The UK Supreme Court began tweeting yesterday as @UKSupremeCourt to deserved international fanfare. Some even speculated that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange’s extradition fate could now be revealed on Twitter. The court is already being followed by almost 4,000 Twitter users (for the uninitiated, that is a lot) and has already beaten its own Twitter policy’s [...]
Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category
UK Supreme Court is tweeting, but where are the other courts?
Posted in Art. 10 | Freedom of Expression, Art. 6 | Right to Fair Trial, In the news, Judges and Juries, Technology, tagged open justice on February 7, 2012 | 4 Comments »
Everything’s free in America (copyrighted material not included)
Posted in Art. 5 | Right to Liberty, Art. 6 | Right to Fair Trial, Art. 8 | Right to Privacy/Family, Case law, Case summaries, Criminal, In the news, International, Technology, tagged Copyright, extradition act, Piracy, Richard O'Dwyer on January 18, 2012 | Comments Off
The Government of the United States of America -v- O’Dwyer, Westminster Magistrates’ Court – Read judgment It seems appropriate, on the day when Wikipedia shut down for 24 hours to protest against US anti-piracy legislation, to talk about piracy (in the copyright sense) and what role human rights law has to play in the perpetual battle [...]
Gibson rendition and torture inquiry has been scrapped
Posted in Art. 3 | Torture / Inhumane Treatment, In the news, Inquests and Inquiries, Politics / Public Order, Technology, tagged Ken Clarke, police investigations on January 18, 2012 | 2 Comments »
1 Crown Office Row’s Philippa Whipple QC was leading counsel to the Gibson Inquiry. She is not the writer of this post The Justice Secretary has told Parliament that the Gibson Inquiry tasked with considering whether Britain was “implicated in the improper treatment of detainees, held by other countries, that may have occurred in the [...]
Small solar systems on tenterhooks: Court of Appeal deliberates
Posted in Case comments, Environment, In the news, Technology on January 17, 2012 | Comments Off
R (on the application of (1) Homesun Holdings (2) Solar Century Holdings (3) Friends of the Earth) v Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change , Mitting J, 21 December 2011, hearing in the CA 13 & 16 January 2012 Avid readers of this blog (posted unpromisingly between Christmas and New Year) may recall this successful challenge to [...]
Injunction 4 sex pics on mob
Posted in Art. 10 | Freedom of Expression, Art. 8 | Right to Privacy/Family, Case comments, Case summaries, In the news, Technology, tagged super injunctions on January 12, 2012 | 1 Comment »
AMP v Persons unknown – read judgment If you lose your mobile phone with highly confidential and private information on it, all may not be lost. The unscrupulous finder may be prevented from blurting its contents all over the web, even if the identity of that person is unknown to you or the court. It [...]
Is internet access a human right?
Posted in Art. 10 | Freedom of Expression, Art. 8 | Right to Privacy/Family, Criminal, In the news, Technology, tagged European Convention on Human Rights, Freedom of Expression, vinton cerf on January 11, 2012 | 3 Comments »
A recent United Nations Human Rights Council report examined the important question of whether internet access is a human right. Whilst the Special Rapporteur’s conclusions are nuanced in respect of blocking sites or providing limited access, he is clear that restricting access completely will always be a breach of article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil [...]
The solar power subsidies case : when can you judicially review a proposal?
Posted in Case comments, Environment, In the news, Technology on December 29, 2011 | 4 Comments »
R (on the application of (1) Homesun Holdings (2) Solar Century Holdings (3) Friends of the Earth) v Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Admin. Ct, Mitting J, 21 December 2011, extempore judgment, so no transcript available This successful challenge to a proposal to modify subsidies for solar power arose out of the decision [...]
Will neuroscience revolutionise the law?
Posted in Art. 6 | Right to Fair Trial, In the news, Police, Technology, tagged age of criminal responsibility on December 13, 2011 | 6 Comments »
You don’t need to be a brain scientist to see that lawyers would benefit from a more sophisticated understanding of the human brain. Neuroscientists seek to determine how brain function affects human behaviour, and the system of law regulates how those humans interact with each other. According to a new Royal Society report, lawyers and neuroscientists [...]
Investigation team “lacks necessary independence” for MOD ill-treatment allegations
Posted in Art. 2 | Right to life, Art. 3 | Torture / Inhumane Treatment, Case summaries, Inquests and Inquiries, Politics / Public Order, Technology on November 23, 2011 | 1 Comment »
Ali Zaki Mousa v Secretary of State for Defence & Anr [2011] EWCA Civ 133 - read judgment Philip Havers QC of 1 Crown Office Row represented the respondent secretary of state in this case. He is not the author of this post. The Court of Appeal has ruled that the Iraq Historic Allegations [...]
Leveson goes live
Posted in Art. 10 | Freedom of Expression, Art. 6 | Right to Fair Trial, Art. 8 | Right to Privacy/Family, Freedom of Information, In the news, Media, Technology, tagged Leveson Inquiry on November 14, 2011 | 4 Comments »
Updated |Today marks a minor landmark for open justice. For the first time, a public inquiry is being shown live over the internet. The Leveson Inquiry into Culture, Practices and Ethics of the Press has taken over Court 73 in the Royal Courts of Justice, so when Counsel to the Inquiry Robert Jay QC begins [...]
A blueprint for a simpler, fairer justice system
Posted in Art. 6 | Right to Fair Trial, Family, In the news, Judges and Juries, Politics / Public Order, Technology on November 11, 2011 | 4 Comments »
The Civil Justice Council (CJC) has just released a major new report: Access to Justice for Litigants in Person (or self-represented litigants). The report attacks head-on the prospect of thousands more people having to represent themselves in court once civl legal aid is mostly taken away. The 94-page report, written by a group including a [...]
Snooping councils, phone hacking, CCTV… time to reform surveillance laws?
Posted in Art. 10 | Freedom of Expression, Art. 6 | Right to Fair Trial, Art. 8 | Right to Privacy/Family, Criminal, Freedom of Information, In the news, Politics / Public Order, Public/Private, Technology on November 4, 2011 | 5 Comments »
JUSTICE, a law reform and human rights organisation, has today published a significant and wide-ranging critique of state surveillance powers contained in the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA). The report - Freedom from Suspicion – Surveillance Reform for a Digital Age – is by Eric Metcalfe, former director of JUSTICE and recently returned to practise as [...]
Court of Appeal upholds 7 of 10 riot sentences, including Facebook cases – Obiter J
Posted in Art. 6 | Right to Fair Trial, Children, Criminal, In the news, Technology, tagged riots on October 18, 2011 | 4 Comments »
R v Blackshaw and others [2011] EWCA Crim 2312 – Read judgments / press summary The Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) has issued judgment in relation to ten appeals against sentences imposed for convictions arising from the August disorder. On 20th August, in a post related to the August disorder, Law and Lawyers looked at [...]





Small solar: Court of Appeal confirms that changes were unlawful
Posted in Case comments, Environment, In the news, Technology on January 25, 2012 | 1 Comment »
Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change v. Friends of the Earth and others, CA, 25 January 2012, read judgment So, after an anxious wait for the affected businesses, the Court of Appeal has confirmed today that the Minister was too hasty in the way he went about modifying the scheme for subsidising small solar power [...]
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