The judicial balancing act required in cases involving competing human rights has created a “fundamental shift” in the way courts “do things”, Mr Justice Eady has said.
Boris Berezovsky, a Russian oligarch, has won a libel case at the High Court over allegations he was involved in the poisoning by polonium of former KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006.
Mr Justice Eady awarded Berezovsky £150,000 damages over the claims, which were made by Russian TV channel RTR Planeta.
The RTR broadcast alleged that Litvinenko had been a witness to an attempt by Berezovsky to obtain false evidence for his political asylum case. Berezovsky was granted asylum status in the UK in 2003.
Delivering judgment in Berezovsky v RTR and Ors [2010] EWHC 476 (QB), Eady J said: “I can say unequivocally that there is no evidence before me that Mr Berezovsky had any part in the murder of Mr Litvinenko. Nor, for that matter, do I see any basis for reasonable grounds to suspect him of it.”
