R(L) demonstrates justifiable interference with Article 8 rights, says Nicholas Dobson
With the flow of time, the once-alien concepts of the European Court of Human Rights have become so seamlessly absorbed into mainstream UK jurisprudence that the joins are now all but invisible to the naked legal eye. And so well-used to the proportionality balance have UK public lawyers become that this now feels as familiar as a trusted old legal tome. But, like all life on earth, proportionality is constantly evolving as the courts apply it to the infinitely variable facts and circumstances of the legal human condition.
A decision of the Supreme Court on 29 October 2009 illustrates the kinship in appropriate cases between proportionality and the common law doctrine of fairness in decisions as to whether it is justifiable to interfere with the right to respect for private and family life under Art 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The case in question was R (L) v Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis [2009] UKSC 3 and the lead judgment was
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