The Weekly Round-Up: Leveson Review, Employment Rights Bill, Anglo-French migration deal, and Palestine Action
14 July 2025
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.
In Intl News:
The Prime Minister and French President Macron agreed a ‘one-in, one-out’ migration deal. Under the new pilot scheme, for each illegal migrant Britain returns to France, it will accept one who has legally arrived in France: generally someone with family connections in the UK or some other strong case for asylum. The government has not commented on the scale and timing of the scheme, but it is due to commence in the coming weeks.
In the Courts
In Huda Ammori v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2025] EWCA Civ 848, a bid to block the banning of Palestine Action failed. The case stemmed from an order of the Home Secretary (‘the Order’) adding Palestine Action to the list of proscribed organisations under the Terrorism Act 2000. The claimant, Ms Ammori, is a member and founder of the political group Palestine Action. Having applied for judicial review of the decision to proscribe Palestine Action, she sought interim relief preventing the making of the Order until the outcome of the judicial review. The High Court, applying guidelines for interim relief in American Cyanamid Co v Ethicon Ltd [1975] AC 396, refused the application. Ms Ammori then sought permission to appeal in the Court of Appeal. The Court of Appeal rejected all 5 of the grounds of appeal, stating that the High Court ‘identified all relevant factors and weighed them together in the balance’. The High Court judge had given significant weight to the public interest in national security and was ‘not only entitled but right to do so’. The Order took effect on 5 July 2025.
