Legal challenge to tuition fees

Two students are taking legal action over the government’s decision to treble tuition fees to £9,000. Callum Hurley, 16, and Katy Moore, 17, are seeking a judicial review into the decision, which they believe breaches human rights laws by penalising students from disadvantaged backgrounds. The pair will be represented by Phil Shiner of Public Interest Lawyers, a company specialising in human rights law. Mr Shiner will argue that the fee rise contravenes Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Mr Shiner said: “The government has rushed these changes through parliament in the wake of the 2010 spending review without pausing for real thought, analysis or consultation on the likely significant impact of the coalition policy. It is disgraceful and our clients seek to challenge its lawfulness.” Article 14 prohibits discrimination on any grounds, however, it has force only with regards to rights protected elsewhere in the Convention.

Speaking to The Journal, Dr Cormac Mac Amhlaigh, a lecturer in human rights law at the University of Edinburgh, said: “It is not possible to base an action on Article 14 as it is does not contain an independent cause of action. Article 14 can only be used in conjunction with another substantive right… Any action would first of all have to establish a breach of one of the other substantive rights in the Convention or its protocols, that it relates to them and that they are being discriminated against in the enjoyment of this right.

“One possible substantive right could be the right to education under Article 2 of Protocol 1 of the Convention. Although the Court has held that this right can also, in principle, be applied to higher education, it is not clear whether the introduction of tuition fees would satisfy the test for discrimination under Article 14.”

Public Interest Lawyers, part of the Matrix group of barrister’s chambers, had warned that the decision to raise tuition fees could be vulnerable to legal challenge at the end of last year. The firm is also taking legal action over the police use of ‘kettling’ during the student demonstrations, where groups of protestors were penned in between metal fences and kept trapped for several hours.