Quotes by JCHR

The UK remains in the top ten countries in respect of the time taken to implement leading cases1. In September 2009, the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly Rapporteur on the Implementation of Judgments, Christos Pourgourides, expressed his "serious concern" that 36 of the 47 Council of Europe Member States were failing fully to implement judgements of the ECtHR within a reasonable time. Considering judgements which had not been fully implemented within five years or which revealed major structural problems, the rapporteur included the United Kingdom within his list of countries about which he was particularly concerned, listing 13 judgements against the UK. He also singled out the UK along with 10 other countries for special attention, in the light of the Government's approach to certain judgements which had taken a long time to implement (such those relating to as corporal punishment of children and the investigation of the use of lethal force by State agents in Northern Ireland).

• 1. A "leading case" is a case which reveals a new systemic problem in a state which therefore requires the adoption of new general measures. It is to be distinguished from "repetitive cases" which raise a systemic problem which has already been raised before the Committee of Ministers

We remain extremely concerned about the impact of control orders on the subject of the orders, their families and their communities. There can be no doubt that the degree of control over the minutiae of controlees' daily lives, together with the length of time spent living under such restrictions and their apparently indefinite duration, have combined to exact a heavy price on the mental health of those subjected to control orders. The severe impact on the female partners and children of the controlees, including on their enjoyment of their basic economic and social rights as well as their right to family life, is an example of the "collateral impact" of counter-terrorism measures recently identified by the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism...

We are particularly concerned about the apparent increase in resort to conditions in control orders which amount to internal exile, banishing an individual and, effectively, his family, from his and their community. We have very grave reservations about the use of such historically despotic executive orders, and the contribution they undoubtedly make to "the folklore of injustice."