A trellis gate is installed in the porch
In yesterday’s blog “Obama: Yes to stem cells, funding”, I announced that a spam box seems too good for Declan's email to scientists and academics inviting them to sign his petition to the UN on therapeutic cloning. Now the porch we have been sleeping in since 3 November 2006 seems also too good for us: when we got there last night (a little late because it was Declan’s 48th birthday), we found that a trellis gate had been installed – it was open so we bedded down anyway. This afternoon Declan wrote to the Registrar of the European Court of Human Rights further to his second request for priority of 4 July (the letter is published below).
A trellis gate is installed in the porch
It is our belief that Declan’s case to the Court is very much going backwards: in a letter of 22 November 2007 the Court stated that it was not necessary to consider Declan’s first request for priority of 8 September 2007 because it would be examining his application, also of 8 September 2007, “shortly, possibly by the end of January 2008”; seven months later, in a letter dated 16 June (see here), it is “as soon as practicable” - coincidentally, two days before Declan received this letter from the Catholic Sisters of Mercy Dellow Centre, his main bag, which contained all our money and documents, was robbed in the centre (see here).
Tonight, being Friday, we expect to find the gate locked and will head for the local train station to sleep for the night; I am very much resigned to being arrested there by the City of London Transport Police. Still, I am certain it will be safer for me in a cell than walking the streets with all my belongings. (I have my blog and the petition saved to two of my USB drives just in case more coincidences show up; they won’t be able to arrest Declan because he says he will leave the station.)
Professor of philosophy AC Grayling, one of Britain's foremost public intellectuals, wrote a piece for The Guardian of 21 August titled “The rise of Miliband brings at last the prospect of an atheist prime minister”, with the subheadline “In this climate of quarrels between religionists and secularists, there are very many reasons to hope for a non-believer at No 10”. He argues that atheist leaders will be sceptical about the claims of religious groups to be more important than other civil society organisations in doing good, getting public funds, meriting special privileges and exemptions from laws, and having seats in the legislature and legal protection from criticism, satire and challenge. “Despite appearances, the world is not seeing a resurgence of religion, only a big turning-up of the volume of religious voices,” Grayling writes. “This is itself a response to increasing secularism among people tired of the disruptions, obstructions and conflicts religion so often causes. Public acknowledgement of atheism by a senior politician who might soon lead his country is just one indicator of the fact that the tide is actually running in the opposite direction: and that is a welcome and hopeful sign.”
Declan’s email letter this afternoon to Registrar Erik Fribergh of the European Court (Erik.Fribergh@echr.coe.int):
Subject: Heavey v. the United Kingdom (Application no. 22541/07)
Dear Mr Fribergh
I refer further to my second request for priority of 4 July 2008 under Rule 41 of the Rules of Court, for consideration as supplementary to my initial application of 8 September 2007. (As explained in previous applications, my wife and I have been sleeping rough in the porch of an office building in the City of London since 3 November 2006, the Department of Work and Pensions having terminated my joint claim for Jobseeker's Allowance on 27 September 2006 because I did not "sign on" two days before I was due to do so on 29 September.) Under "Necessity of Expedition", this request for priority states in part:
The attempts by the City of London Police to move the applicant and his wife from the porch they sleep in at night to beyond the City boundaries, culminating in the current 'No sleeping' sign on the back wall of the porch, constitutes a violation of the applicant's effective right of application as established under Article 34. These violations constitute a grave threat of irreparable and serious harm.
Last night my wife and I returned to the porch to find an unlocked trellis gate. The Court will note from the aforementioned second request for priority that since 9 May 2008 my wife and I have been visited on a number of occasions by the City of London Police in the middle of the night and ordered to immediately move out of the porch to beyond city boundaries or be arrested; on 10 June I received an email from Superintendent Lorraine Cussen, of Snow Hill Police station, advising me to find accommodation with the help of Broadway homeless charity; and on 24 June we arrived back at the porch to find for the first time a City of London Police 'No sleeping' sign on the back wall (as previously stated, that night we were visited at 10.00pm by three workers from Broadway to be asked if we would go on benefits, which I declined because I would have to withdraw my application to the Court).
I submit that this trellis gate was introduced yesterday as no more than an alternative means for the City of London Police to move my wife and I on, and as such is a fabrication: there has never been a complaint against either my wife or I since we started to sleep in this porch almost two years ago; we bed down at 9.00pm, and get up every weekday at 4.30am - on Saturdays and Sundays we get up at 6.30am; neither my wife nor I drink or smoke; my wife cleans the porch floor almost every night; and the office building in question has its own front entrance around the corner. I also wish to emphasise that we have informed the City of London Police on numerous occasions that we have never found a more suitable place to sleep, neither within the City of London nor beyond its boundaries.
The subject matter of this trellis gate being locked when we return to the porch at night is of considerable concern to me because my wife and I will be forced to sleep in the local train station where she will be subject to arrest due to her refusal to put herself at risk of more ill-treatment by moving out onto the street.
Article 34 (formally Article 25) of the European Convention on Human Rights 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 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, and in this regard I beg to refer to paragraph 22 of my application of 8 September 2007, wherein it states:
On 22 November 2006, 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".
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.
I submit that the attempts of the City of London Police to move my wife and I out from the porch we sleep in at night to beyond the City boundaries, culminating in yesterday's installation of a trellis gate, constitute a violation of my effective right of application as established under Article 34, and respectfully request that the Court take this matter up with the respondent Government. I further request that the Chamber or its President decide to give priority to my application of 8 September 2007.
Yours sincerely
Declan Heavey
