Category: Case law
10 November 2025 by Guest Contributor
By Emily Higlett
Introduction
The Court of Appeal in Re D has overturned final care and placement orders made at an Issues Resolution Hearing (“IRH”), stating that judges must give clear, reasoned findings on the threshold criteria under section 31(2) Children Act 1989 (“CA 1989”), even where proceedings are uncontested or parents are absent.
In delivering the judgment, Cobb LJ, with whom Baker LJ and Miles LJ agreed, criticised the short form reasoning used by the Family Court and stressed the need for transparent judicial decision-making when the State intervenes in family life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (“ECHR”).
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5 November 2025 by Guest Contributor
By Kian Leong Tan
INTRODUCTION
Do advocates retain an absolute immunity for things and said and done in court, or must the invocation of the immunity be scrutinised on a case-by-case basis? A heavyweight panel of the Court of Appeal – including the Lady Chief Justice and the President of the King’s Bench Division – in Chief Constable of Sussex Police and the Crown Prosecution Service v XGY (Bar Council intervening) [2025] EWCA Civ 1230 (“XGY”) has come down decisively in favour of the former proposition, offering some much-needed clarity on this area of law.
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1 October 2025 by Guest Contributor
By Lewis Graham
In 2005, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights handed down its landmark decision in Hirst v the United Kingdom, finding that the effect of section 3 of the Representation of the People Act 1983, bringing into effect a blanket ban on the ability of prisoners in the UK to vote in elections, constituted a breach of Article 3 of Protocol 1 of the Convention (the right to free elections).
To say the case was controversial is an understatement, with the judgment becoming something of a bête noire for Strasbourg sceptics. Murray suggests that the judgment was pivotal in the “monstering” of the European Court. It is often presented as a case which epitomises Strasbourg overreach, taking the number 1 spot in the Judicial Power Project’s buffet of unfavourable, “problematic” legal cases. David Cameron, of course, famously remarked that the idea of complying with the judgment and giving (some) prisoners the vote made him feel “physically sick”.
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26 September 2025 by Guest Contributor
By Kian Leong Tan
INTRODUCTION
In R (Anaesthetists United Ltd and Others) v General Medical Council [2025] EWHC 2270 (Admin) (“Anaesthetists United”), Mrs Justice Lambert dismissed a judicial review claim brought by the claimants against the defendant regulator for Physician Associates (“PAs”) and Anaesthesia Associates (“AAs”) – collectively referred to hereafter as “Associates” – in the UK.
The claim is the most recent instalment in a brewing saga over the continued use and regulation of Associates in the UK’s healthcare system:
- In April 2025, Lambert J dismissed the British Medical Association (“BMA”)’s judicial review challenge (R (British Medical Association v General Medical Council [2025] EWHC 960 (Admin)) to the GMC’s decisions to (i) apply the same basic professional standards to doctors and Associates, and (ii) refer to all three professions collectively as ‘medical professionals’.
- Just prior to the handing down of Anaesthetists United, Professor Gillian Leng released her final report following the conclusion of her independent review into the Associate professions.
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25 August 2025 by Alice Kuzmenko
EBB and others v The Gorse Academies Trust [2025] EWHC 1983 (Admin)
In EBB and others v The Gorse Academies Trust [2025] EWHC 1983 (Admin), the Honourable Mrs Justice Collins Rice gave judgment in a multi-faceted, rolled-up permission and judicial review hearing concerning three high school students’ experiences of being disciplined within their school (“the School”).
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18 August 2025 by Guest Contributor
Shvidler v Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs and Dalston Projects Ltd and others v Secretary of State for Transport [2025] UKSC 30
By Talia Zybutz
Introduction
These appeals – Shvidler v Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs and Dalston Projects Ltd v Secretary of State for Transport – were a test case for the operation of the UK’s sanctions regime introduced in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The Supreme Court confirmed that while the court’s task is to assess proportionality for itself, a wide margin of appreciation will be afforded to the executive in judging how best to respond to and restrain Russia’s actions in Ukraine.
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11 August 2025 by Guest Contributor
Searson and Another v Chief Constable of Nottingham Constabulary [2025] EWHC 1982 (KB)
By Kian Leong Tan
In Searson v Chief Constable of Nottingham Constabulary [2025] EWHC 1982 (KB), the Appellants successfully appealed against the dismissal of their claim for damages against the Respondent’s police force. The claim arose out of the circumstances of the Second Appellant’s unlawful detention contrary to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (“PACE”). Wall J’s judgment emphasises the need for strict compliance with the spirit of the procedural safeguard of regular reviews of detention in s 40 PACE, which serves to protect the fundamental right of freedom of movement.
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25 July 2025 by Jasper Gold
R (Ferguson) v HM Assistant Coroner for Sefton, Knowlsey and St Helens [2025] EWHC 1901 (Admin) concerned a challenge by the next of kin of Joseph Farley, who died after jumping from the fourteenth floor of a carpark. The Coroner conducting mr Farley’s inquest has determined that Article 2, ECHR, did not apply and that the inquest could be heard without a jury. Mr Ferguson challenged both of these decisions by way of judicial review.
In a thorough and detailed judgment upholding Mr Ferguson’s challenge, Mrs Justice Hill gave a useful restatement of the law on Article 2, as well as a useful illustration of how it applies if difficult and complex fact patterns. The judgment also contains helpful clarification on the different sorts of causation tests that apply to parts of the Coronial process.
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24 July 2025 by Paula Kelly
In R (Campbell) v HM Attorney General [2025] EWHC 1653 (Admin), the Divisional Court (Lord Justice Stuart-Smith and Mr Justice Chamberlain) determined that a refusal by the Attorney General to issue a fiat for an application for a new inquest under section 13 (1) (b) of the Coroners Act 1988 is non-justiciable.
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27 June 2025 by Guest Contributor
By guest contributor Saira Turner
In U3 (AP) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2025] UKSC 19, the Supreme Court has unanimously dismissed an appeal against a decision taken by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (“SIAC”) relating to deprivation of citizenship and refusal of entry clearance on the basis of national security concerns.
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18 June 2025 by Rosalind English
In ALR and others v Chancellor of the Exchequer [2025] EWHC 1467 (Admin), the High Court has dismissed a challenge against the government’s manifesto policy of adding VAT to private school fees. The claimants were a group of students, parents, and schools. Some of the students required specific schooling because of (inter alia) special educational needs and religious convictions; all claimants sought a declaration that the VAT addition was incompatible with the European Convention of Human Rights. Specifically, they argued that imposing VAT was incompatible with Article 2 Protocol 1 (right to education) and 14 (protection from discrimination).
This dismissal of the judicial review challenge represents a significant ruling on the interplay between fiscal policy, human rights law and the allocation of resources for education.
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20 May 2025 by Anogika Souresh
J v Bath and North East Somerset Council & M [2025] EWCA Civ 478 concerns an appeal of a decision by Mrs Justice Lieven. Lieven J had held that there was no need for the High Court to make an order authorising the deprivation of J’s liberty in circumstances where both J’s parents and the local authority consented to the deprivation of liberty.
J is a 14-year-old boy with a number of diagnoses, including autism, ADHD, and Pica. J lives in a specialist children’s home. J is subject to a final care order under Section 31 of the Children Act 1989 (“CA 1989”). The Court of Appeal spelled out that the “major consequence of any care order is that it gives parental responsibility to the local authority, which is shared with the child’s parent(s), but with the local authority having control over the manner in which parental responsibility is exercised [CA 1989, s 33(3)]”.
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14 May 2025 by Leo Kirby
Chamberlain J has provided new guidance on when the court may order a rolled-up hearing. The procedural point arose in the context of an ongoing piece of strategic litigation, and resulted in an interlocutory judgment in R (Al-Haq) v SSBT [2025] EWHC 173 (Admin).
Al-Haq is an independent Palestinian human rights organisation. It brought a judicial review claim to challenge various decisions of the UK government in the licensing of exports of military and dual-use goods destined for Israel for potential use in Gaza. The decisions were taken by the Secretary of State for Business and Trade. Oxfam, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch were granted permission to intervene.
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27 March 2025 by Tehreem Sultan
The Supreme Court in British Indian Ocean Territory ruled in December on an important issue concerning the detention of asylum seekers in Diego Garcia. While their cause has progressed (including in a settlement reached on behalf of many, and in this judgment).
Ms Justice Obi, Acting Justice of the Supreme Court of the British Indian Ocean Territory, determined that the Claimants had been unlawfully detained since their arrival in October 2021.
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12 March 2025 by Shaheen Rahman
N3 & ZA v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2025] UKSC 6 concerned orders depriving two British people of their citizenship on national security grounds. The Defendant (initially) contended that to do so would not render them stateless, because they were dual British Bangladeshi nationals.
The use of deprivation orders in this context has been controversial, with critics across the political spectrum. Notably, writing in the Spectator, Jacob Rees-Mogg said of the Shamima Begum case:
“The ability to deprive people, who have a claim to another citizenship, of their British passport, creates two categories of Briton. Those with no right to another nationality are in the first-class carriage. Whatever they do, they cannot be made an exile or outlaw and expelled from the country. On the other hand, those who themselves came to the UK or whose parents did so are in the second-class carriage. They may be stripped of their citizenship even if they have never claimed another foreign nationality or even visited the country. This is a fundamentally racist policy as it denies the absolute Britishness of all those who are either recent immigrants themselves or their children.”
In the instant case, the deprivation orders were subsequently withdrawn. The Supreme Court has held that the effect of that withdrawal is that the Appellants are to be treated as having been British Citizens throughout.
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