Archived press release

Heathrow Night Flights Case

8 July 2003

The Heathrow Night Flights Case today reached the final stage of its journey.

The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights today ruled that the UK had violated the residents' right to an effective remedy before a domestic court [1] and ordered the Government to pay a proportion of the residents' legal costs. There is no opportunity for the Government to appeal this decision.

However, in a generally disappointing judgement, overturning the decision of the lower court two years ago [2], the Grand Chamber ruled that there had been no violation of the residents' right to their private and family lives [3] as a result of the Heathrow night flights regime introduced in 1993.

In a powerful dissenting judgement by five of the seventeen judges [4] it was regretted that the Grand Chamber had not taken the opportunity to cement the development of the law in relation to environmental human rights. The dissenting judges stated that the decision of the majority seemed "to take a step backwards" from previous case law in this area and that it gave "precedence to economic considerations over basic health conditions" and noted that the main judgement was "playing down" people's "sensitivity to noise" and that this "runs counter to the growing concern over environmental issues, all over Europe and the world." [5].

Paul de Zylva, Aviation Campaigner for Friends of the Earth said

"The misery of night flights is not going to go away and the onus is on the Government to set up a credible system for controlling aircraft noise. This must be dealt with in the aviation White Paper due out later this year. The Government cannot escape the increasing damage to people's lives caused by the aviation industry and it would be naíve to think that people will not continue to take every measure necessary to protect their rights to a clean and healthy environment."

Phil Michaels, Legal Adviser to Friends of the Earth said

"This ruling demonstrates, once and for all, that the UK did not respect the residents' rights to an effective legal remedy in UK courts. That said, this judgement is clearly a disappointment for all those who wish to see the progressive development of the law of environmental human rights. It was precisely to ensure such development that Friends of the Earth intervened in this case. We strongly agree with the five dissenting judges that the European Court has given clear confirmation that Art. 8 of the convention guarantees the right to a healthy environment and welcome the fact that, in a long overdue development, the concept of `environmental human rights' has entered the case law of the ECHR."

Notes

[1] Article 13 provides:

"Everyone whose rights and freedoms as set forth in this Convention are violated shall have an effective remedy before a national authority notwithstanding that the violation has been committed by persons acting in an official capacity."

[2] In October 2001 the Court ruled in favour of the residents, finding that the UK had "failed to strike a fair balance between the United Kingdom's economic well-being and the applicants' effective enjoyment of their right to respect for their homes and their private and family lives". The Court also found that the applicants' rights had been violated because they had not been able to obtain an effective remedy before the UK domestic courts. The case before the ECHR started following a number of unsuccessful judicial reviews brought by various local authorities whose residents were affected by night flights.

[3] Article 8 provides:

"1. Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.

2. There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others."

[4] The dissenting judgement was given by Judges Costa, Ress, Turmen, Zupancic and Steiner rejected the majority decision that the residents right to respect for their private lives had not been violated (p.40-47). A separate dissenting judgement by Sir Brian Kerr (p.48) rejected the decision of the majority that there had been a violation of Article 13.

[5] Page 42, paragraph 5 (joint dissenting opinion).

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Published by Friends of the Earth Trust