Law Pod UK new episode: Deprivation of Liberty
10 August 2026
On 2nd June 2026 the Supreme Court handed down their judgment in Re Attorney General for Northern Ireland’s Reference (Deprivation of Liberty) [2026] UKSC 16. You can read the full analysis of the case by Anogika Souresh and Esme Cairns posted on 9th June. A brief reminder: the Attorney General for Northern Ireland referred to the Supreme Court whether proposed revisions to the region’s Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards Code of Practice — allowing incapacitated adults’ expressed wishes and feelings to count as valid consent to care arrangements — would satisfy Article 5 ECHR, even though this diverged from Cheshire West’s approach.
In this episode of Law Pod UK Rosalind English discusses with Amelia Walker the unanimous decision by the Supreme Court to overturn Cheshire West’s rigid “acid test” which they said wrongly departed from Strasbourg jurisprudence, replacing it with a multifactorial approach weighing restriction type, setting, duration, and effect. Crucially, it held that lacking capacity doesn’t automatically preclude someone from validly consenting to arrangements that would otherwise be a deprivation of liberty.
Law Pod UK is published by 1 Crown Office Row. Supporting articles are published on the UK Human Rights Blog. Follow and interact with the podcast team on Twitter, and post feedback to LawPodUK@1cor.com
