Long, Regina (on The Application of) v Secretary of State for Defence: CA 17 Jul 2015

The claimant appealed against a refusal of a declaration that (i) a declaration that the defendant, the Secretary of State for Defence, had acted in breach of article 2 and (ii) an order requiring him to conduct an effective independent investigation into the death of her son, one of six British soldiers of the Royal Military Police who had been murdered by an armed mob when visiting a police station in Majar-al-Kabir, Maysan Province, Iraq on 24 June 2004 in the course of their mission to help restore and maintain law and order by rebuilding the local police force.
Held: The appeal failed. The death of a soldier on active service abroad was necessary under article 2 when the circumstances suggested a systematic permitting of soldiers routinely to disregard a communications order. It was enough to show a failure to take reasonable measures which may have of avoiding the death.
Where the investigative process of an Army Board of Inquiry and a coroner’s inquest had revealed sufficiently why a system failure had occurred, what had gone wrong and what lessons were to be learnt, the obligation under article 2 was discharged.

Lord Dyson MR, Lewison, Underhill LJJ
[2015] EWCA Civ 770, [2015] WLR(D) 320
Bailii, WLRD
European Convention on Human Rights 2
England and Wales

Armed Forces, Human Rights, Coroners

Updated: 02 January 2022; Ref: scu.550370