Top Cases of 2023: the good, the bad and the legally complicated
29 January 2024
As the dust settles on another year, it is (just about still) time to look back over the year gone to review some of the most dramatic, legally interesting or impactful cases of the year gone by. As ever, this is only a selection of the top cases of the year, but as a whole they reveal yet another year in which the courts have been drawn into the centre of the most important social and political debates of the society in which they find themselves.
1. The Supreme Court considered the Government’s Rwanda Scheme: R ((AAA) Syria and Ors) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2023] UKSC 24
Perhaps the single most impactful piece of litigation of late has been the challenge to the Government’s flagship Rwanda policy, bringing together as it does the government’s renewed efforts to tackle the ‘small boats crisis’ as it has become known, internal political conflict within the Tory party, and ever-unsettled questions about the proper boundaries of power and comity between the apex court and the government. Jon Metzer covered the Supreme Court’s judgment for the blog in this piece in November as well as the earlier Court of Appeal decision in July here.
2. Fair Trials and Justice in… procedural rules on expert evidence?!: Griffiths v TUI UK Ltd [2023] UKSC 48
It is not all that often that questions of civil litigation procedure make it to the Supreme Court in a manner which makes their relevance to human rights so clearcut. At first glance the question of whether challenge to an expert’s report must be put in cross examination, which was central to Griffiths, seems narrowly technical. But as Edward Waldegrave’s piece draws out, central to the resolution of that question was the interpretation and application of longstanding principles of justice and what it means for a trial to be fair to all parties.
3. The Right to Life and the Investigation of Death: of R (Maguire) v HM Senior Coroner for Blackpool & Fylde and another [2023] UKSC 20
In a continuation of the appellate court’s series of recent forays into the vexed question of how the right to life, as embodied in Article 2 of the ECHR, applies in the context on inquests, the Supreme Court in Maguire set out a detailed and useful account of the law as it applies in a healthcare context. Peter Skelton KC wrote about the case here, in a piece which is essential reading for anyone interested in the coronial process.
4. What Can Doctors Say About Covid: Adil v General Medical Council [2023] EWCA Civ 1261
The confrontation between the General Medical Council and Dr Mohammad Adil was perhaps not as widely reported as it might have been given its importance. The contours of free speech are ever relevant, but nothing brings out the vitality of the issue like a national crisis, where inroads on free speech are at their most important and controversial. More recently that has been demonstrated in the context of war by High Court upholding the imposition of sanctions on Russian propagandist Graham Phillips, covered here. But last year, against the context of another national crisis, Covid-19, the case of Adil v General Medical Council gave a fascinating insight into how free speech works for those who take a view fundamentally opposed to that of society in general. The case was covered by Thomas Hayes here after the High Court gave judgment, and again by Rosalind Enlgish here after the High Court’s decision was upheld by the Court of Appeal.
5. Who Decides What An Inquiry Sees: R (The Cabinet Office) v The Chair of the UK Covid-19 Inquiry & Ors
Another Covid-related legal drama this year was the tussle between the Covid Inquiry, led by Baroness Heather Hallett, and the Cabinet Office, over the power of the chair of a statutory public inquiry to compel disclosure. What hung in the balance was, among other things, personal messages sent to and from the ex-Prime Minister Boris Johnson. The case was for the blog by Gareth Rhys here.
6. Abortion, law and policy: R v Carla Foster [2023] EWCA Crim 1196
The law is supposed to be made public, and clearly so. These are important aspects of the rule of law. The prosecution of Ms Foster for, in essence, carrying out an illegal abortion brought starkly into the public debate whether the rules around abortion meet those criteria, as well as whether they are fit for the modern day. In a guest post, Catherine Churchill covered some of the the legal and political angles to this alarming case here.
7. War in Court: South Africa v Israel
It is not yet clear what the consequences of the ICJ’s findings in relation to South Africa’s application for an interim ruling against Israel will be. But it cannot be anything other than significant, whatever your view of the merits, when a country which shed the burden of apartheid within living memory turns to accuse the world’s only Jewish state of genocide. The court, in an almost unanimous decision, ordered Israel to take all measures within its power to prevent the commission of genocide. The full decision can be read here. It should be kept in mind that this is only an interim decision. Inevitably, there will be more to this legal story, in which we are much closer to the beginning than the end.
Happy new year to all UKHRB readers – we wish you all the best for 2024!
Jasper Gold is a barrister at 1 Crown Office Row and the Commissioning Editor of the UK Human Rights Blog.
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