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Court of appeal to decide whether government employment schemes constitute forced labour
Yep, MPs voted in favour of Bill by 263 to 52 in expedited procedure yesterday -
here’s link to rightsnet news story -
in today’s guardian…
Lawyers acting on behalf of three jobseekers including Cait Reilly – the unemployed graduate forced to work unpaid in Poundland – are hoping to overturn a controversial law introduced by the DWP in March which allowed the department to ignore court judgments awarding more than £100m in benefits rebates to a quarter of a million jobseekers ...
... In a 25-page letter submitted before lodging a judicial review in the high court, the solicitors Public Interest Lawyers argue that by retrospectively overturning a court ruling, the work and pensions secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, flagrantly denied hundreds of thousands of jobseekers access to justice under article 6 of the European convention on human rights.
They also argue that under the same convention, their clients’ right to property was abused.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/jun/11/jobseekers-law-denying-benefit-rebates
and from Public Interest Lawyers ...
http://www.publicinterestlawyers.co.uk/news_details.php?id=316
Update. The Supreme Court is due the hear the DWP’s appeal in this case on 29/7/13 before a judicial bench of five and it has been allocated a one day hearing.
Supreme Court to give judgment in R (on the application of Reilly and another) (Respondents) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Appellant) next Wednesday 30 October -
judgment in reilly handed down -
http://www.supremecourt.gov.uk/decided-cases/docs/UKSC_2013_0064_Judgment.pdf
rightsnet news story to follow.
In summary of judgment, Supreme Court says -
Lord Neuberger and Lord Toulson give the unanimous judgment of the Court.
On ground (i) lawfulness, the Supreme Court dismisses the Secretary of State’s appeal, holding that the 2011 Regulations are invalid, since they did not contain a sufficiently detailed “prescribed description” of the SBWA or CAP schemes.
On ground (ii) notification, the Court dismisses the Secretary of State’s appeal, holding that the notice given to the second Respondent was insufficiently detailed.
On ground (iii) publication, the Supreme Court holds that the Secretary
of State had failed to provide sufficient information about the schemes to the Respondents. On ground, (iv) forced labour, the Court dismisses the Respondents’ cross-appeal: the Regulations do not constitute forced or compulsory labour.
Given the existence of the 2013 Act and 2013 Regulations, however, the appropriate form
of the order would require submissions from counsel.
Bloody Marxist judges trapping people on welfare dependancy, eh?
I am still very concerned that the principle of what the government were trying to do hasn’t been rejected.
we have a minimum wage yet your expected to work and only get your benefits? sorry but that’s forced, unpaid labour to me.
I would like to see what the European courts would say on the issue.
PS - McVey and IDS have claimed this as a victory. An indicator of how they will continue to behave, one thinks.
PS - McVey and IDS have claimed this as a victory. An indicator of how they will continue to behave, one thinks.
I think it is one given the principle hasn’t been rejected.
Only narrowly and politically construed, which is what they do.
On the whole, having read the judgment, I think it’s pretty humiliating for HMG.
But true enough the workfare principle stands, and the line taken to attack it seems to have been doomed from the outset.
But I too would like to see further judicial comment on the matter of making people work for nothing.
The DWP is under a duty as a matter of fairness to provide jobseekers with enough information about the relevant scheme so that they can make informed and meaningful representations as to whether a scheme is appropriate before a decision is made. This information must, of course, be provided before any notice requiring a jobseeker to participate on a particular scheme is served. Any failure to provide adequate information is likely to invalidate any notice given making it unlawful for the DWP to require a person to participate on a scheme and impose benefits sanction if they do not participate. [Emphasis mine] as these are the relevant parts to quote to DWP.
With regards to using Universal Jobmatch, which so many claimants were forced to sign up to albeit unlawful because of the above, most did not get given the Cookies Sheet, nor were they informed fairly that they could deny access to the DWP by not given consent to see their activity
No Cookies sheet = not providing relevant info.
Not Informing Cl of discretion not to allow DWP to see their UJ use = unlawful
Sanctions arising from not using UJ = unlawful.