The European Court of Human Rights has thrown out a challenge by former cabinet minister Owen Paterson. The ex-Tory MP, accused of breaking lobby rules, took the government to court in a bid to have a 2021 parliamentary investigation into his conduct declared unfair. That Paterson went to the Strasbourg Court in the first place might be considered a remarkable show of chutzpah (or perhaps simply rank hypocrisy) given that he had previously campaigned for the UK to leave the ECHR, prior to his own personal travails.
Paterson’s claim to the European Court of Human Rights was always rather quixotic. During Boris Johnson’s premiership, an investigation by the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner was initiated following reports that Paterson had lobbied for two companies for which he was a paid consultant. The Commissioner concluded that he had breached the Code of Conduct for members and that his breaches were both ‘serious and numerous’.
Paterson’s claim to the European Court of Human Rights was always rather quixotic
The House of Commons Standards Committee agreed with the Commissioner’s findings. It determined that Paterson’s actions were ‘an egregious case of paid advocacy’, which caused ‘significant damage to the reputation and integrity of the House of Commons.’ The Committee recommend that he should be suspended from the House for 30 sitting days.
Paterson was outraged by the result, arguing that the process he had been subjected to did ‘not comply with natural justice’.
Following the Committee’s decision, in a hugely contentious move (which probably contributed to Boris Johnson’s eventual downfall), the government tried to delay consideration of the proposed suspension by the House of Commons, presumably on the basis that a vote to sanction Paterson in this way would trigger a recall petition.
The government instead sought to appoint a select committee to consider whether Paterson’s case (and the standards system) ought to be reviewed. Despite winning a division on this bizarre proposal, the manoeuvre was ultimately unsuccessful. No opposition members were willing to serve on the committee. A new vote was scheduled on the proposed motion to sanction Paterson. This ultimately led him to resign as an MP.
But Paterson subsequently argued that the finding that he had breached the code of conduct ‘damaged his good reputation’, and that ‘the process by which the allegations against him were investigated and considered was not fair in many basic respects’. He went on to claim that this amounted to a breach of Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights (the right to privacy and family life).
Paterson said that, as a result of the proceedings before the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards and the Standards Committee, he was unable to find paid employment and was shunned by people he assumed were his friends. In a rather tragic submission, he argued that he was unable to attend events, noting that ‘on the occasion of the Coronation of King Charles III he did not attend any events for fear of embarrassing his hosts.’
Paterson was precluded from launching a domestic challenge to the findings by the Committee on Standards due to Article IX of the Bill of Rights 1689 (which provides that parliamentary proceedings should not be ‘impeached or questioned in any court of place out of Parliament’ and is underpinned by the principle of the separation of powers).
Instead Paterson went to Europe: the Strasbourg Court does not consider itself bound by such provisions of domestic law and therefore examined the merits of Paterson’s claims. These turned out not to be very strong.
The court found Paterson’s claim was inadmissible. Even if there had been an interference with his Convention rights, the court found that any such interference ‘was accompanied by adequate procedural safeguards’ and was ‘proportionate to the legitimate aims’ pursued by the State.
It still made a detailed – and rather damning – assessment of Paterson’s arguments. It noted that the accusations against Paterson were already in the public domain before the Standards Commissioner had commenced his investigation. It also determined that Paterson had not ‘substantiated his more specific claims of damage to his professional relationships and his consequent financial loss.’
Tellingly, it highlighted the fact that he had resigned as an MP before it could consider whether or not to apply the recommended sanction. It found that, as a result, ‘neither the loss of his seat nor the loss of income from his position as an MP were a necessary consequence of the investigation.’
The court concluded that even if there had been an interference with Paterson’s rights under the ECHR, it still would have found his claim to be ‘manifestly unfounded.’
The Parliament authorities will be pleased that the challenge to its processes has been given such short shrift by the Strasbourg Court. Keir Starmer might also be gratified for this distraction from the (admittedly more minor) sleaze claims engulfing his administration. Meanwhile, one imagines that Paterson’s views on the merits of the ECHR remain unchanged.
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