Church and State blog: Letter to the European Court under Article 34

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Letter to the European Court under Article 34

Yesterday evening Declan sent an email letter under Article 34 of the European Convention on Human Rights to the Registrar of the European Court of Human Rights, Erik Fribergh. Article 34 establishes a duty on Convention states not to hinder the effective exercise of the right to apply to the European Court – complaints of intimidation have frequently been made in cases against Turkey and a number have been upheld. We believe that being ordered by a police officer in the middle of the night to leave the porch we were sleeping in (and in which we had been sleeping – and still are, by the way – since being forced to become rough sleepers on 3 November 2006) or be arrested due to police "cleaning" the City of London of rough sleepers, and within hours of Declan being diagnosed with a sprained ankle, speaks ominously of things to come.

For the record, this is the email letter to the Registrar (the letter to the Mayor of London to which Declan refers can be read in the previous blog, and its attachment, a letter of 21 April to the head of the Catholic Church in Britain, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, regarding the Sisters of Mercy Dellow Centre, can be read here):

Subject: Heavey v. the United Kingdom (Application no. 22541/07)

Dear Mr Fribergh

I refer to your letter of 22 November 2007, reference ECHR-LEO.1R CO/PHA/gz, signed for the Registrar by Legal Secretary C Ovey, stating: "I acknowledge receipt of your letter of 22 September 2007 and enclosures. With reference to your request for priority under Rule 41 of the Rules of Court, I can inform you that the Court will examine your application shortly, possibly by the end of January 2008. It would therefore appear unnecessary to consider your request."

Please find attached: (i) copy of my email letter of 9 May 2008 (and attachment) to the Mayor of London, Mr Boris Johnson, in respect of an order from PC 698B of Bishopsgate Police Station on the night of 8 May instructing my wife and I to either leave the porch we were sleeping in or be arrested due to police "cleaning" the City of London of rough sleepers, and (ii) copy of my Certificate of Attendance of 8 May from the Royal London Hospital stating that I had a sprained ankle and was "advised to rest, elevate and ice ankle".

With particular reference to the police officer's order on the night of 8 May instructing my wife and I to either leave the City of London or be arrested, within hours of me spraining my ankle, I wish to draw to the Court's attention a violation of Article 34 (formally Article 25) of the European Convention on Human Rights, and request that the Court take this matter up with the respondent Government.

Article 34 establishes a duty on Convention states not to hinder the effective exercise of the right to apply to the European Court of Human Rights. The Court has frequently emphasised that it is of the utmost importance for the effective operation of the system of individual petition that applicants or potential applicants should be able to communicate freely with the Court. Article 34 states that:

The Court may receive applications from any person, non-governmental organisation or group of individuals claiming to be the victim of a violation by one of the High Contracting Parties of the rights set forth in the Convention or the protocols thereto. The High Contracting Parties undertake not to hinder in any way the effective exercise of this right.

Under Article 34, applicants must not be subjected to any form of pressure from the authorities to modify or withdraw their complaints. "Pressure" includes direct coercion and flagrant acts of intimidation (of applicants, potential applicants, their families and legal representatives), but also any improper indirect acts or contacts designed to dissuade or discourage applicants from pursuing a Convention remedy.

In the case of Kurt v Turkey (No. 24276/94, 25.5.98, (1999) 26 EHRR 373), the Court found there had been improper pressure in violation of former Article 25, after the applicant alleged that she had been pressurised by the authorities to withdraw her application to the Commission.

In assessing the degree of interference, the Court will take account of the vulnerability of the complainant and his or her susceptibility to influence exerted by the authorities, including any legitimate fear of reprisals. In this regard, I beg to point out that my request for priority of 8 September 2007 states:

Since 3 November 2006 the applicant and his wife have been sleeping rough in the porch of an office building in the heart of London's business district. On 22 November, the Dellow Centre recorded on the applicant's wife's registration form that St Mungo's, London's largest homelessness organisation, had informed the Centre that neither the applicant nor his wife could be referred to a hostel "due to not being on any benefits" [having had to go on state benefits in July 2005, the Department for Work and Pensions ceased the applicant's and his wife's allowance entitlement on 27 September 2006 because the applicant did not "sign on" two days before he was due to do so on 29 September].

I can confirm that my care of address, the Dellow Centre, has received no correspondence from the Court subsequent to your letter of 22 November.

Please would you acknowledge receipt.

Yours sincerely
Declan Heavey

Video: MPs debate embryology laws
British MPs voted yesterday to allow controversial plans to update human embryology laws to continue to their next Parliamentary stage, despite deep splits among MPs. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill was given its second reading by 340 votes to 78, a majority of 262. The government, faced with the prospect of a rebellion by Roman Roman Catholic ministers, has promised Labour MPs a free vote on the most contentious issues. These include the creation of cytoplasmic hybrid embryos.

On 12 May the Guardian reported under the title “What's in the bill”:

The bill allows the creation of so-called "admixed" cytoplasmic hybrid embryos. Scientists want to inject DNA from the nucleus of adult human cells into a hollowed out cow or rabbit egg. The resulting tiny ball of cells would have 99% human DNA and would not be allowed to develop beyond 14 days in the lab. It could not be implanted into the womb of a human or animal but would be used to create stem cells for research without having to use human eggs. The minority of religious groups who believe human life begins when sperm and egg meet say the research violates the sanctity of human life.

The main battle will come next Monday at Committee Stage, when MPs will have a free vote on the part of the Bill relating to research using cytoplasmic hybrid embryos.

Church and State

MAYOR OF LONDON RSI PROPERTY
DAY 406 IN A WEEKLY PERIODIC TENANCY
SUBJECT TO A SECTION 21 NOTICE

(SEE PARA. 3 BELOW)

1. Our 308 Honorary Associates include 20 Nobel Prize laureates. Declan and I are engaged in a project that deals with the publication of issues significant to social policy in a number of key areas, e.g., climate change, population, futurism, atheism, and free speech. Established as Network for Church Monitoring, a non-profit company limited by guarantee, our main publication, found at the website, Church and State, calls attention to subjects, not the least which have been critical of the interaction between religious and secular institutions. We have been the target of numerous threats and actions, e.g., the former resulting in threats to Declan's life, and the latter, which have led to vandalism. The various incidents are on record with the police and other official agencies.

2. There are no less than 63 Nobel Prize laureates on the Church and State website from 20 Honorary Associates, eight articles, nine book excerpts and 33 petition signatories. (For example, one Nobel laureate signed our Nobel petition in support of human embryonic stem cell research and gave us permission to excerpt from one of his books.) Our list of associates also includes 18 US National Medal laureates, and six Turing Award laureates (the equivalent of the Nobel Prize in computer science). We have published one article and excerpted from the books of seven members of the British House of Lords. And there are 31 knighted professors on the site from 13 Honorary Associates, one book excerpt and 21 petition signatories. These figures are despite the never-ending assault on our email (this link reveals the targeting of our emails to, among others, a close colleague in Washington, DC as well as space advocates and Nobel laureates).

3. This is Day 406 for us living under the threat to life of a 'no fault' eviction by Peabody Trust.[1] We live in a Mayor of London's Rough Sleepers Initiative (RSI) property. Peabody's appalling new terms of tenancy have forced us into an unstable weekly periodic tenancy that poses a threat to Declan's life and inhibits our ability to exercise our rights. Declan accumulated quite a history with the Housing Ombudsman Service before he received the Ombudsman's decision not to investigate a referral from Lyn Brown MP on jurisdictional grounds. The Ombudsman was asked to consider whether or not our tenancy has been renewed like for like; and whether, if not, it should be in light of the landlord having accused us of not signing a like-for-like agreement. The Equality and Human Rights Commission will not accept a referral of discrimination from Ms Brown, the Commission's helpline (EASS) having grossly distorted the complaint against Peabody. We no longer have pro se access to the courts (see next paragraph).

4. This eviction matter came before District Judge Ruth Fine at the Central London County Court on 30 June 2020, when both counsel for St Mungo's (the charity in effective control of our tenancy) and Declan presented their positions. Declan lost the case and was ordered to pay £1,850 in costs. A publishing colleague in America cleared these costs within 24 hours of my blog post about this hearing for strike out on a related issue that was the essence of the claim, i.e., that St Mungo's would take a phone call to confirm that we are clients of the Mayor of London's RSI programme. Within a week of the hearing, St Mungo's had agreed to take this phone call for us both, the Court having ruled that they were not obliged to do so despite our circumstances. This time we escaped bankruptcy (counsel for St Mungo's asked for £3,407.50 in costs), but consider that to seek pro se access to justice in the courts has become far too dangerous for us. Declan currently has before the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman the decision of the Information Commissioner that allows St Mungo's to continue processing coercive support plans without our knowledge or consent and that also poses a threat to his life.

5. When it comes to traffic, we have had 10.7 million hits in the past three years on Facebook; however, I left the platform on 13 March 2021 for one year rather than risk being banned for life. It is indisputable that with any sort of level playing field Church and State would have far exceeded 2.5 million hits last year. In addition to a large variety of blocks without explanation, Facebook had so severely restricted our Page's distribution by October 2020 that it was almost as good as an unpublished page.[2] Currently, we are up to their 85th block since 1 December 2015, and as usual without an explanation. This block records as one half of their 3rd double block in the first five weeks of this year that lasted 60 days. Our traffic has also been curtailed by over 2.5K blocks on access to Church and State since 26 July 2016, including 29 full distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks since 17 May 2019 that have lasted for as long as 54 hours at a time.[3] About 70% of our hits are from Americans.

"This is precisely the hard hitting kind of response needed to clarify the unfair way Facebook is treating your highly reputable site." Don Collins, Founder, International Services Assistance Fund, Washington DC

Last updated: 26/06/21

_________________________

[1] Once a fixed term has elapsed, the landlord has the option to seek eviction even if the tenant has upheld their obligations in full (though of course the landlord must still apply for and obtain a county court order).

[2] 17/10/20: We have permission to publish this ISAF letter of 30 September to Facebook COO Sheryl Samberg. Facebook has so severely restricted our Page's distribution since 4 September that it's almost as good as an unpublished page

[3] Since October 2019, we have been defining a full DDoS attack as having such a high volume of up to 4-minute blocks on access to Church and State that we don't bother recording them all.

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Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Letter to the European Court under Article 34

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