''Regina v. Special Adjudicator'' ex parte Ullah, also known as ''Do v. Secretary of State for the Home Department''

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UKHL 26 on appeal from

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EWCA Civ 1856, was a legal case in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

. This was a joint decision, meaning two cases were heard at the same time, so the case may be cited as either of the case titles.

Decision

This was a decision of the

Appellate Committee of the House of Lords, composed of

Lord Bingham Sir Thomas Henry Bingham, Baron Bingham of Cornhill, (13 October 193311 September 2010), was an eminent British judge who was successively Master of the Rolls, Lord Chief Justice and Senior Law Lord. He was described as the greatest lawyer of ...

of Cornhill, Lord Steyn, Lord Walker of Gestingthorpe,

Baroness Hale Brenda Marjorie Hale, Baroness Hale of Richmond, (born 31 January 1945) is a British judge who served as President of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom from 2017 until her retirement in 2020, and serves as a member of the House of Lords ...

of Richmond and

Lord Carswell Robert Douglas Carswell, Baron Carswell, PC (born 28 June 1934) is a retired Lord of Appeal in Ordinary. Early life The son of Alan and Nance Carswell was educated at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution and Pembroke College, Oxford, wh ...

. The decision was made on Thursday 17 June 2004. The issue in the case was whether a person can be

deported Deportation is the expulsion of a person or group of people from a place or country. The term ''expulsion'' is often used as a synonym for deportation, though expulsion is more often used in the context of international law, while deportation ...

from the United Kingdom to a state where there are known

human rights Human rights are Morality, moral principles or Social norm, normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for ce ...

abuses, or refused asylum to the United Kingdom when the applicant is from such a state. The appellants in the cases, Mr Ullah and Miss Do, wished to rely on an Article of the

European Convention on Human Rights The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR; formally the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms) is an international convention to protect human rights and political freedoms in Europe. Drafted in 1950 by t ...

other than Article 3 (no body shall be subjected to

torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. Some definitions are restricted to acts c ...

inhuman or degrading treatment Cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment (CIDT) is treatment of persons which is contrary to human rights or dignity, but is not classified as torture. It is forbidden by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 3 of the European Convention ...

or punishment). The Appellants wished to rely on Article 9 of the Convention, guaranteeing the right to freedom, thought and conscience. At first instance and in the

Court of Appeal A court of appeals, also called a court of appeal, appellate court, appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to hear an appeal of a trial court or other lower tribunal. In much of t ...

the Appellants' submissions were rejected and it was held that deporting a person to a country which violated Article 9 would not amount to a violation of Article 3 of the Convention, and thus an applicant could be deported to the state in violation of Article 9. Particular notice should be drawn to Paragraph 4-6 of the judgment of Lord Bingham. Here it is stated (using the judgment of the

EWCA Civ 1856, as authority) that the Appellants, in order to rely on Article 9, would have to prove that the interference with Convention Rights was 'flagrant'. In the present case it was decided that the interference was not flagrant (see Paragraph 69-70 of the judgment by Lord Carswell for a brief discussion of the term 'flagrant'), which is why the appeal was dismissed in all courts. Lord Walker and Baroness Hale delivered concurring judgments.

Constitutional significance

As stated, Bingham's judgment is significant in establishing (as the "Ullah principle") conditions on the applicability of judgments from the European Court of Human Rights. Bingham states that Section 2 of the

Human Rights Act 1998 The Human Rights Act 1998 (c. 42) is an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom which received royal assent on 9 November 1998, and came into force on 2 October 2000. Its aim was to incorporate into UK law the rights contained in the European Con ...

should be interpreted as stating that British courts "should, in the absence of some special circumstances, follow any clear and constant jurisprudence of the Strasbourg court".

References

External links

The Judgement for the case ''Regina v. Special Adjudicator''
{{DEFAULTSORT:R V Special Adjudicator House of Lords cases 2004 in United Kingdom case law 2004 in international relations United Kingdom immigration case law