The petitioners, Salvatori Abuki and Richard Obuga, brought a constitutional challenge against their convictions in a Magistrates’ Court for the practice of witchcraft. (Richard Obuga died before the hearing on the petition began leaving only one petitioner, Abuki.) The petitioner was arrested on a complaint of witchcraft and charged with practicing witchcraft in contravention of …Read more

Williams (W) was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in December 1988. His appeal was dismissed in December 1990 and a senior lawyer advised him that an application to the judicial committee of the privy council for special leave to appeal would have no prospect of success. An appeal against the classification of his …Read more

Aksoy (A) claimed that in November 1992 he was taken into custody by twenty policemen after M (another detainee with them) had allegedly identified him as a member of the PKK which was engaged in a conflict with security forces for Kurdish autonomy. This conflict had resulted in nearly 8,000 deaths and there was a …Read more

The first respondent had obtained a default judgment against the applicant and a warrant of execution against his property in respect of a debt but was unable to satisfy the judgment debt because the applicant had by that time divested himself of all property. The first respondent then took out a summons calling upon the …Read more

R.S. was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. On 8 March 1996, the same day that five other warrants of execution were read (although the prison was only equipped to handle two executions a day), R.S. was read a warrant for his execution, to take place on 13 March 1996. Along with a psychiatrist, …Read more

The prison authorities of Unit 1 of the SPF of Argentina adopted the practice of performing vaginal inspections on all female visitors who desired to have personal contact with the inmates. Ms. X, whose husband was detained at that Unit, and their thirteen year old daughter Y were thus routinely submitted to such searches each …Read more

Francis (F) had been convicted of murder and sentenced to death in February 1980. An appeal was dismissed in November 1981 and in October 1987 a note of the oral judgment was produced but nothing written was issued. His lawyers had apparently stated that they could find no grounds to argue on his behalf with …Read more

The petitioner, a Canadian citizen, was arrested along with two acquaintances when the group attempted to enter Spain with large quantities of hashish concealed in their vehicle. The petitioner claimed to have no knowledge of the contraband, and his acquaintances also told police that he was innocent of any wrongdoing. Nevertheless, the examining magistrate incarcerated …Read more

Peart and Peart (A and G) were convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1988. They claimed that their conviction was based on the uncorroborated evidence of an eyewitness, evidence which had conflicted with a written statement previously made to the police but which they had not been allowed to see before or during …Read more

Simms (S) was awaiting execution following his conviction for murder in 1988 which was based on identification evidence. S complained about weaknesses in the identification evidence, the failure of the judge to direct the jury properly about that evidence, the inadequacy of the representation provided by his legal aid lawyer, the absence of an opportunity …Read more