Monthly News Archives: July 2025

False evidence, procedurally deficient investigation, and warning bells for contempt: MI5’s approach to domestic abuse agent scrutinised

29 July 2025 by Jonathan Metzer

In HM Attorney General for England and Wales v British Broadcasting Corporation [2025] EWHC 1669 (KB), the Divisional Court (the Lady Chief Justice,the President of the King’s Bench Division, and Chamberlain J) gave judgment in relation to the deployment of evidence by MI5 in proceedings concerning the BBC’s reporting on a covert human intelligence source (CHIS), referred to as “X”. The judgment is quite extraordinary, including substantial criticism of the approach taken by MI5 in this case and specific guidance as to the way that evidence from an agency such as MI5 should be presented in future.

Coronial investigation of the Police after suicide – Coroner’s decisions on Article 2 and jury overturned

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.

What to do about Climate Change: “an existential problem of planetary proportions.”

24 July 2025 by David Hart KC

On 23 July 2025, the International Court of Justice delivered an advisory Opinion on the “obligations of states in respect of climate change” from 15 judges, in 130+ pages. Its ruling was unanimous, with a strong closing flourish trailed in my title. There has been a great burst of favourable responses to the Opinion which was delivered yesterday, for instance the Center for International Environmental Law.

But what does the Opinion say, and does it matter?

The questions

The request for the Opinion had come from the UN General Assembly in March 2023. After a typically baggy “chapeau” of potentially relevant climate change and human rights treaties, the UN GA sought answers to the following questions

• What are the obligations of States under international law to ensure the protection of the climate system and other parts of the environment from anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases for States and for present and future generations?

• What are the legal consequences under these obligations for States where they, by their acts and omissions, have caused significant harm to the climate system and other parts of the environment, with respect to:
• States, including, in particular, small island developing States, which due to their geographical circumstances and level of development, are injured or specially affected by or are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change?
• The peoples and individuals of the present and future generations affected by the adverse effects of climate change?”

In December 2014, the ICJ heard oral submissions from 96 states and 11 international organisations (including the EU, the African Union, WHO, and various organisations representing small island states). Major emitting states such as the UK, the US, Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait made individual submissions. This response marks the importance that most UN states attached to this process.

Written transparency of the case is excellent: all those submissions, the written statements preceding them, and the underlying treaties and legal materials are to be found on the ICJ website here.

An ICJ advisory Opinion is just that – advisory. As the ICJ itself acknowledges, it has no binding force, but they may carry great weight and, as the ICJ hopes, “moral authority”. Such opinions are not for bruising fights between individual state parties. Their aim is that the ICJ contribute to the clarification and development of international law.

So how does this Opinion advance the sum of international law knowledge on climate change?

Attorney General’s refusal of a fiat to seek a fresh inquest is non-justiciable

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.

The Weekly Round Up: Palestine Action, the Hague Group, a discharged MoD super-injunction, and freeholders’ Convention rights

22 July 2025 by Benjamin Savill

In the news

Over 100 people have been arrested across the UK in the wake of the Government’s proscription of the direct-action group Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation, via its amendment of the Terrorism Act 2000 earlier this month. The arrests, which mostly took place this weekend in Bristol, Edinburgh, London, Manchester and Truro at demonstrations co-ordinated by Defend Our Juries, saw protestors who had called for a reversal of the ban on Palestine Action charged with the offence of supporting a terrorist organisation. At a separate event in Canterbury, another pro-Palestine demonstrator was filmed being threatened with arrest under the Terrorism Act by armed police, without having expressed any support for the proscribed group. Amnesty International have called the footage “very concerning… We have long criticised UK terrorism law for being excessively broad and vaguely worded and a threat to freedom of expression. This video documents one aspect of exactly the kind of thing we were warning about.” The following Monday, Palestine Action’s co-founder Huda Ammori renewed her legal challenge against the ban at the High Court. The group’s acts of terror include spray-painting aircraft and blockading traffic.

An inquest after a murder: Coroner’s decision not to resume is upheld despite Article 2 challenge

21 July 2025 by Richard Mumford

At the heart of the case of R (Bailey) v HM Senior Coroner for East London [2025] EWHC 1637 (Admin), a tragedy: the murder of a 14-year-old boy, Jaden Bailey, and the profound grief of his mother. Jaden had been drawn into criminal activity, first in Nottinghamshire, then London. In October 2018 he had been found at a “cuckoo house” in Bournemouth, in possession of cocaine, a mobile phone and £325 in cash. He was brought back to London by the Metropolitan Police, following which an action plan was prepared by the Children’s Social Care Department of the London Borough of Waltham Forest. In November 2018 Jaden was permanently excluded from school after a Snapchat video showed him in possession of an imitation firearm, for which he was arrested and charged, pleading guilty. On 8 January 2019 Jaden was riding a moped in Leyton when he was hit by a car; the occupants of the car got out and stabbed Jaden. He died at the scene.

Article 6 in International Sports Arbitration: More than procedural rights?

16 July 2025 by Allyna Ng

Case of Semenya v Switzerland (Application No.10934/21) (ECtHR Grand Chamber)

Introduction

On 10 July 2025, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights delivered its judgment in Semenya v Switzerland. The case arose from the legal challenge by Olympic champion Caster Semenya to World Athletics’ regulations (“the DSD Regulations”)requiring athletes with differences in sex developments, also known as ‘intersex’ athletes, to lower their testosterone levels in order to compete in the female category of certain events.

Importantly, the Applicant’s case in the ECtHR was not against World Athletics (since World Athletics is not an entity directly subject to the Convention) but against Switzerland for the role of its Federal Supreme Court (“SFSC”) in upholding the arbitral award of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (“CAS”). The case therefore highlights the complexities involved in protecting human rights in the realm of international sports arbitration.

The Grand Chamber’s judgment, while ostensibly narrow in some respects, affirms the importance of Article 6 ECHR safeguards and arguably broadens the scope of its protection, particularly where fundamental rights are concerned in compulsory arbitration. 

The Weekly Round-Up: Leveson Review, Employment Rights Bill, Anglo-French migration deal, and Palestine Action

14 July 2025 by Jennifer Zhou

In UK News:

The Independent Review of the Criminal Courts, chaired by Sir Brian Leveson, published part 1 of its report. The Review was commissioned to address the backlog in criminal courts. The report makes a number of proposals to reduce the Crown Court caseload, most significantly:

• Reducing the number of cases sent up from the Magistrates Court (by removing right of election for offences punishable by under two years’ imprisonment, and reclassifying offences from triable either way to summary only);
• Introducing a new branch of the Crown Court, the ‘Crown Court (Bench Division)’, consisting of a judge and two magistrates. This court would handle offences punishable by imprisonment for up to 3 years;
• Allowing trial by judge alone in cases of exceptional length or complexity, such as serious and complex fraud;
• Allowing defendants in the Crown Court to request judge-only trial.

The report stated that, while juries trials were seen as the ‘gold standard’, there was no ‘right’ to a jury and it was not always the most proportionate mode of trial. Other proposals include: investing in rehabilitation programmes and Out of Court Resolutions to divert people from courts; requiring permission to appeal from the Magistrates’ Court; match-funding criminal pupillages; raising the cap on Crown Court sitting days.

A number of amendments to the Employment Rights Bill have been made. These include softening the fire-and-rehire ban; banning NDAs which prevent workers from talking about discrimination or harassment; and extending bereavement leave to include pregnancy loss before 24 weeks.

Challenge to export of military parts that might be used by Israel fails in the High Court

4 July 2025 by Rosalind English

The King on the Application of Al-Haq (Claimant) v Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Defendant)  [2025] EWHC 1615 (Admin)

The Secretary of State for Business and Trade decided in September 2024 to suspend licences authorising the export of items that might be used in carrying out or facilitating military operations in the conflict in Gaza. He did so explicitly because the Government had formed the view that Israel was not committed to compliance with international humanitarian law (‘IHL’) in the conflict in Gaza and that there was therefore a clear risk that such items might be used in that conflict to commit or facilitate a serious violation of IHL. However, the Secretary of State excluded from that suspension licences for the export of components for F-35 combat aircraft which could not be identified as destined for Israel. In this claim for judicial review the Claimant, supported by the Interveners, challenged the lawfulness of this exclusion, which has been referred to as the ‘F-35 Carve Out’.

In reaching these decisions, together referred to as ‘the September Decision’, the Secretary of State received advice from the Defence Secretary and the Foreign Secretary. In short, the advice of the Defence Secretary, set out in a letter dated 18th July 2024, was that:

(1) the multinational F-35 joint strike fighter programme (‘the F-35 Programme’1) is significantly dependent on the United Kingdom as the largest national provider of component parts outside the United States;
(2) it was not currently possible to suspend licensing for export of F-35 components for use by Israel without having an impact on the entire F-35 Programme;

(3) a suspension of licensing for all F-35 nations would have a profound and immediate impact on international peace and security, would undermine US confidence in the UK and NATO at a critical juncture, would seriously undermine the credibility of the UK as a trusted partner on the international stage, and would undermine a key capability allowing the UK and its closest allies and partners to address current security challenges.

The Claimant “Al-Haq”, an independent Palestinian non-governmental human rights organisation based in Ramallah, contended that the F-35 Carve Out was unlawful. Al-Haq was supported by Oxfam, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. This was a “rolled up” hearing, in which permission to bring judicial review proceedings is considered at the same time as the merits of the claim.