Source: https://advocatetanmoy.com/2020/05/05/austin-fc-anr-vs-commissioner-of-police-of-the-metropolis/
Timestamp: 2020-06-04 02:07:01
Document Index: 649602660

Matched Legal Cases: ['EWCA ', 'EWCA ', 'UKHL ', 'application no 28940', 'application no 65755', 'application no 24722', 'application no 13229', 'Application no 13229', 'Application no 13229', 'Application No 47244']

Austin (FC) & Anr vs Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis-28/01/2009 | Advocatetanmoy Law Library
Austin (FC) & Anr vs Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis-28/01/2009
Posted on May 5, 2020 by Advocatetanmoy	in Lords and tagged 2009CE, House of Lords, Liberty, UK.
Issue: The interests of the individual against the demands of the general interest of the community
Law: Article 5(1) of the European Convention on Human Rights
Austin (FC) & another v Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis
Appeal from: [2007] EWCA Civ 989
Hearing dates: 24 and 25 NOVEMBER 2008
One of the features of a vigorous and healthy democracy is that people are allowed to go out onto the streets and demonstrate. Thousands of demonstrations take place each year in London. Experience has shown that for the most part gatherings of this kind are peaceful. The police, on whom the responsibility of maintaining public order rests, seek to facilitate rather than impede their activities. Unfortunately, human nature being what it is, this is not always possible. Sometimes an event attracts people who do not share the peaceful intentions of the organisers. Sometimes it is the organisers themselves whose intentions are anything but peaceful. On those occasions it may be necessary for the police to take control of the event to ensure public safety and minimise the risk of damage to property. The event with which this case is concerned was such an occasion.
The ways in which the police will seek to control the event will vary from case to case. In this case their policy was one of containment. Its consequence was that a large number of people were enclosed in the place where they had gathered within a police cordon. They were prevented for many hours from leaving it. Article 5(1) of the European Convention on Human Rights provides that no one shall be deprived of his liberty save in the cases which that article specifies. The appellant was one of those within the police cordon. The question which this case raises is whether the way in which she was treated was incompatible with her Convention right to liberty. Underlying that question is an important issue of principle. The right which is guaranteed by article 5(1) is an absolute right. But it must first be held to be applicable. To what extent, if at all, is it permissible in the determination of that issue to balance the interests of the individual against the demands of the general interest of the community? The appellant submits that it is plain that she was deprived of her right to liberty. She says that the reason why the cordon was put in place and kept there for so long is irrelevant. If she is right, she must succeed in this appeal. If she is wrong, the judge’s findings are against her. They show conclusively that the sole purpose of the cordon was to maintain public order, that it was proportionate to that need and that those within the cordon were not deprived of their freedom of movement arbitrarily.
The delay in the dispersal was substantially contributed to by the attitude of the crowd within the cordon which was not co-operating with the police. While about 60% remained calm about 40% were actively hostile, pushing and throwing missiles. Those who were not pushing or throwing missiles were not dissociating themselves from the minority who were. Some members of the crowd were very violent. They broke up paving slabs and threw the debris at the police. The crowd did nothing to help the police when they entered the cordon to arrest a suspect. It was a dynamic, chaotic and confusing situation. It was made all the more difficult by the fact that there were a large number of protesters in the immediate vicinity outside the cordon. They were engaged in the same quest for Oxford Circus that had driven the original crowd there at 2 pm and were refusing to accept control by the police.
The judge held that it was not practicable for the police to release the crowd earlier than they did. For them to have done so earlier would have been a complete abnegation of their duty to prevent a breach of the peace and to protect members of the crowd and third parties, including the police, from serious injury. The policy that was communicated to police officers was that they should seek to identify and release those who obviously had nothing to do with the demonstration but were caught up in the cordon because they had just happened to be in Oxford Circus. This was subject to their discretion to release individual demonstrators. Up to about 400 individuals were released individually. Some of them were bystanders who had been caught up in the demonstration. Others had medical problems or had suffered some injury. The judge was satisfied that there was no other release policy which could and should have been adopted, especially as the police had had no opportunity to plan for the event.
The judge said that there was no deprivation of liberty during the period between 2.00 pm and 2.20 pm, as the cordon was not absolute and people were free to leave by the pavements if they wished to do so. But during the subsequent period no one was free to leave without permission. He held that once the full cordon was in place there was a deprivation of liberty within the meaning of article 5(1), but that the containment was capable of being justified under article 5(1)(c) as the police reasonably believed that all those present within the cordon, including the appellant, were demonstrators and were about to commit a breach of the peace. He rejected the appellant’s claim at common law for false imprisonment. The Court of Appeal (Sir Anthony Clarke MR, Sir Igor Judge P and Lloyd LJ) dismissed her appeal: [2007] EWCA Civ 989; [2008] QB 660. In doing so however it upheld the appellant’s appeal against the judge’s finding that the police reasonably believed that all those within the cordon were about to commit a breach of the peace. The police were aware that there were those in the crowd who would not do this, and it was wrong to say that everyone in the crowd was a suspect: para 61. But the police did what was necessary to avoid an imminent breach of the peace. In this very exceptional case the actions of the police were lawful at common law.
There is no appeal to your Lordships against the Court of Appeal’s findings on the common law. The respondent accepts that, if the appellant’s detention was an unlawful deprivation of liberty contrary to article 5(1) of the Convention, the finding that this was a lawful exercise of breach of the peace powers at common law cannot stand. The appellant for her part accepts that, if her detention did not amount to an unlawful deprivation of liberty contrary to article 5(1), she was contained within the cordon in the lawful exercise of police powers. Her appeal is directed solely to the Court of Appeal’s decision that her rights under article 5(1) of the Convention were not infringed.
3. No restrictions shall be placed on the exercise of these rights other than such as are in accordance with law and are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security or public safety, for the maintenance of ‘ordre public’, for the prevention of crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.
In Secretary of State for the Home Department v JJ and others [2008] 1 AC 385, para 35, Lord Hoffmann said that the point about the right to liberty under article 5(1) is that it is unqualified. Its place in the scheme of other unqualified rights shows that it deals with literal physical restraint. Such is the revulsion against detention without charge or trial that it ordinarily trumps even the interests of national security. Liberty of movement may be restricted in the interests of public safety or to maintain public order. But the right to liberty under article 5(1) is absolute. As was observed in Engel v The Netherlands (No 1) (1976) 1 EHRR 647, para 58, this article contemplates individual liberty in its classic sense – the physical liberty of the person. Moreover a comparison between article 5 and the other normative provisions of the Convention and its Protocols shows that it is not concerned with mere restrictions upon liberty of movement. In this case the appellant’s liberty of movement was restricted by the police cordon. The question is whether this was also a deprivation of liberty.
If the difference between a restriction of liberty and a deprivation of liberty was to be measured merely by the duration of the restriction, it would be hard to regard what happened in this case as anything other than a deprivation of liberty. The interference with the appellant’s freedom of movement was not merely transitory, as in R (Gillan) v Commissioner of the Police of the Metropolis [2006] UKHL 12; [2006] 2 AC 307 where detention in the exercise of stop and search powers would ordinarily be for a few minutes only. In this case the detention that resulted from the police cordon was measured in hours, not minutes. But it is very well established that, in order to determine whether the threshold has been crossed, a much wider examination of the facts and circumstances is appropriate. In Engel v The Netherlands (No 1) (1976) 1 EHRR 647, para 59, for example, the court said that a disciplinary measure which would unquestionably be deemed a deprivation of liberty were it to be applied to a civilian might not possess that characteristic when applied to a serviceman. But it would not escape the terms of article 5 if it deviated from the normal conditions of life within the armed forces of the Contracting States. In order to establish whether this was so, account should be taken of a whole range of factors such as the nature, duration, effects and manner of execution of the penalty or measure in question.
In Guzzardi v Italy (1980) 3 EHRR 333, where the applicant was sent for three years to live under special supervision on a small island, the court decided by a majority of 11 votes to 7 that he had been deprived of his liberty, both the majority and the minority were agreed that the question was one of degree. In para 92 of its judgment, following Engel v The Netherlands (No 1) (1976) 1 EHRR 647, para 59, the court said that, in order to determine whether someone has been ‘deprived of his liberty’ within the meaning of article 5, the starting point must be his concrete situation and that account must be taken of a whole range of criteria, such as the type, duration, effects and manner of implementation of the measure in question. In para 93 however it added these words:
The same point was developed more fully by Sir Gerald Fitzmaurice in his dissenting opinion in Guzzardi. In para 5 he said that, while the question whether the conditions of the applicant’s existence on the island were sufficiently stringent to amount to a sort of imprisonment was a matter of appreciation and opinion, what to him decisively tilted the balance was the fact of article 2 of Protocol 4 to the Convention. In para 6 he said that its existence showed that those who framed the Convention did not actually contemplate that article 5 should extend to mere restrictions on freedom of movement, or they would not have considered it necessary to draw up a separate Protocol about that.
“The resulting picture is that article 5 of the Convention guaranteed the individual against illegitimate imprisonment, or confinement so close as to amount to the same thing – in sum against deprivation of liberty stricto sensu – but it afforded no guarantee against restrictions (on movement or place of residence) falling short of that.”
Drawing these together, the following general points can be made. Whether there is a deprivation of liberty, as opposed to a restriction of movement, is a matter of degree and intensity. Account must be taken of a whole range of factors, including the specific situation of the individual and the context in which the restriction of liberty occurs: Engel v The Netherlands (No 1) (1976) 1 EHRR 647, para 59; Guzzardi v Italy (1980) 3 EHRR 333, para 92; HM v Switzerland (2004) 38 EHRR 17, para 42; HL v United Kingdom (2004) 40 EHRR 761, para 89; Foka v Turkey, application no 28940/95, BAILII: [2008] ECHR 554, 24 June 2008, para 74; Stefanov v Bulgaria, application no 65755/01, 22 May 2008, BAILII: [2008] ECHR 426. And it is helpful to have regard to how the case in hand compares with the core or paradigm case, which cannot be the subject of argument. The court seems to have had this mind in Guzzardi v Italy, para 95, when it referred to the difference between the applicant’s treatment and classic detention in prison or strict arrest imposed on a serviceman, as in Engel v The Netherlands (No 1) (1976) 1 EHRR 647, para 63. Sir Gerald Fitzmaurice clearly did when he referred in para 6 of his opinion to “confinement so close as to amount to the same thing.” On the other hand, as the court observed in Guenat v Switzerland (1995) 81-B DR 130 and again in Stefanov v Bulgaria, para 71, article 5(1) may apply to deprivations of liberty of even a very short duration.
This case however is not simply a threshold case. It raises a more fundamental issue of principle which was not dealt with in Guzzardi v Italy (1980) 3 EHRR 333. Is it relevant, when considering whether a case falls within the ambit of article 5(1), to have regard to the purpose for which a person’s freedom of movement has been restricted? If so, in what kinds of cases can this be relevant? And, if the purpose of the restriction is relevant, what conditions must it satisfy to avoid being proscribed by the article?
The restrictions that were imposed by the police cordon in this case may be thought, as compared with the examples that I have just mentioned, to have been greater in degree and intensity. But Lord Pannick QC for the respondent submitted that one could not sensibly ignore the purpose of the restriction or the circumstances. Detention in the paradigm sense was not in the minds of anyone. There would have been no question of there being a deprivation of liberty if the cordon had remained in place for only 20 minutes. The fact that it remained in place for much longer ought to make no difference, as the fact that it was not possible to release everyone from the cordon earlier was due to circumstances that were beyond the control of the police. This was a case, he said, where the answer to the question whether what was done was within the scope of article 5(1) was to be determined by striking a fair balance between the rights of the individual and the interests of society. It was, of course, necessary to give full effect to the fact that article 5 was a fundamental right whose importance was paramount. But the fact that infringement was not open to justification except in the cases listed in sub-paragraphs (a) to (f) pointed to the need for care to be taken to identify the limits of its application.
Ms Williams QC for the appellant, on the other hand, said that the purpose for which the measure was employed was irrelevant. The fact that it was a necessary response and was proportionate was a pre-condition for establishing the measure’s legality for the purpose of sub-paragraphs (a) to (f) of article 5(1). But it went no further than that. There was no balance to be struck when consideration was being given to the initial question whether article 5(1) applied to the measures adopted by the police. Questions of purpose and balance only arose when consideration was being given to the cases listed in sub-paragraphs (a) to (f).
If purpose is relevant, it must be to enable a balance to be struck between what the restriction seeks to achieve and the interests of the individual. The proposition that there is a balance to be struck at the initial stage when the scope of the article is being considered was not mentioned in Engel v The Netherlands (No 1) (1976) 1 EHRR 647 or Guzzardi v Italy (1980) 3 EHRR 333. Nor can it be said to be based on anything that is to be found in the wording of the article. But I think that there are sufficient indications elsewhere in the court’s case law that the question of balance is inherent in the concepts that are enshrined in the Convention and that they have a part to play when consideration is being given to the scope of the first rank of fundamental rights that protect the physical security of the individual.
In X v Federal Republic of Germany (1981) 24 DR 158, where the Commission had regard to the fact that the purpose for which the children were taken to the police headquarters and kept there for about two hours was to question them, not to arrest or detain them. This led to the conclusion that the action in question did not constitute a deprivation of liberty in the sense of article 5(1). Similarly, in Guenat v Switzerland, application no 24722/94, BAILII: [1995] ECHR 77, 10 April 1995, the Commission had regard, in reaching its decision that the application was manifestly unfounded, to the fact that the police acted out of humanitarian considerations, given the applicant’s strange behaviour, when they took him to the police station where he remained for nearly three hours and was never locked up as there was never any question of arresting him. And in HM v Switzerland (2004) 38 EHRR 17 the court, in holding that article 5(1) was not applicable, had regard to the fact that applicant was placed in a foster home in her own interests in order to provide her with the necessary medical care, as well as satisfactory living conditions and hygiene: para 48. It would seem in principle that the more intensive the measure and the longer the period it is kept in force the greater will be the need for it to be justified by reference to the purpose of the restriction if it is not to fall within the ambit of the article.
In Nielsen v Denmark (1988) 11 EHRR 175 the applicant, who was a minor, complained about his committal to a child psychiatric ward of a state hospital at his mother’s request. The question was whether this was a deprivation of his liberty in violation of article 5. The applicant said that it was, as the ward in which he was placed was a closed ward, he was unable to receive visitors except with the agreement of the staff, special permission was required for him to make telephone calls and for persons outside the hospital to get into contact with him and he was under almost constant surveillance: para 65. On those facts his situation was close to the paradigm case described in Secretary of State for the Home Department v JJ and others [2008] 1 AC 385, para 37, by Lord Hoffmann. But the court said in para 72 that it did not follow that the case fell within the ambit of article 5. The restrictions that were imposed on the applicant were not of a nature or degree similar to the cases of deprivation of liberty specified in article 5(1). He was not detained as a person of unsound mind so as to bring the case within paragraph (e). He was there at the request of his mother, as to whom there was no evidence of bad faith.
The court summed the matter up in this way in para 72:
“Hospitalisation was decided upon by her in accordance with expert medical advice. It must be possible for a child like the applicant to be admitted to hospital at the request of the holder of parental rights, a case which is clearly not covered by paragraph (1) of article 5.”
In Soering v United Kingdom (1989) 11 EHRR 439 one of the applicant’s complaints was that the decision to extradite him to the United States of America, if implemented, would give rise to a breach of article 3 as, if he were to be sentenced to death, he would be exposed to inhuman and degrading treatment on death row. In para 89 the court stressed the need for a fair balance to be struck:
“What amounts to ‘inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment’ depends on all the circumstances of the case. Furthermore, inherent in the whole of the Convention is a search for a fair balance between the demands of the general interest of the community and the requirements of the protection of the individual’s fundamental rights. As movement about the world becomes easier and crime takes on a larger international dimension, it is increasingly in the interest of all nations that suspected offenders who flee abroad should be brought to justice. Conversely, the establishment of safe havens for fugitives would not only result in danger for the State obliged to harbour the protected person but also tend to undermine the foundations of extradition. These considerations must also be included among the factors to be taken into account in the interpretation and application of the notions of inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment in extradition cases.”
In O’Halloran and Francis v United Kingdom (2008) 46 EHRR 21 drivers whose vehicles had been caught on a speed camera complained under article 6(1) that they had been compelled to give incriminating information as to their identities in violation of their right to remain silent and the privilege against self-incrimination. They contended that this destroyed the very essence of the right to a fair trial. The court said in para 53 that it was unable to accept this argument. It did not follow from previous cases that any direct compulsion will automatically result in a violation:
“While the right to a fair trial under article 6 is an unqualified right, what constitutes a fair trial cannot be the subject of a single unvarying rule but must depend on the circumstances of the particular case.”
In N v United Kingdom (2008) 47 EHRR 39 the applicant was seriously ill on her arrival in the United Kingdom on a false passport from Uganda and was diagnosed as being HIV positive. She improved after prolonged medical treatment in this country. When steps were taken for her removal to Uganda she claimed that this would violate her rights under article 3 as the medication that she needed would only be available at considerable expense and would not be easily accessible. In para 44 the court repeated the observation that it had made in Soering that inherent in the whole Convention is a search for a fair balance between the demands of the general interest of the community and the requirements of the protection of the individual’s fundamental rights. Advances in medical science, together with social and economic differences between countries, meant that the levels of treatment available there might vary considerably:
“While it is necessary, given the fundamental importance of article 3 in the Convention system, for the court to retain a degree of flexibility to prevent expulsion in very exceptional cases, article 3 does not place an obligation on the contracting state to alleviate such disparities through the provision of free and unlimited health care to all aliens without a right to stay within its jurisdiction. A finding to the contrary would place too great a burden on the contracting states.”
In Saadi v United Kingdom, application no 13229/03, 29 January 2008, BAILII: [2008] ECHR 80, the Grand Chamber examined the notion of arbitrary detention in the context of the first limb of article 5(1)(f) which authorises the detention of a person to prevent his effecting an unauthorised entry to the country: paras 67 to 74. Its observations were directed to the restrictions permitted by the various sub-paragraphs of article 5(1). In para 67 the Grand Chamber said that it is a fundamental principle that no detention that is arbitrary can be compatible with article 5(1) and that the notion of “arbitrariness” extends beyond lack of conformity with national law. In para 68 it said that the notion of arbitrariness in the context of this article varies to a certain extent depending on the type of detention involved. In para 74 it said that, to avoid being branded as arbitrary, such detention must be carried out in good faith and its length should not exceed that reasonably required for the purpose pursued. The ambit of article 5(1) was not the point at issue in that case. But it must follow from these observations that measures of crowd control which involve a restriction on liberty, if they are not to be held to be arbitrary, must be carried out in good faith and should not exceed the length that is reasonably required for the purpose for which the measure was undertaken.
I would hold therefore that there is room, even in the case of fundamental rights as to whose application no restriction or limitation is permitted by the Convention, for a pragmatic approach to be taken which takes full account of all the circumstances. No reference is made in article 5 to the interests of public safety or the protection of public order as one of the cases in which a person may be deprived of his liberty. This is in sharp contrast to article 10(2), which expressly qualifies the right to freedom of expression in these respects. But the importance that must be attached in the context of article 5 to measures taken in the interests of public safety is indicated by article 2 of the Convention, as the lives of persons affected by mob violence may be at risk if measures of crowd control cannot be adopted by the police. This is a situation where a search for a fair balance is necessary if these competing fundamental rights are to be reconciled with each other. The ambit that is given to article 5 as to measures of crowd control must, of course, take account of the rights of the individual as well as the interests of the community. So any steps that are taken must be resorted to in good faith and must be proportionate to the situation which has made the measures necessary. This is essential to preserve the fundamental principle that anything that is done which affects a person’s right to liberty must not be arbitrary. If these requirements are met however it will be proper to conclude that measures of crowd control that are undertaken in the interests of the community will not infringe the article 5 rights of individual members of the crowd whose freedom of movement is restricted by them.
The respondent’s written case contains submissions directed to the cases mentioned in article 5(1)(b) and (c) as alternatives to his principal submission that there was no deprivation of liberty within the meaning of that article in the circumstances of this case. He submits that the police conduct was lawful under article 5(1)(b), as the police were acting in a proportionate manner to secure the appellant’s fulfilment of an obligation prescribed by law, namely the common law obligation to assist a constable in dealing with a breach of the peace. Alternatively he submits that the police confined the appellant lawfully under article 5(1(c), because they reasonably believed that this was necessary to prevent her committing the common law offence of refusing to aid a constable to prevent a breach of the peace. He accepts that to develop this argument he would need to persuade your Lordships that the reasoning in Lawless v Ireland (No 3) (1961) 1 EHRR 15 as to the way this subparagraph should be construed was unsound.
Although he did not abandon these arguments, Lord Pannick did not develop either of them in oral argument. The Court of Appeal found it unnecessary to reach a concluded view on these points, and so do I. But in my opinion it would be most unfortunate if the police were to have to rely on these sub-paragraphs, or either of them, when they were considering whether or not it was lawful for them to resort to measures of crowd control. It is obvious that neither of them were designed with that way of preserving public order in mind. It is safe to assume that, if they had thought that such measures were at risk of being held within the ambit of article 5(1), the framers of the Convention would have used language similar to that which is to be found in article 10(2). As it is, the tests which they lay down, which must be construed strictly, are highly specific to the position of the individual whose right to liberty is guaranteed by the article. They refer to what the court in Guzzardi v Italy (1980) 3 EHRR 333, para 92 described as the concrete situation of the person who complains that his right to liberty has been violated. The police would have to identify each and every individual in the crowd and determine whether it was necessary in his particular case for his liberty to be restricted. In almost every situation that can be imagined this would be an impossible exercise – especially in an emergency, when measures of crowd control were most needed to preserve life and limb and avoid serious damage to property.
I would hold, in agreement with the Court of Appeal, that the restriction on the appellant’s liberty that resulted from her being confined within the cordon by the police on this occasion met these criteria. This was not the kind of arbitrary deprivation of liberty that is proscribed by the Convention, so article 5(1) was not applicable in this case. I would respectfully endorse the further remarks of my noble and learned friend, Lord Walker of Gestingthorpe, with which I am in full agreement. I would dismiss the appeal.
I have had the great advantage of reading in draft the opinion of my noble and learned friend Lord Hope of Craighead. I am in full agreement with it, and for the reasons given by Lord Hope I would dismiss this appeal. Because of the importance of the appeal, I add a few remarks of my own, but they are no more than footnotes to Lord Hope’s opinion.
The opening words of article 5(1) refer to “the right to liberty and security of person.” There is no clear Strasbourg jurisprudence as to what “security of person” adds to “liberty”, but at least the added words emphasise that the article is concerned with liberty of the person (rather than, for instance, intellectual or economic freedom). In Bozano v France (1986) 9 EHRR 297, a case of “disguised extradition”, the Court (paras 59 and 60) attached weight to the fact that the applicant had been transported in handcuffs for 12 hours in concluding that his treatment was not compatible with the right to security of person. In some more recent cases (such as Kurt v Turkey (1999) 27 EHRR 373, paras 122-124, and Timurtas v Turkey (2001) 33 EHRR 6, paras 99-106) the Court has referred to “security of person” in connection with the ill-treatment or disappearance of prisoners while in state custody (see also McKay v United Kingdom (2007) 44 EHRR 41, para 30 and footnote 4). All this is consistent with close personal confinement, against one’s will and to one’s discomfort, being the paradigm case of a breach of article 5(1).
It is worth noting that article 2 of the Fourth Protocol, which the United Kingdom has not ratified, is not a new measure. It dates from 1963, and it was therefore in existence when all the Strasbourg authorities cited to your Lordships were decided. In Guzzardi v Italy (1980) 3 EHRR 333 it was referred to in the dissenting opinion of Sir Gerald Fitzmaurice, who noted that it was not an issue in that case because it had not been ratified by Italy. It is also worth noting that the qualifications in article 2 of the Fourth Protocol to the right of liberty of movement and freedom to choose one’s residence (set out in para 14 of Lord Hope’s opinion) constitute wider and less demanding grounds of justification than the six exceptions in article 5(1). As Lord Hope observes, article 2 of the Fourth Protocol puts the ambit of the absolute article 5(1) right into its proper perspective.
In paras 26ff of his opinion Lord Hope poses the question “Is purpose relevant?” His conclusion is a very guarded one, that is (para 34) that there is room, even in the case of fundamental rights, for a pragmatic approach which takes full account of all the circumstances. I respectfully agree that it is right to be cautious on this point. The Strasbourg Court has frequently made clear that all the surrounding circumstances may be relevant in determining whether there is a deprivation of liberty: see for instance HM v Switzerland (2004) 38 EHRR 17, para 42:
“In order to determine whether there has been a deprivation of liberty, the starting-point must be the specific situation of the individual concerned and account must be taken of a whole range of factors such as the type, duration, effects and manner of implementation of the measure in question.”
Many of these article 5(1)(e) cases also raise issues as to express or implied consent (to admission to a psychiatric ward or old people’s home). Some of the earlier cases seem questionable today insofar as they relied on “parental rights” (especially Nielsen, which was a nine-seven decision that the admission to a psychiatric ward of a twelve-year old boy was not a deprivation of liberty, because of his mother’s “parental rights”). Storck has, I think, sent out a clear message indicating a different approach to the personal autonomy of young people (although the unfortunate claimant in that case was 18 years of age at the time of her compulsory medication in a locked ward in the clinic at Bremen, for which she was made an exceptionally large award for non-pecuniary loss).
“in the present case the police action was not aimed at depriving the children of their liberty but simply to obtain information from them about how they obtained possession of the objects found on them and about thefts which had occurred in the school previously.”
Having said all that, however, I conclude that it is essential, in the present case, to pose the simple question: what were the police doing at Oxford Circus on 1 May 2001? What were they about? The answer is, as Lord Hope has explained in his full summary of the judge’s unchallenged findings, that they were engaged in an unusually difficult exercise in crowd control, in order to avoid personal injuries and damage to property. The senior officers conducting the operations were determined to avoid a fatality such as occurred in Red Lion Square on 15 June 1974. The aim of the police was to disperse the crowd, and the fact that the achievement of that aim took much longer than they expected was due to circumstances beyond their control.
Article 5(1) of the European Convention begins by stating that everyone has “the right to liberty and security of person”, and it goes on to provide that “no one shall be deprived of his liberty” subject to six specified exceptions. Those exceptions include, in paras (b) and (c), “the lawful arrest or detention of a person” in certain specified events.
In McKay v United Kingdom (2007) 44 EHRR 41, para 30, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (“the ECtHR”) described article 5, along with articles 2, 3 and 4, as being “in the first rank of fundamental rights that protect the physical security of the individual and as such its importance is paramount”. As Lord Hoffmann said in Secretary of State for the Home Department v JJ [2008] 1 AC 385, para 35, “[t]he point about the right not to be deprived of one’s liberty under article 5 is that, subject to the exceptions, it is unqualified”.
Having said that, it is important to bear in mind that in McKay (2007) 44 EHRR 41, para 30, immediately following the passage quoted above, the court said that the “key purpose” of article 5 “is to prevent arbitrary or unjustified deprivations of liberty”. Apart from importantly describing the purpose of article 5, this suggests that it is necessary to examine the circumstances of a particular case in order to see if it is within the ambit of article 5, particularly when it is not a paradigm case (which is “being in prison, in the custody of a gaoler” – per Lord Hoffmann in JJ [2008] 1 AC 385, para 36). This view is supported by much Strasbourg jurisprudence, and, in this connection, I would refer to two relatively recent decisions of the ECtHR.
In HM v Switzerland (2004) 38 EHRR 17, para 42, the court explained that, in deciding “whether there has been a deprivation of liberty, the starting-point must be the specific situation of the individual concerned”. The court then said that “account must be taken of a whole range of factors such as the type, duration, effects and manner of implementation of the measure in question” and that the “distinction between a deprivation of and restriction upon liberty is merely one of degree or intensity, and not one of nature or substance”. In Saadi v United Kingdom (Application no 13229/03), 29 January 2008, BAILII: [2008] ECHR 80, the Grand Chamber said at para 68 that “key principles” relating to article 5 “have been developed on a case-by-case basis”, and that “the notion of arbitrariness in the context of article 5 varies to a certain extent depending on the type of detention involved”.
Saadi (Application no 13229/03, BAILII: [2008] ECHR 80 ) is also important in the present context, because it seems to make it clear that, contrary to the appellant’s contention, the state of mind of the person responsible for the alleged detention can be a relevant factor in deciding whether article 5 has been infringed. In para 69, the court said that detention, even if complying with the national law, could be contrary to article 5 if “there has been an element of bad faith or deception on the part of the authorities”. Given the fact-sensitive nature of the enquiry and the significance of arbitrariness, this appears to me to be entirely consistent with the more general approach of the court to article 5 cases.
However, these considerations should not be relied on to dilute the importance or the effectiveness of article 5. They simply serve to emphasise that, like all the rights enshrined in the Convention, those contained in article 5 must be approached in the way described by the ECtHR in relation to article 3, another of the “first rank of fundamental rights”, in Soering v United Kingdom (1989) 11 EHRR 439, para 89:
“What amounts to ‘inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment’ depends on all the circumstances of the case. Furthermore, inherent in the whole of the Convention is a search for a fair balance between the demands of the general interest of the community and the requirements of the protection of the individual’s fundamental rights.”
Accordingly, particularly as the instant facts do not amount to a “paradigm case”, the issue of whether they fell within article 5, so that the appellant was “deprived of [her] liberty”, raises what is very much a fact-sensitive question. In that connection, the bare facts so far recited do not represent, by any means, “all the circumstances of the case”.
• The cordon was necessary as many of the demonstrators were bent on violence and impeding the police, and its imposition was in no way attributable to policing failures;
The police are under a duty to keep the peace when a riot is threatened, and to take reasonable steps to prevent serious public disorder, especially if it involves violence to individuals and property. Any sensible person living in a modern democracy would reasonably expect to be confined, or at least accept that it was proper that she could be confined, within a limited space by the police, in some circumstances. Thus, if a deranged or drunk person was on the loose with a gun in a building, the police would be entitled, indeed expected, to ensure that, possibly for many hours, members of the public were confined to where they were, even if it was in a pretty small room with a number of other people. Equally, where there are groups of supporters of opposing teams at a football match, the police routinely, and obviously properly, ensure that, in order to avoid violence and mayhem, the two groups are kept apart; this often involves confining one or both of the groups within a relatively small space for a not insignificant period. Or if there is an accident on a motorway, it is common, and again proper, for the police to require drivers and passengers to remain in their stationary motor vehicles, often for more than an hour or two. In all such cases, the police would be confining individuals for their own protection and to prevent violence to people or property.
It was suggested on behalf of the appellant that, at any rate in some of the examples I have given, consent to being confined could be imputed to the people concerned. I am not sure that that is a satisfactory analysis, not least because, unless the consent is to be treated as being involuntary or irrebuttably deemed to be given, it would not deal with the case of a person who informed the police that he objected to being confined. However, if imputed consent is an appropriate basis for justifying confinement for article 5 purposes, then it seems to me that the confinement in the present case could be justified on the basis that anyone on the streets, particularly on a demonstration with a well-known risk of serious violence, must be taken to be consenting to the possibility of being confined by the police, if it is a reasonable and proportionate way of preventing serious public disorder and violence.
So, in agreement with the Court of Appeal, I would hold that, in the light of the findings of the Judge, as summarised in para [57] above, the actions of the police in the present case did not give rise to any infringement of the appellant’s article 5 rights. The feature of the present case which gives particular cause for concern is the length of the period of confinement, nearly seven hours. However, having reached the conclusion that reasonable and proportionate constraint, which is requisite to prevent serious public disorder and violence, does not infringe article 5, it seems to me hard to contend that the mere fact that the period of constraint was unusually long can, of itself, convert a situation which would otherwise not be within the ambit of article 5 into one which is. I think that some support for that view can be found in cases where it has been held that detention in prison is not taken out of article 5 because it was only for a short time – see e.g. Novotka v Slovakia (Application No 47244/99) 4 November 2003, BAILII: [2003] ECHR 708
As already indicated, it appears to me that the intention of the police is relevant, particularly in a non-paradigm case, such as this, and where the intention is manifest from the external circumstances. If it transpired, for instance, that the police had maintained the cordon, beyond the time necessary for crowd control, in order to punish, or “to teach a lesson” to, the demonstrators within the cordon, then it seems to me that very different considerations would arise. In such circumstances, I would have thought that there would have been a powerful argument for saying that the maintenance of the cordon did amount to a detention within the meaning of article 5. However, as is apparent from the clear and careful findings made by the Judge, which have quite rightly not been challenged on appeal, there could be no question of such a contention being raised in the present case.
Lords-28/01/2009
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