7/29/2019 Ireland vs Uk

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The Republic of Ireland -v- The United Kingdom; ECHR 18-Jan-1978

The UK lodged a derogation with the Court as regards its human rights obligations in Northern Ireland because of the

need to control terroist activity. The Government of Ireland intervened. From August 1971 until December 1975 the UK

authorities exercised a series of extrajudicial powers of arrest, detention and internment in Northern Ireland. The case

concerned the Irish Governments complaint about the scope and implementation of those measures and in particular

the practice of psychological interrogation techniques (wall standing, hooding, subjection to noise and deprivation of

sleep, food and drink) during the preventive detention of those detained in connection with acts of terrorism.

Held: The IRA had for a number of years represented a particularly far-reaching and acute danger for the territoria

integrity of the United Kingdom, the institutions of the six counties and the lives of the provinces inhabitants

However, the Court found the methods to have caused intense physical and mental suffering. The article 15 test was

accordingly not discussed, but the Court made valuable observations about its role where the application of the article i

challenged: (a) The role of the Court. The limits on the Courts powers of review are particularly apparent where Article

15 is concerned. It falls in the first place to each Contracting State, with its responsibility for the life of *its+ nation, to

determine whether that life is threatened by a public emergency and, if so, how far it is necessary to go in attempting

to overcome the emergency. By reason of their direct and continuous contact with the pressing needs of the moment

the national authorities are in principle in a better position than the international judge to decide both on the presence

of such an emergency and on the nature and scope of derogations necessary to avert it. In this matter, Article 15(1)

leaves those authorities a wide margin of appreciation. Nevertheless, the States do not enjoy an unlimited power in thi

respect. The Court, which, with the Commission, is responsible for ensuring the observance of the States engagement

(Art. 19), is empowered to rule on whether the States have gone beyond the extent strictly required by the exigencies

of the crisis. The domestic margin of appreciation is thus accompanied by a European supervision. Torture is a strong

word. In human rights instruments only deliberate inhuman treatment causing very serious and cruel suffering ranks as

torture. Ill-treatment must attain a minimum level of severity if it is to fall within the scope of Article 3. The assessmen

of this minimum is relative; it depends on all the circumstances of the case, such as the duration of the treatment, its

physical and mental effects and, in some cases, the sex, age and state of health of the victim.