ECHR
01 January 1991
ECHR
artdoc May=1993
Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights prohibits
the infliction of torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or
punishment. It has been a shaming contradiction that the European
Court of Human Rights has found violations of Article 3 in the
chastisement of schoolchildren, but not in the return of asylum-
seekers to lengthy imprisonment and torture. Now, at least, some
sense of proportion has returned, with the judgment that the
administration of three whacks with a slipper sole on the bottom
of a seven-year-old at an independent school did not violate
Article 3. Costello-Roberts v UK, reported in Independent
24.3.93.
The UK was found guilty of violations of the ECHR provisions
on 20 occasions in the past twelve years, according to a reply
by prime minister John Major. Independent 19.3.93.
A woman deported to the Punjab leaving seven children behind
in Britain is to take her case to the European Commission on
Human Rights. Kailash Kaur and her family came to Britain in 1984
for a visit, but applied for asylum after their home was
destroyed in rioting. They were refused and ordered to be
deported in 1988. Kailash's oldest daughter made the six younger
children wards of court to try to prevent their mother's
deportation, but despite the wardship, which prevents the
children from leaving Britain without the judge's permission,
their mother's deportation went ahead. Guardian 16.3.93.
In the case of Ldi v Switzerland, decided on 15 June 1992, the
European Court of Human Rights held that `preventive' telephone
surveillance (conducted on the basis of suspicion that a crime
was going to be committed) was a legitimate interference with
private life under Article 8 ECHR, since it was necessary in a
democratic society for the prevention of crime. The use of an
undercover agent posing as a willing buyer of drugs was not an
interference with private life. However, in refusing to let the
defendant any opportunity to question the agent at any stage of
the subsequent criminal proceedings, on the ground that his
anonymity had to be preserved, the Swiss authorities were in
breach of Article 6(1) and (3)(d), aspects of a right to a fair
trial. Transcript, 15.6.92.
Statewatch vol 3 no 2 March-April 1993