The Weekly Round Up: ‘Sex’ defined by Supreme Court, Trump administration contempt proceedings, Hungarian constitutional amendments, clinicians’ right to privacy, and Nicholas Prosper’s sentence
25 April 2025
In UK News:
The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that ‘man,’ ‘woman,’ and ‘sex’ refer to biological sex in the Equality Act 2010 (EA 2010). The appeal in For Women Scotland Ltd v The Scottish Ministers [2025] UKSC 16 concerned revised statutory guidance to the Gender Representation on Public Boards (Scotland) Act 2018. The revised guidance defines ‘woman’ as including a person with a Gender Recognition Certificate. These Certificates are issued under the Gender Recognition Act 2004 (GRA 2004) and change the recipient’s gender ‘for all purposes’ (section 9(1)); however, the GRA 2004 also provides that s9(1) can be disapplied by other legislation. This was termed a ‘carve out’ power in the Supreme Court’s judgment.
The Supreme Court held that the carve out applies to the EA 2010. In interpreting EA 2010, the Court looked to which definition of sex would make its provisions coherent and workable. A certificated-sex approach would create two sub-groups within the transgender community: those with a GRC would be entitled to greater rights than those without. The Court saw ‘no good reason’ why Parliament would intend this inequality of status. The Court also anticipated that parties seeking to fulfil their bifurcated duties under the EA 2010 would also face practical difficulties: there is no obvious outward difference between trans people with and without a GRC, and duty-bearers cannot ask whether a GRC has been obtained because it is confidential information.
The Court also highlighted multiple provisions in the EA 2010 which describe a ‘woman’ undergoing acts only possible for biological females (pregnancy and childbirth). This was described as a ‘strong indication’ that ‘woman’ had its biological meaning within the Act. The Court gave further examples of provisions in the EA 2010 which a certificated-sex interpretation would render semantically meaningless. Certificated sex would therefore ‘cut across the definition of the protected characteristic of sex in an incoherent way.’
Furthermore, the Court anticipated that a certificated-sex definition would cause difficulty to the EA 2010’s provisions for (inter alia) single-sex services, associations, and charities, and interfere with the ability to have lesbian-only spaces and associations.
This decision ‘would not be disadvantageous to or remove protections from trans people,’ said the Court. All trans people are currently protected under the characteristic of gender reassignment in the EA 2010, which renders both direct and indirect discrimination illegal. Furthermore, trans people are protected from discrimination based on their perceived gender: a trans woman perceived to be a woman would, therefore, be able to bring a claim for sex discrimination without the need for a Gender Recognition Certificate.
In International News:
A US Court of Appeal has temporarily stayed District Court Judge James Boasberg from proceeding with contempt proceedings against Trump administration officials. Earlier this week, Judge Boasberg ruled there was ‘probable cause’ to hold the officials in criminal contempt for defying a court order to halt deportation flights. The news comes amidst a political clash over the mistaken deportation of Kilmar Ábrego García, an alleged member of the MS-13 gang, who was deported to Cecot (Terrorism Confinement Centre) in El Salvador. Despite a US Supreme Court ruling that the administration must facilitate his release, the government stated in a press conference this week that Mr Ábrego García’s is an ‘illegal alien…and foreign terrorist’ who will never re-enter the US. In a press conference, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt revealed that Mr Ábrego García’s wife petitioned for a court protection order against him in 2021 after two incidents of domestic violence. Mr Ábrego García’s wife stated that she did not follow through on the civil court process and instead ‘work[ed] through the situation privately as a family.’
Hungary’s parliament approved a group of amendments to its constitution, the Fundamental Law. The amendments enable the government to ban public LGBTQ+ gatherings, codifying its recent law banning of Pride marches. They also enable the government to temporarily suspend the citizenship of Hungarian dual nationals deemed a threat to the country’s security or sovereignty.
In the Courts:
The Supreme Court gave a landmark ruling on clinicians’ right to privacy in Abbasi and another v Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust; Haastrup v King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust [2025] UKSC 15. In this conjoined appeal, the appellant Trusts had obtained declarations allowing the withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment from child patients; injunctions were also granted anonymising the clinicians involved. After both children died, their parents applied to be released from the injunctions; the Trusts resisted their applications on the grounds that publicising the clinicians’ names would expose them to harassment by the media and the public. The Supreme Court held that a claim asserting the clinicians’ right to private life had to be brought by the clinicians themselves, and therefore upheld the Court of Appeal’s decision to discharge the injunctions.
The sentence of Nicholas Prosper, who murdered his family and plotted a school shooting, has been referred to the Court of Appeal. Prosper, aged 18 at the time of offending, had received a life sentence with a minimum term of 49 years. An Attorney-General’s Reference allows the Court of appeal to consider whether his sentence was unduly lenient.
