Leading human rights organizations, including the ICJ, have hailed a landmark decision of the UK Supreme Court to hold the UK Government accountable for its role in human rights abuses overseas.
The country’s highest court issued today a long-awaited judgment in the two joined appeals in Belhaj and Others v. Jack Straw & Others and Rahmatullah v. Ministry of Defence and Another.
The Court ruled that the UK Government could not rely on the legal doctrines of sovereign immunity and foreign act of state to escape claims in the two cases alleging UK involvement in breaches of human rights by foreign governments.
The first case, brought by the former Libyan opposition leader Abdul-Hakim Belhaj (photo) and his wife, Fatima Boudchar, alleges that UK Government officials were complicit in the couple’s kidnap and rendition to Gaddafi’s Libya, where they were arbitrarily imprisoned and tortured.
The second case was brought by Yunus Rahmatullah, who was detained by UK forces in Iraq before being handed over to US forces and allegedly tortured and imprisoned without charge for over ten years.
The Government argued before the Supreme Court that the claimants’ cases should be dismissed because, under the doctrines of sovereign immunity and foreign act of state, the UK courts were not permitted to rule on the legality of acts by foreign governments.
The claimants argued in response that the doctrines only applied in certain limited situations, and that they did not extend to the circumstances in Belhaj and Rahmatullah.
The claimants’ position in Belhaj was supported by several prominent human rights organizations – the ICJ, Amnesty International, JUSTICE and REDRESS – who intervened in the case.
The intervening organizations submitted that dismissing the claims would effectively grant impunity for torture to UK officials, violating international human rights law and weakening international commitments to an effective remedy for torture and other ill-treatment, enforced disappearance, arbitrary detention and other human rights breaches.
The Supreme Court found unanimously in favour of the claimants and dismissed the Government’s appeal.
It ruled that the doctrine of sovereign immunity did not apply because the foreign governments were not parties to the cases and their legal interests were not affected by the claims put forward.
In respect of foreign act of state, while the judges differed in their reasoning, they agreed that the doctrine could not be invoked for such serious violations of law as torture, unlawful detention and enforced disappearance.
The Belhaj and Rahmatullah cases will now proceed to full trials, where the courts will examine the facts of the claims and determine whether the UK Government and its officials were complicit in the claimants’ torture and other human rights abuses.
“The UK Supreme Court has spoken forcefully in affirming that the public interest in ensuring access to justice for victims of serious human rights abuses is paramount,” said Ian Seiderman, ICJ Legal and Policy Director.
“Human rights are universal and their effective enforcement must not be blocked by misapplied juridical doctrine that contrives to deny victims a remedy,” he added.
Contact
Ian Seiderman, ICJ Legal and Policy Director, t: +41 22979 3800 ; e: ian.seiderman(a)icj.org
UK-Belhaj case-News-press releases-2017-ENG (full version of press release, in PDF)