Firm claims Human Rights Act first

Two-partner London firm Sonn Macmillan & Co this week became the first to claim that it was the first to use the Human Rights Act after its implementation.

Partner David Sonn persuaded Blackfriars Crown Court to allow his client - a Romanian asylum seeker facing a theft charge - to be present at a bail application.

Mr Sonn said: 'Historically, defendants were never produced at the Crown Court when applying for bail before a judge in chambers.

I have always found it absurd that defendants are not present when their liberty is at stake.' Mr Sonn invoked article 6, the right to a fair trial.

Meanwhile, human rights groups Justice and Amnesty greeted the Act with calls for a human rights commission.

Anne Owers, director of Justice, said: 'A properly-resourced commission would be able to minimise the need for litigation.'

In the light of the greater power of judges under the Act, Justice also called for a judicial appointments commission, and procedures to enable Parliament to vet legislation for human rights compatibility.

A Lord Chancellor's Department spokesman said: 'An advert for a judicial appointments commissioner will be placed at the end of this month, discussions for the establishment of a special parliamentary committee are under way, and our mind is not closed to the idea of a human rights commission, but more consideration would need to be given to how it could co-exist with existing bodies.'

Elsewhere, speaking at the launch of Doughty Street Chambers' human rights unit, Baroness Kennedy QC responded to the Prime Minister's comments at the Labour Party conference, where he said it was 'time to tighten bail to deal with the absurdity of people released in the morning committing offences in the afternoon'.

She said: 'When I heard the remarks I thought, aha, here's someone who hasn't been fully informed of what the Human Rights Act will mean.

It will put certain constraints on what governments can do.' She said the government 'will have to measure their bright ideas against human rights legislation'.

And a Law Commission report on awards by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has found that some breaches have no equivalent in English law - such as loss arising from unreasonable delay in legal and administrative proceedings - and will leave the UK courts free to develop practices for awarding damages.

Unlike UK courts, Strasbourg is unable to award punitive damages, thus some UK awards may be larger than those Strasbourg would make.

Jeremy Fleming and Rowland Byass