By: Melina Padron
25 July 2011 by Melina Padron
The Lord Chief Justice
Welcome back to the human rights roundup, a regular bulletin of all the law we haven’t quite managed to feature in full blog posts. The full list of links, updated each day, can be found here. You can also find our table of human rights cases here.
by Melinda Padron
In the news last week…
In a short speech to the Lord Mayor’s dinner for HM Judges, Lord Judge LCJ referred to 2011 as a difficult year for the judiciary amid attacks on individual judges and the judiciary as a whole for doing what is appropriate for judges to do: applying the law as they find it to be. The LCJ, however, reminded all that in a moment of crisis, such as the phone hacking scandal, the judiciary has a key role to play because of its recognised independence and impartiality.
The Government has accepted all recommendations made by Lady Justice Hallett, the coroner in the 7/7 inquests (see our previous post for the full recommendations), all of which are aimed at improving the work of the security services and medical emergency services. Whilst within the subject of terrorism, Simon Hetherington wrote a post for Halsbury’s Law Exchange regarding emergency extension of custody limits of suspects in terrorism investigations from 14 to 28 days. In such procedure there is a balancing exercise to be made between the competing interests of an individual’s liberty and national security. Hetherington then considers what happens to this balancing exercise when Parliament is not involved in scrutinising a given case and concludes that the balance tilts in favour of security. See also Adam Wagner’s review of recent developments in terrorism law.
Continue reading →
Like this:
Like Loading...
11 July 2011 by Melina Padron
Welcome back to the human rights roundup, a regular bulletin of all the law we haven’t quite managed to feature in full blog posts. The full list of links, updated each day, can be found here. You can also find our table of human rights cases here.
by Melinda Padron
In the news – it’s all about the Als
This week the long-awaited judgments of the Al-Skeini and Al-Jedda cases both against the UK before the European Court of Human Rights were finally released. These will undoubtedly be regarded as landmark judgments of the Court.
Continue reading →
Like this:
Like Loading...
27 June 2011 by Melina Padron
Welcome back to the human rights roundup, a regular bulletin of all the law we haven’t quite managed to feature in full blog posts. The full list of links, updated each day, can be found here.
by Melinda Padron
Beginning with sad news, Lord Alan Rodger of Earlsferry, one of the justices of the Supreme Court, died yesterday. A detailed obituary has been published by HeraldScotland.
Last week Ken Clarke’s criminal justice system reform proposals were hit by a change of mind/u-turn (or as Prime Minister David Cameron put it, ‘a sign of strength’) on the part of Government. The most radical features of the proposed criminal justice reforms were dropped, chiefly amongst them the attempt to increase the 33% discount to sentences for guilty pleas to 50%. The move was arguably made as a result of public consultations and in particular pressure from the tabloid press. The announcement came alongside the publication of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill. Joshua Rozenberg gives a brief outline of some of the new proposals which seek to lower the statistics on reoffending.
Continue reading →
Like this:
Like Loading...
16 May 2011 by Melina Padron
Last week’s human rights news received an enormous amount of coverage, which means that we were unable to fit all of them within this humble post. However, we do recommend that you click here to access the full list of some of our favourite articles pertaining to last week’s hotly debated topics.
by Melinda Padron
The week started off with a Twitter account supposedly “outing” a number of individuals who had taken injunctions with anonymity clauses or “superinjunctions”. As we all know, this topic has been the subject of attacks by the press and politicians over the past few weeks. Judith Townend wrote an insightful post on the incident for the Inforrm’s Blog, which contained opinions from media lawyers and experts, and also links to many of the articles featured in newspapers and law blogs alike.
Continue reading →
Like this:
Like Loading...
3 May 2011 by Melina Padron
It’s time for the human rights roundup, a regular bulletin of all the law we haven’t quite managed to feature in full blog posts. The full list of links, updated each day, can be found here.
by Melinda Padron
In the news
It can safely be said that the topic of “super injunctions” has received a lot of media coverage, perhaps second only to the royal wedding.
Firstly the outrage seen in tabloid newspapers and news broadcasts alike was caused by the two injunctions which gagged the media from reporting on the extra marital affairs of an actor and of a footballer. Then adding to the controversy was the decision of the former “gagger” Andrew Marr to break the terms of his own injunction and reveal himself as being responsible from preventing the reporting of his own extra marital affair.
Continue reading →
Like this:
Like Loading...
11 April 2011 by Melina Padron
It’s time for the human rights roundup, a regular bulletin of all the law we haven’t quite managed to feature in full blog posts.
by Melinda Padron
In the news last week:
At a time when the sustainability of the principle of Parliamentary sovereignty in modern British society is being called into question, Lord Neuberger gave a speech entitled “Who are the masters now?”, where he made a case for Parliamentary supremacy.
He suggested the principle remains absolute for five main reasons:
(1) Parliamentary sovereignty is the cornerstone of our constitutional settlement;
(2) Parliament does not want judges to have the power to overrule statutes (and he added that neither do judges);
(3) arguments to the contrary are far removed from reality that they undermine the main proposition they seek to support;
(4) even the strongest advocates of limiting Parliamentary sovereignty accept that such could only be done in the most exceptional of circumstances;
(5) we live in a world where democratic accountability is of the essence, and as such it would be undesirable for unelected judges to exercise powers to limit Parliament.
Continue reading →
Like this:
Like Loading...
4 April 2011 by Melina Padron
It’s time for the human rights roundup, a regular bulletin of all the law we haven’t quite managed to feature in full blog posts.
by Melinda Padron
Last week the UKHRB celebrated its 1st birthday! Rosalind English wrote a commemorative piece revealing which posts of the past year have pleased our readers the most.
In the news last week we saw the government’s response to the 26 March cuts protests. The Law and Lawyers blog discussed Theresa May’s announcement that the Home Office is looking into increasing police powers in relation to police protests. Measures could include banning the wearing of masks or balaclavas, and banning known hooligans from participating in rallies and marches – a practice already adopted to combat football hooliganism. The article also highlighted how the massive protest of 26 March did not seem to be calling for a general election, despite the prospect of the Fixed Term Parliament Bill becoming law in the near future. The Bill would fix the date of the next general election at 7 May 2015, as well as make it very difficult for a general election to be called prior to this designated date.
Continue reading →
Like this:
Like Loading...
14 March 2011 by Melina Padron
It’s time for the human rights roundup, a regular bulletin of all the law we haven’t quite managed to feature in full blog posts. The full list of links, updated each day, can be found here.
by Melinda Padron
In the news
The government announced that a commission would be set up to look into whether the government should bring in a bill of rights in light of all the controversy surrounding the ECtHR. The commission is reported to be composed of experts such as Lord Lester, Helena Kennedy QC and Martin Howe QC, and its merits are already being called into question.
There have been two strong reminders of the importance of maintaining compliance with and membership to the European Court of Human Rights: Aidan O’Neill QC wrote an excellent piece questioning the legal merits of some of Dr Pinto-Duschnisky‘s proposals in his report Bringing Rights back home: making human rights compatible with parliamentary democracy in the UK; while Sir Konrad Schiemann, judge of the Court of Justice of the European Union, made a strong case that by abiding by its decisions, the UK would be serving the greater good of stability amongst its members.
Continue reading →
Like this:
Like Loading...
28 February 2011 by Melina Padron
It’s time for the human rights roundup, a regular bulletin of all the law we haven’t quite managed to feature in full blog posts. The full list of links, updated each day, can be found here.
by Melinda Padron
#Without Prejudice – The Law Podcast 1: Assange, EAW, British Bill of Rights, Oversupply of lawyers and Silk
Listen to a one hour discussion between David Allen Green, Carl Gardner, Charon QC and guests about this week’s topical legal issues.
Adoption: new guidance to break down barriers
In order to address the fall in number of children placed for adoption, the government has issued guidance to local authorities whereby people wanting to adopt can no longer be turned away on the grounds of race, age or social background.
Continue reading →
Like this:
Like Loading...
21 February 2011 by Melina Padron
Like this:
Like Loading...
Recent comments