Suicides and the standard of proof: Is probability enough?

Paige Jones considers the ruling of the UKSC in the case of Maughan, which loosened the standard of proof in inquests, and the possible consequences this may have of the Article 2 rights of those in state care.

In the recent UK Supreme Court (“UKSC”) decision in R (Maughan) v Her Majesty’s Senior Coroner for Oxfordshire (Respondent) UKSC 2019/0137 the court held that the standard of proof for determinations of suicide in inquest proceedings is the civil standard on the ‘balance of probabilities.’ Though this may seem like a technocratic or merely procedural change, it could have important implications for the rights of those in state care and for state accountability.

Grenfell Tower: how the UK breached its human rights obligations

Anisa Mata considers the Grenfell Tower fire, one of the worst man-made man-made disasters in post-World War II Britain, as a breach of the UK’s human rights obligations and a manifestation of social and racial inequality.

Introduction                                                                                                                              

The Grenfell Tower fire is considered one of the worst tragedies and systemic failures to have occurred in the UK in recent years. In the early morning of the 14^th June 2017, the 24-storey building in West London was engulfed in flames as a result of an electrical appliance catching fire. The use of ACM cladding on the facade of the building acted as a catalyst to the spread of the fire. The fire resulted in 72 deaths, and calls from the community for someone to be held accountable for these preventable deaths. The catastrophic event led to an investigation of the local authorities and public services by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (‘EHRC’), for their failure to uphold their human right obligations to the residents of Grenfell and for continuing that failure in relation to the general public.

The Global Pandemic and Domestic Violence

Isabella Da Re assesses the human rights implications of the UK government’s response to a surge in the reporting of domestic violence during “lockdown”.

With the global pandemic raging globally, some of the hidden victims of this phenomenon are those trapped at home with their abusers; namely, the victims of domestic violence, whose lives are characterised by the infringement of their basic human rights.

So, what is domestic violence? The Istanbul Convention was drafted to specifically tackle the issue of domestic violence in Europe and defines it as ‘acts of physical, sexual, psychological or economic violence that occur within the family or domestic unit or between former or current spouses or partners, whether or not the perpetrator shares or has shared the same residence with the victim’.[1] Mirroring this, the Domestic Violence Bill 2020 proposes a statutory definition of domestic violence in UK law, which is twofold; it addresses the meaning of abuse along with the relationship between victim and perpetrator.[2] The notion of coercive control is at the heart of the domestic violence definitions. Evan Stark explains that this is a behavioural pattern which seeks to limit the victim’s liberties, freedoms and self, thus going beyond the bodily harm by violating their human rights.[3]