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Tyrer v. the United Kingdom (application No. 5856/72) was a case decided by the European Court of Human Rights in 1978.
Mr Tyrer, then aged 15, was given three strokes of the birch in 1972 in the Isle of Man, according to the local juvenile court's sentence for unlawful assault occasioning actual bodily harm. Birching was conducted by policemen in private, in the presence of Tyrer's father and a doctor; Tyrer was made to take down his trousers and underpants and bend over a table. [1]
By a majority of six votes to one, the court held Tyrer's birching to constitute degrading treatment contrary to the Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. [2] Significant conclusions of the case included that "the Convention is a living instrument which, as the Commission rightly stressed, must be interpreted in the light of present-day conditions. In the case now before it the Court cannot but be influenced by the developments and commonly accepted standards in the penal policy of the member States of the Council of Europe in this field". [3]
Judge Gerald Fitzmaurice has dissented, finding no violation of Article 3 and concerning that the Court's conclusion "amounts to a finding that all corporal punishment, in all circumstances, inherently involves, as such, an unacceptable level of degradation." [4] and that "assuming that corporal punishment does involve some degree of degradation, it has never been seen as doing so for a juvenile to anything approaching the same manner or extent as for an adult". [5]
The judgment was considered 'landmark' by Manfred Nowak, UN Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. [6]
The European Court of Human Rights, also known as the Strasbourg Court, is an international court of the Council of Europe which interprets the European Convention on Human Rights. The court hears applications alleging that a contracting state has breached one or more of the human rights enumerated in the convention or its optional protocols to which a member state is a party. The European Convention on Human Rights is also referred to by the initials "ECHR". The court is based in Strasbourg, France.
A corporal punishment or a physical punishment is a punishment which is intended to cause physical pain to a person. When it is inflicted on minors, especially in home and school settings, its methods may include spanking or paddling. When it is inflicted on adults, it may be inflicted on prisoners and slaves.
The Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment is an international human rights treaty under the review of the United Nations that aims to prevent torture and other acts of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment around the world.
Cruel and unusual punishment is a phrase in common law describing punishment that is considered unacceptable due to the suffering, pain, or humiliation it inflicts on the person subjected to the sanction. The precise definition varies by jurisdiction, but typically includes punishments that are arbitrary, unnecessary, overly severe compared to the crime, or not generally accepted in society.
The Manual on Effective Investigation and Documentation of Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, commonly known as the Istanbul Protocol, is the first set of international guidelines for documentation of torture and its consequences. It became an official United Nations document in 1999; the most recent revision was in June 2022.
The five techniques, also known as deep interrogation, are a group of interrogation methods developed by the United Kingdom during the 20th century. Originally developed by British forces in a variety of 20th-century conflicts, they are most notable for being applied to detainees in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. The five collective methods are prolonged wall-standing, hooding, subjection to noise, deprivation of sleep, and deprivation of food and drink.
The Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment is a treaty that supplements to the 1984 United Nations Convention Against Torture. It establishes an international inspection system for places of detention modeled on the system that has existed in Europe since 1987.
Soering v United Kingdom 161 Eur. Ct. H.R. (1989) is a landmark judgment of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) which established that extradition of a German national to the United States to face charges of capital murder and the potential exposure of said citizen to the death row phenomenon violated Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) guaranteeing the right against inhuman and degrading treatment. In addition to the precedence established by the judgment, the judgment specifically resulted in the United States and the State of Virginia committing to not seek the death penalty against the German national involved in the case, and he was eventually extradited to the United States.
Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights prohibits torture, and "inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment".
Article 3 – Prohibition of torture
No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
Othman v. United Kingdom was a 2012 judgment of the European Court of Human Rights which stated that under Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights the United Kingdom could not lawfully deport Abu Qatada to Jordan, because of the risk of the use of evidence obtained by torture.
Papua New Guinea (PNG) has a population of 6.8 million, nearly half of which is under 18 years of age. Public trust in the justice system has been eroded, and the country’s significant crime problem exacerbated, by brutal responses from police against those they suspect of having committed offences, and the routine violence, abuse and rape carried out by police against persons, including children, within their custody. Many incidents are cases of opportunistic abuses of power by police instead of their following official processes. While a raft of measures have been assembled in order to improve conditions and processes for youths within the justice system, their success has been hampered by a severe lack of implementation, insufficient resources, and failure to impose appropriate penalties on authorities for failure to adhere to their provisions.
S v Williams and Others is a decision of the Constitutional Court of South Africa in which the court ruled that judicial corporal punishment of juveniles is unconstitutional. The decision was taken with respect to five different cases in which six juveniles were convicted by different magistrates and sentenced to receive a "moderate correction" of a number of strokes with a light cane.
The Republic of Uruguay is located in South America, between Argentina, Brazil and the South Atlantic Ocean, with a population of 3,332,972. Uruguay gained independence and sovereignty from Spain in 1828 and has full control over its internal and external affairs. From 1973 to 1985 Uruguay was governed by a civil-military dictatorship which committed numerous human rights abuses.
The Isle of Man is a Crown Dependency located in the Irish Sea between the islands of Great Britain and Ireland with a population in 2015 estimated to be approximately 88,000. It enjoys a high degree of domestic, legislative and political autonomy through its ancient Parliament Tynwald. By convention, the United Kingdom Government is responsible for the conduct of the international relations and defence of the island. The Isle of Man does not have a written constitution, or a Bill of Rights which sets out its Human Rights. These rights are addressed in the Human Rights Act 2001. The island has also ratified a number of international treaties.
Zaoui v Attorney-General was the final judicial decision concerning Algerian refugee Ahmed Zaoui before the objections of the Security Intelligence Service concerning Zaoui's alleged threat to national security were withdrawn in September 2007, allowing him to remain in New Zealand. The judgment of the Supreme Court of New Zealand was concerned with the proper interpretation of article 33 of the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees 1951 and section 72 of the Immigration Act 1987.
Saadi v Italy was a case of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) decided in February 2008, in which the Court unanimously reaffirmed and extended principles established in Chahal v United Kingdom regarding the absolute nature of the principle of non-refoulement and the obligations of a state under Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
The Committee Against Torture (CAT) is a treaty body of human rights experts that monitors implementation of the United Nations Convention against Torture by state parties. The committee is one of eight UN-linked human rights treaty bodies. All state parties are obliged under the convention to submit regular reports to the CAT on how rights are being implemented. Upon ratifying the convention, states must submit a report within one year, after which they are obliged to report every four years. The committee examines each report and addresses its concerns and recommendations to the state party in the form of "concluding observations." Under certain circumstances, the CAT may consider complaints or communications from individuals claiming that their rights under the convention have been violated.
Cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment (CIDT) is treatment of persons which is contrary to human rights or dignity, but is not classified as torture. It is forbidden by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the United Nations Convention against Torture and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Although the distinction between torture and CIDT is maintained from a legal point of view, medical and psychological studies have found that it does not exist from the psychological point of view, and people subjected to CIDT will experience the same consequences as survivors of torture. Based on this research, some practitioners have recommended abolishing the distinction.
The prohibition of torture is a peremptory norm in public international law—meaning that it is forbidden under all circumstances—as well as being forbidden by international treaties such as the United Nations Convention Against Torture.
Torture is generally defined as deliberately inflicting "severe pain or suffering" on a prisoner, but exactly what this means in practice is disputed.