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Brit govt mulls implications of Rossing claim
GREG DROPKIN IN LONDON
THE British government is considering legislation to reverse the historic court ruling which allowed Eddie Connelly and the family of the late Peter Carlson to use the English courts to claim against transnational mining company - Rio Tinto.
The prospect of workers around the world following the ex-Rossing employees by using the English legal system to claim against UK transnational companies is clearly a cause for concern for the British government.
Britain's Lord Chancellor is considering legislation to reverse the House of Lords verdict on Connelly vs RTZ.
The proposals would make all questions of finance irrelevant when deciding whether a case should be heard in the English courts or moved to another country.
Five of Britain's top judges upheld Connelly's right to proceed to trial in London where he has access to funding, rather than shift his case to Windhoek where it could not be financed.
The Lords recognised that cases like a cancer compensation claim require funding for legal, medical, and scientific experts in order to achieve justice.
In his dissenting judgement Lord Hoffman, originally from South Africa, warned that "any multinational with its parent company in England will be liable to be sued here in respect of its activities anywhere in the world".
The 4-1 majority verdict was announced in July 1997, a few months after Britain elected a Labour government committed to implement the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
Article 6 of the ECHR states: "In the determination of his civil rights and obligations or of any criminal charge against him, everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal established by law."
The ECHR has now been incorporated into British law.
But the Lord Chancellor's Department is also considering whether to reverse the Connelly decision through legislation. The prospect has already stirred up a hornet's nest in the British Press.
Glenys Kinnock, a Labour Member of the European Parliament and a noted political campaigner for international development, told The Observer newspaper: "If we are saying, as the British government, that we are so keen on protecting our own national interest at the expense of the rights of the Third World, then something has gone badly wrong."
The Liberal Democrats' foreign affairs spokesman Menzies Campbell also weighed in. "An ethical foreign policy is not just for the Foreign Office alone, it must lie at the heart of thinking in all government departments. Access to justice for employees of British multinationals should not be a lottery."
In The Times personal injuries lawyer Dan Brennan QC asked: "Is the Labour government really siding with multinationals against black workers with potential negligence claims? Are workers treated negligently to be denied the right to sue in the company's home country, when the proits of those companies come here?"
The outcry follows a letter from the Lord Chancellor's Department in mid- September, inviting comment from judges and senior barristers.
The letter suggests "there is a risk that demand for legal aid funding will be stimulated in relation to litigation which has no real connection with England and Wales", and that resources "need to be more focused on the social welfare needs of the less well off in our society and on matters of public interest".
Whether or not Connelly's case has a real connection with England is a matter of ongoing argument in the current hearing before the High Court in London.
Also:
Previous stories on Rossing compensation case
November 24, 1998
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