English case compels rethink on funding cuts to deaf children’s organisation; Human Rights Commissioner warns Ireland budget cuts jeopardise human rights

English High Court case

A legal challenge to an English local council's decision to cut funding to a deaf children's organisation has resulted in the decision being quashed.

Stoke-on-Trent Council (the Council) had decided to cut a teaching post and reduce specialist support to deaf children. The National Deaf Children's Society (the Society) applied to judicially review this decision under public sector equality legislation and general public law duties to have regard to relevant considerations. The Society obtained a protective costs order to take the matter to court.

The Council backed down and agreed by consent order to quash and reconsider its decision. They undertook to enter into proper consultation with those affected by funding decisions, for example the parents of deaf children.

The Society was represented pro bono by leading commercial firm Freshfields and English barristers' chambers 11 KBW.

Click here to view more by the National Deaf Children's Society.

Click here to view more by 11 KBW.

Click here to view FAQs and case summaries on protective costs orders, which may enable plaintiffs to take public interest challenges where they could not otherwise afford to.

Click here to view a UK Human Rights Blog on the courts' role in budget cut challenges.

European Human Rights Commissioner

Meanwhile, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Thomas Hammarberg, has warned Ireland that budget cuts may put human rights at risk.

The report followed Commissioner Hammarberg's visit to Ireland in June 2011, which sought to examine the human rights of vulnerable groups in times of austerity budgets. Mr Hammarberg credited Ireland for - despite some gaps - its "robust legal and institutional framework to combat discrimination, racism and xenophobia." The report covers a range of areas including the asylum system; children; disability; mental health; older people; transgender rights; Travellers; and the human rights infrastructure.

The Commissioner placed particular emphasis on the potential impact of budget cuts on vulnerable groups:

  • on being informed that Irish budget cuts would affect Travellers' education by reducing teaching hours, posts and special needs assistance, he urged the Irish authorities "to assess carefully all budgetary cuts in order to avoid any undesired effects on health and housing programmes as well as to abstain from any cuts in the Travellers' education budget";
  • with regard to disability, he recommended that "all budgetary or structural proposals concerning health care and social services be scrutinised thoroughly to identify and assess their possible impact on people with disabilities and their families"; and
  • noting that children were the group most at risk of poverty in Ireland, he expressed concern that "budgetary measures resulting in reduced child benefit and funding of public services in core areas like health care and education...will affect families to the detriment of their children".
  • He added that weakening human rights bodies through budgetary cutbacks would be "more costly to resolve in a long-term perspective".

Click here to view the Commissioner's press release and report.

Click here to view the Commissioner's Human Rights Comment, which publishes articles, podcasts and video clips focusing on major human rights issues.

Click here to view the Free Legal Advice Centre's (FLAC) Realising Rights In A Recession FLACsheet.

Concern about the effect of austerity measures on human rights (and accordingly vulnerable groups) in Greece was also expressed earlier this year. In July, the United Nations Independent Expert on foreign debt and human rights, Cephas Lumina, warned that the implementation of further austerity measures and structural reforms to solve Greece's debt crisis:

"...is likely to have a serious impact on basic social services and therefore the enjoyment of human rights by the Greek people, particularly the most vulnerable sectors of the population such as the poor, elderly, unemployed and persons with disabilities".

 

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