Date: 19Oct 2017
Day 3: The Right to Property
As many human rights are universal in nature, it is often illuminating to draw upon the collective wisdom emerging from different constitutional approaches to the same issue. It is of course important that the Court, in applying comparative legal principles, must always be astute to recognize the importance of different legal, political and cultural traditions, as well as, if appropriate, giving effect to the particular language used in a particular rights instrument. Against this background, Richard Clayton QC will, in this series of lectures, discuss recent developments in the Hong Kong courts in the areas of freedom of expression, equality and non-discrimination, and the right to property, drawing upon his experience and insights from comparative legal and constitutional jurisprudence.
In the first lecture, he will examine judicial review and freedom of expression, the impact of freedom of expression on practice and procedure, and the impact of freedom of expression on private law litigation.
In the second lecture, he will re-visit some key concepts in discrimination and look at important developments in same sex marriages, disability discrimination, and discrimination and public housing.
In the third lecture, he will the controversial issues of deprivation of land and restriction of use in land, the right to compensation for lawful deprivation of property, as well as the approach of fair balance, margin of appreciation, and manifestly without reasonable foundation.
Richard Clayton QC is a well-known barrister in the UK and the joint author of Clayton and Tomlinson, The Law of Human Rights (OUP, 2nd edn), which has been cited by the Supreme Court, the House of Lords and Privy Council over 45 times. Richard has conducted many Supreme Court and Privy Council cases, as well as appearing in cases before the European Court of Human Rights and in the Caribbean (Trinidad, St Vincent and Turks & Caicos). He has also been the United Kingdom’s representative to the Council of Europe’s advisory body, the Commission of Democracy through Law, since 2011, and in that capacity has advised on constitutional issues in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Russia, Tajikistan, Italy, Turkey and Slovakia. He is an associate fellow at the Centre of Public Law, Cambridge University since 2001 and a Visiting Professor at UCL, London from 2015-2020. He has also served as a Recorder and a Deputy High Court judge.
