to the police of their whereabouts.

• HELD, SC: the ‘notification requirements’, with the lack of any right of review over them, were a disproportionate interference with Art 8 rights, which included someone’s mental and moral integrity. Art 8 engaged by mental and moral integrity. So the lower court’s DOI was upheld.

• McDonald v UK (2014): ECHR, although found against the applicant, confirmed that her Art 8 rights had been engaged by a decision taken by her local authority. UK gov sought to argue: her dignity had been respected with the decision was made to reduce the level of night-time assistance she had received as part of a care package.

• ECHR re-stated its position from a long line of cases, including Pretty v UK (2002), that the ‘very essence’ of the Convention was respect for human dignity & freedom; and accepted that the undignified and distressing implications of the reduction in her care package engaged Art 8—but states have a wide margin of appreciation in matters relating to allocation of scarce resources; so didn’t find violation.

• Razgar v SSHD (2004, not in study notes):

• A case on asylum. (Art 8 often invoked in immigration/asylum).

• Razgar an Iraqi citizen, who had arrived in England...

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