Monthly News Archives: January 2026
29 January 2026 by Matthew Leitch
In Suresh & Ors v General Medical Council [2025] EWHC 804 (KB), the High Court considered claims brought by the family of a doctor who died by suicide after receiving a letter from the General Medical Council (GMC). That letter stated that his Fitness to Practise was under investigation for allegedly sexually assaulting a 15-year-old patient.
It is important to emphasise that Marcus Pilgerstorfer KC, sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge, recorded at the outset of his judgment that identification evidence provided to the police by the complainant was inconsistent with the perpetrator being Dr Suresh. The Crown Prosecution Service decided that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute. Dr Suresh has never been found to have committed the offence alleged [4].
Dr Suresh’s family brought claims against the GMC in negligence and under the Human Rights Act 1998. The Defendant successfully applied to have both claims struck out and/or summarily dismissed. This article considers the court’s analysis of the human rights claim.
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26 January 2026 by Max Thomas
In the news
UN Human Rights Council responds to situation in Iran
In its 39th Special Session on Friday, the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) called for an urgent investigation into human rights violations by the Iranian state in the context of its repression of nationwide protests beginning in late December last year.
The UNHRC also extended the mandates of the Fact-Finding Mission and Special Rapporteur on Iran. The Special Session was informed of credible reports that thousands have been killed, many more injured, and over 24,000 arrested since the start of the protests, which have been accompanied by a complete internet and mobile services shutdown since 8 January. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, said:
“The only way out of this frightening escalation is through dialogue based on the human rights of all Iranians. The aspirations and ideas in particular of women, girls, young people and ethnic and religious minorities must be allowed to shape Iran’s future. We remain available to support any change in direction that fully respects Iran’s human rights obligations.”
European Committee of Social Rights publishes 2025 Conclusions
On Wednesday, the European Committee of Social Rights (ECSR) published its Conclusions on Labour Rights for 2025. The Conclusions for the UK make findings of non-conformity with Articles 3, 5 and 6 of the European Social Charter on several grounds, including:
- a lack of a right to disconnect from work;
- a lack of coverage by health and safety regulations for domestic and self-employed workers;
- a failure to promote the freedom of association and collective bargaining of gig economy workers; and
- the denial of the right to strike to the police, prison officers, and members of the armed forces without effective alternative means of negotiating terms and conditions.
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23 January 2026 by Guest Contributor
By Josephine Lunnon
INTRODUCTION
The crux of the issue in this appeal is both narrow and, to some degree, exceptionally broad. It is narrow in that the central issue before the Court of Appeal was “whether an application made under s.75(2) of the Mental Health Act 1983 by a mental health patient to the First-tier Tribunal while subject to a conditional discharge is extinguished by the recall to hospital of that patient by the Secretary of State for Justice under s42(3) of the Act” [1]; a pithy, glamorous summary.
However, the appeal has simultaneously broad implications; the Court considered whether certain mechanisms of judicial oversight were effective as judicial safeguards and in providing speedy consideration of a person’s deprivation of liberty as required by Article 5(4) ECHR. In what was ultimately an academic discussion which was somewhat removed from the generative facts, the Court of Appeal examined whether there was indeed a “lacuna” in the FtT’s oversight of offenders who have been conditionally discharged with a restriction order.
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19 January 2026 by Sascha Lavin
In the news
The inquiry into the conditions at Manston Short-Term Holding Facility has begun hearing evidence in public. The purpose of the inquiry is to investigate “the decisions, actions and circumstances” that led to significant overcrowding, outbreaks of infectious disease and mistreatment of detained migrant people at the former military base between June and November 2022. The inquiry will also investigate the death of Hussein Haseeb Ahmed, who died from diphtheria after contracting the infection while detained at Manston. The inquiry was downgraded from statutory to independent in September 2024, reducing its powers to compel witnesses to attend. The Home Office, the Ministry of Defence, the Cabinet Office, the Treasury, and the Ministry of Justice are due to participate in the inquiry.
On Sunday, the government pulled the third reading of the Public Office (Accountability) Bill 2024-26 — widely referred to as the ‘Hillsborough Law’ — from the parliamentary schedule, amid criticism of a proposed amendment. The draft legislation would create a statutory duty of candour and assistance for public authorities and officials when engaging with inquiries and inquests. The bill would also create a new criminal offence of misleading the public. However, a new amendment proposed by the government had been critcised for creating an opt-out for intelligence officials, by allowing heads of security services to decide whether information is released. Families of the Manchester Arena bombing wrote to the Prime Minister earlier this month, stressing the need for the law not to exempt security agencies. The UK’s Security Service (also known as MI5) was found by the Manchester Arena Inquiry not to have given an “accurate picture” of the key intelligence it held on the suicide bomber who carried out the attack, instead presenting “a retrospective justification” for their actions.
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17 January 2026 by Matthew Leitch
Background
The Applicant, a national of St Lucia, made an application on 2 December 2022 for ILR under Category 4 of the Windrush Scheme. Her father was a member of the Windrush generation and entered the UK in 1956. He was granted British citizenship in 2018 [4]-[19].
To fall within Category 4, an applicant should satisfy the following criteria [7]:
- A person in the UK,
- who is a child of a Commonwealth citizen parent,
- where the child was born in the UK or arrived in the UK before the age of 18,
- and has been continuously resident in the UK since their birth or arrival,
- and the parent was settled before 1 January 1973 or has the right of abode (or met these criteria but is now a British citizen).
Although the Applicant satisfied the other criteria, because of her repeated travel to St Lucia since arriving in the UK in August 2000, the Respondent refused her application on the basis that she failed to satisfy criterion (d) above [18]-[19].
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15 January 2026 by Rosalind English
In his recent Substack post, Joshua Rozenberg has drawn attention to a recent speech delivered by Jonathan Hall KC to the think tank Policy Exchange called The Lessons of Bondi Beach: Terrorism, Hatred and the Law.
“It sometimes seems to me that it is not so much extremism as normalisation that we have to fear”, Hall observed.
It is indeed an important and nuanced reflection on the subject that is worth summarising again on the UKHRB for readers who are not subscribed to Rozenberg’s Substack or who have missed it for any other reason.
Jonathan Hall KC’s lecture articulates a compelling case that contemporary anti‑Jewish agitation cannot be treated as routine protest but must be recognised as a vector of risk for real-world violence and ultimately terrorism. His core insight is that what threatens liberal democracy is less spectacular “extremism” than the slow “normalisation” of sectarian calls to violence, particularly against Jews. For our lawyer readers, the speech matters because it shows how existing doctrines on precaution, public order and incitement must be read through the lens of this normalisation if law is to discharge its protective function without abandoning its commitment to free expression.
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6 January 2026 by Robert Kellar QC
The following piece was also published here on 1 Crown Office Row’s Quarterly Medical Law Review.
AI is set to transform and disrupt the way in which healthcare is delivered. The Government’s 10-year health plan for England commits the NHS to becoming “the most AI-enabled healthcare system in the world”, supported by the delivery of a new regulatory framework for medical devices including AI.
On 18 December 2025 the “National Commission on the Regulation of AI in Healthcare” published its formal Call for Evidence.[1]
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