Regina -v- Rimmington; Regina -v- Goldstein; The Sunday Times -v- The United Kingdom (No 1); Marcic -v- Thames Water Utilities Limited

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Regina -v- Rimmington; Regina -v- Goldstein - Times, 28 October 2005; [2005] UKHL 63; [2005] UKHL 63
HL 27 October 2005 Lord Bingham of Cornhill, Lord Nicholls of Birkenhead, Lord Rodger of Earlsferry, Baroness Hale of Richmond, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood	Crime - Human Rights
	The House considered the elements of the common law offence of public nuisance. One defendant faced accusations of having sent racially offensive materials to individuals. The second was accused of sending an envelope including salt to a friend as a joke. The envelope leaked causing a terrorist scare. Held: The common law offence of public nuisance had been substantially but not completely superceded by various statutory offences. Some old convictions for the offence would not now be repeated: 'the circumstances in which, in future, there can properly be resort to the common law crime of public nuisance will be relatively rare.' There may be a strong case for abolishing the crime of public nuisance, but 'as the courts have no power to create new offences . . . so they have no power to abolish existing offences. That is a task for Parliament, following careful consideration . . . whether there are aspects of the public interest which the crime of public nuisance has a continuing role to protect. It is not in my view open to the House in resolving these appeals to conclude that the common law crime of causing a public nuisance no longer exists. ' An essential element of the offence was that the public or some section of it was intended to be affected. In neither case was that the intention. Each defendant had intended his acts to affect only one individual at a a time. The House considered whether the offence was sufficiently well defined to meet Human Rights standards: 'There are two guiding principles: no one should be punished under a law unless it is sufficiently clear and certain to enable him to know what conduct is forbidden before he does it; and no one should be punished for any act which was not clearly and ascertainably punishable when the act was done.' The offence met that standard.
	Statute(s) referred to: European Convention on Human Rights 7(1)
	Judgment Links: Bailii Bailii House of Lords

The Sunday Times -v- The United Kingdom (No 1) - (1979) 2 EHRR 245; [1979] 2 EHRR 245; [1979] ECHR 1; [1980] ECHR 6; 6538/74
ECHR 26 April 1979	Crime - Human Rights
	The court considered the meaning of the need for an offence to be 'in accordance with law.' Held: 'In the Court's opinion, the following are two of the requirements that flow from the expression 'prescribed by law'. First, the law must be adequately accessible: the citizen must be able to have an indication that is adequate in the circumstances of the legal rules applicable to a given case. Secondly, a norm cannot be regarded as a 'law' unless it is formulated with sufficient precision to enable the citizen to regulate his conduct: he must be able – if need be with appropriate advice – to foresee, to a degree that is reasonable in the circumstances, the consequences which a given action may entail. Those consequences need not be foreseeable with absolute certainty: experience shows this to be unattainable. Again, whilst certainty is highly desirable, it may bring in its train excessive rigidity and the law must be able to keep pace with changing circumstances. Accordingly, many laws are inevitably couched in terms which, to a greater or lesser extent, are vague and whose interpretation and application are questions of practice.' and 'Where there has been an interference with the Art. 10(1) right, it is not sufficient that its subject-matter fell within a particular category or was caught by a legal rule formulated in general or absolute terms; the Court has to be satisfied that the interference was necessary having regard to the facts and circumstances prevailing in the specific case before it . . .'
	Statute(s) referred to: European Convention on Human Rights 10
	Judgment Links: Bailii Bailii ECHR

Marcic -v- Thames Water Utilities Limited - Gazette, 29 January 2004; Times, 05 December 2003; [2003] UKHL 66; [2004] 2 AC 42
HL 04 December 2003 Lord Nicholls of Birkenhead, Lord Steyn, Lord Hoffmann, Lord Hope of Craighead, Lord Scott of Foscote	Environment - Human Rights - Nuisance - Utilities
	The claimant's house was regularly flooded by waters including also foul sewage from the respondent's neighbouring premises. He sought damages and an injunction. The defendants sought to restrict the claimant to his statutory rights. Held: The damages were restricted to the statutory ones. The defendant was regulated under the 1991 Act by the Director-General, who had enforcement powers. By 18(8), when a contravention occurred the means of enforcement provided was to be the sole remedy. The water company was not a normal land owner, but rather operated by virtue of the statutory scheme, and the statutory remedies excluded the common law ones. 'Direct and serious interference of this nature with a person's home is prima-facie a violation of a person's right to respect for his private and family life (Article 8) and of his entitlement to peaceful enjoyment of his possessions (Article 1 of the First Protocol). The burden of justifying this interference rests with Thames Water. ' Even so, the claim under human rights law failed because of the existence of the statutory remedy. That scheme struck a reasonable balance. Parliament had acted well within its bounds as policy maker.
	Statute(s) referred to: European Convention on Human Rights 8 - Water Industry Act 1991 18(8) 94(1)
	Judgment Links: Bailii House of Lords

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