Gypsies’ human rights breached

Connors v United Kingdom (Application no 66746/01) ECtHR TLR 10 June

The UK Government had not persuaded the Court of the necessity for a statutory scheme which permitted the summary eviction of gypsies from a local authority gypsy caravan site. The power to evict without the burden of giving reasons liable to be examined as to their merits by an independent tribunal had not been convincingly shown to correspond to any specific goal or to provide any specific benefit to members of the gypsy community. It would appear that the situation in England placed considerable obstacles in the way of gypsies pursuing an actively nomadic lifestyle, while at the same time excluding from procedural protection those who decided to take up a more settled lifestyle. Accordingly, the eviction of the applicant and his family from the local authority site was not attended by the requisite procedural safeguards, namely the requirement to establish proper justification for the serious interference with his rights, and consequently could not be regarded as justified by a pressing social need or proportionate to the legitimate aim being pursued. Accordingly, there had been a violation of article 8.