Qazi v Harrow [2003] UKHL 43
Possession proceedings against a former joint tenant and the right to respect for a home under the European Convention of Human Rights.
Facts
Mr. Qazi and his wife were joint tenants of a council flat. The wife gave notice to terminate the tenancy and left the flat with her daughter. Mr. Qazi’s application for sole tenancy of the family flat was rejected. The Council then began possession proceedings of the flat, yet discovered that Mr. Qazi was co-habiting the house with another woman and her child. Mr. Qazi argued that the possession order was breached Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights as a disproportionate interference with the right to a home.
Issue
The question arose as to whether the council’s possession proceedings were in contravention of Mr. Qazi’s rights to respect of a home and family life under Article 8.
Held
The House of Lords held that possession proceedings brought by a public authority against a joint tenant following a termination of the tenancy was not a breach of that person’s right to respect a home under Article 8. Firstly, the Court held that following Mr. Qazi’s joint tenant’s termination of the tenancy, the flat cannot be considered his “home” for the purposes of Article 8 at the time of possession as he had no legal nor equitable interest in the flat. Secondly, by a majority of 3-2, the Court held that Article 8’s right to respect of a home and family life is not infringed and the question of proportionality of an eviction is irrelevant when a party is already entitled under domestic law to an unqualified possession of property against a former tenant. The council was exercising its unqualified right of possession under domestic law and Mr. Qazi’s rights under Article 8 were not infringed.
Updated 21 March 2026
This case summary accurately describes the decision in Qazi v Harrow LBC [2003] UKHL 43. However, readers should be aware that the legal position established by Qazi has been significantly qualified by subsequent case law and is no longer a complete statement of the law.
The House of Lords itself departed from the majority reasoning in Qazi in Kay v Lambeth LBC; Leeds City Council v Price [2006] UKHL 10, and the Supreme Court in Manchester City Council v Pinnock [2010] UKSC 45 and Hounslow LBC v Powell [2011] UKSC 8 definitively established that Article 8 ECHR does confer a procedural right on a residential occupier to raise a proportionality defence in possession proceedings brought by a public authority. The courts must have jurisdiction to consider whether making a possession order would be a proportionate interference with the occupier’s Article 8 rights, even where the public authority has an unqualified right to possession under domestic law. The core proposition in Qazi — that proportionality is simply irrelevant where a public authority has an unqualified legal right to possess — should therefore be treated with considerable caution and understood only in its historical context. The article does not reflect the current legal position on this point.
