Monthly News Archives: January 2018
31 January 2018 by Rosalind English
Kings College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust v Thomas and others [2018] EWHC 127 (Fam) – read judgment
Updated: The Court of Appeal has now ruled that doctors at King’s College hospital, London, could remove Isaiah from the ventilator that has kept him alive since he was deprived of oxygen at birth and sustained catastrophic brain injury. The judges also refused the parents permission to appeal against this ruling. McFarlane LJ said
This case is not about the parents or their hopes. It is and must firmly be about Isaiah and his best interests.
Parental love is to be cherished by society, particularly when a child is sick. But the “flattering voice of hope” is not always in best interests of the object of that love. So concluded MacDonald J in a recent ruling which has attracted considerable media attention. The judge concluded that it was not in the 11- month old boy’s best interests for life-sustaining treatment to be continued. He was satisfied on the evidence of the court, he said, that the boy, Isaiah, had
no prospect of recovery or improvement given the severe nature of the cerebral atrophy in his brain
and that he would remain “ventilator dependent and without meaningful awareness of his surroundings”
Perhaps with the Charlie Gard publicity in mind, MacDonald J was careful to emphasise the weight of the medical evidence as against the parents’ assessment of the boy’s condition. The publicity sparked by this case has led to visits to the child by other medical professionals. There are some forceful concluding remarks in this judgement about the inappropriate nature of these possible “clandestine examinations”. These are now a matter for the police.
The judge also rejected the argument that the court should hear evidence from “foreign” experts on the approach from which other cultures might approach this question in terms of its ethics and outcome. There was a “world of difference” between medical expertise from abroad and a foreign “expert” who simply takes the view that the medical or ethical approach to these issues in this jurisdiction differs from that in their own practice.
It would be extremely unfortunate if the standard response to applications of this nature was to become one of scouring the world for medical experts who simply take the view that the medical, moral or ethical approach to these issues in their jurisdiction, or in their own practice is preferable to the medical, moral or ethical approach in this jurisdiction.
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30 January 2018 by Dominic Ruck Keene
In Noel Douglas Conway v The Secretary of State for Justice [2018] EWCA Civ 16, the Court of Appeal gave an unusually detailed judgment granting permission to appeal against the decision of the Divisional Court in Conway, R (on the application of) v Secretary of State for Justice [2017] EWHC 640, refusing permission for the applicant to judicially review the criminalisation of physician-assisted suicide under the Suicide Act 1961.
The Divisional Court had held that that Parliament had recently examined the issue following the Supreme Court decision in the 2014 Nicklinson case , and two out of three judges concluded that it would be “institutionally inappropriate” for a court to declare that s.2(1) of the Suicide Act was incompatible with the right to privacy and autonomy under Article 8 of the ECHR.
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29 January 2018 by Guest Contributor
The House of Lords Constitution Committee today issues its main report on the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill. This follows the preliminary and interim reports on the Bill that the Committee published last year. The new report is wide-ranging and hard-hitting, the Committee’s view being that the Bill ‘risks fundamentally undermining legal certainty’.
In this post, we make no attempt to summarise the report. Rather, we focus on two key and interlocking chapters that address the legal nature and constitutional status of the new body of domestic law — ‘retained EU law’ — that the Bill will create. In doing so, we highlight the Committee’s view that central parts of the Bill are ‘conceptually flawed’ and that relevant retained EU law should be reconceived by treating it as if it were contained in an Act of Parliament enacted on ‘exit day’.
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27 January 2018 by Guest Contributor
General Medical Council v. Dr Bawa Garba, Divisional Court, 25 January 2018 – read judgment here
By Jeremy Hyam Q.C. of 1 Crown Office Row: see end of post for his involvement.
On 4th November 2015, Dr Bawa Garba was convicted of gross negligence manslaughter of a 6 year old boy. She was sentenced to two years of imprisonment suspended for two years. On 29 November 2016 the Court of Appeal Civil Division refused her leave to appeal against her conviction.
This case concerns proceedings before the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS), the MPTS’s decision to suspend her, and the GMC’s successful appeal on the basis that Dr Bawa Garba should have been erased from the register.
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18 January 2018 by Rosalind English
Nixon & Anor, R (On the Application of) Secretary of State for the Home Office [2018] EWCA Civ 3, 17 January 2018 – read judgment
The Court of Appeal has refused a judicial review application and permission to appeal in two cases where the applicants were required to pursue their challenges to deportation “out of country” rather than in the UK. Where the Secretary of State has rejected a human rights claim, and deportation is considered in the public good – because the deportee is a foreign criminal – there has been debate about the effectiveness of an out-of-country appeal .
Background
The facts of this case are similar to the case of R (Kiarie) v Secretary of State for the Home Department; R (Byndloss) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2015] EWCA Civ 1020. In each case, the appellant was threatened with deportation as a result of offending, but he contended that deportation would be in breach of his right to private and/or family life under article 8 of the ECHR. We posted on Kiarie and Byndloss here. The Court of Appeal held in that case that the Secretary of State could properly proceed on the basis that an out-of-county appeal would meet the procedural requirements of article 8 in the generality of deportation cases, because such an appeal met the essential requirements of effectiveness and fairness. The Supreme Court reversed the ruling on the specific facts of the case before them. But their conclusion – that in the cases of Kiarie and Byndloss, the out-of-country appeal procedures were inadequate – does not affect all cases thus certified. All questions of adequacy of evidence and video links have to be considered on a case by case basis, taking into account the efforts made by the individual applicant to advance their case. Not all decisions depriving people of the right of appeal from the UK will be unlawful; it depends on the facts.
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17 January 2018 by Rosalind English
In the cooperative spirit of podcasting, Professor Catherine Barnard of Cambridge University has kindly agreed to allow Law Pod UK to repost the enlightening podcasts from her series 2903CB, charting the transitional stages that need to be negotiated as we progress towards 29 March 2019, when the UK will be no longer part of the EU (CB being Catherine Barnard). Here’s the first one: UK Law Pod No 21: Outlining the legal milestones to Brexit, also available as part of the UK Law Pod series on iTunes.
We hope to continue to rebroadcast her series, along with our own output of interviews and seminars from 1 Crown Office Row on all manner of subjects.
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15 January 2018 by Angus McCullough KC
A flash-back to 1980: the first series of the TV sitcom, ‘Yes Minister’ and a discussion between a Permanent Secretary (Sir Humphrey Appleby) and his Minister (the Rt Hon Jim Hacker MP):
Sir Humphrey: Minister, Britain has had the same foreign policy objective for at least the last five hundred years: to create a disunited Europe. In that cause we have fought with the Dutch against the Spanish, with the Germans against the French, with the French and Italians against the Germans, and with the French against the Germans and Italians. Divide and rule, you see. Why should we change now, when it’s worked so well?
Hacker: That’s all ancient history, surely?
Sir Humphrey: Yes, and current policy. We had to break the whole thing up, so we had to get inside. We tried to break it up from the outside, but that wouldn’t work. Now that we’re inside we can make a complete pig’s breakfast of the whole thing — set the Germans against the French, the French against the Italians, the Italians against the Dutch… The Foreign Office is terribly pleased; it’s just like old times.
Hacker: But surely we’re all committed to the European ideal?
Sir Humphrey: [chuckles] Really, Minister.
Nearly 40 years later, as the Westminster Government seeks to extract the UK from the European project, chuckles are in short supply (in contrast to articles about Brexit). This piece considers the role of judicial review as the EU Withdrawal Bill is enacted, and after Brexit day has dawned – and the capacity of the Administrative Court to meet the increased demands that will predictably be made of it.
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14 January 2018 by David Hart KC
R (o.t.a. Western Sahara Campaign UK) v. HMRC and DEFRA, Court of Justice of the European Union, opinion of Advocate-General Wathelet, 10 January 2018 – read here
The A-G has just invited the CJEU to conclude that an EU agreement with Morocco about fishing is invalid on international law grounds. His opinion rolls up deep issues about NGO standing, ability to rely on international law principles, justiciability, and standard of review, into one case. It also touches on deeply political, and foreign political, issues, and he is unapologetic about this. That, he concludes, is a judge’s job, both at EU and international court level – if the issues are indeed legal.
The opinion is complex and I summarise it in the simplest terms. But here goes.
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