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Roman Abramovich has filed an application against the United Kingdom before the European Court of Human Rights, alleging that an investigation into his financial accounts by the Attorney General of Jersey (“the AG”) breached his Article 6 and 8 rights. The investigation that gave rise to this claim began in March 2022 and resulted in a freezing order over assets valued at approximately £5.2 billion.
This action follows Abramovich’s judicial review proceedings against the AG’s decision to commence and continue the money laundering investigation, which were dismissed in the Royal Court of Jersey and Court of Appeal of Jersey in June/July 2024 and June 2025 respectively. Mr Abramovich was denied permission to appeal these decisions to the Privy Council on 17 November 2025.
Assisted Dying Bill runs out of time
On 24 April 2026, the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill ran out of time to become law. The proposed legislation could only be enacted if both Houses of Parliament agreed on its wording before the session of Parliament ended. While the House of Commons voted for the bill to progress to the House of Lords in June 2025, in the House of Lords, the bill received more than 1,200 amendments. Supporters of the bill have criticised the amount of amendments proposed, and the time taken to debate them, arguing that the volume of amendments intentionally frustrated the bill’s passage. Opponents have responded by stating that the bill required sufficient scrutiny to ensure vulnerable people are protected.
As the bill was proposed by a backbench MP, it cannot be carried over to the next session, and any renewed attempt to pass the bill will have to begin the parliamentary approval process from scratch. Lord Falconer has stated that he may push the bill using powers under the Parliament Act, “which, in certain circumstances, allows legislation passed by the House of Commons to become law without the consent of the House of Lords.
On 6 and 7 April 2026, a selection of measures under the Employment Rights Act 2025 (“the Act”) took effect.
The measures include the removal of the Lower Earnings Limit for statutory sick pay (“SSP”), making over 1.2 million workers eligible. They will also remove the waiting period for SSP, meaning workers will be paid from the first day of becoming ill, rather than from day four. In addition, employees will now be entitled to paternity leave and unpaid parental leave from the first day in their job, as opposed to after 26 weeks (paternity leave) or a year (unpaid parental leave).
Moreover, the new measures have added sexual harassment to the list of wrongdoings that may count as the basis for a “qualified disclosure” under s.43B of the Act, meaning that workers who make such disclosures, and do so in the reasonable belief that their report is in the public interest, will be afforded the whistleblowing protections against adverse treatment and unfair dismissal within the Act. Alongside this, the measures include the establishment of the Fair Work Agency, an executive agency of the Department of Trade, which will have the power to inspect workplaces, bring civil proceedings and enforce penalties if they find breaches of employment law.
These measures follow the Act’s first tranche of reforms, relating to trade unions and industrial action, which came into effect on 18 February 2026.
The Bill includes the much-discussed proposal to restrict the availability of jury trial by removing the right to elect trial on indictment for either way offences that are likely to receive a custodial sentence of three years or less. The Bill also introduces judge-only trials for complex fraud or related financial offences, and replaces the automatic right of appeal to the Crown Court from the magistrates’ court with a permission stage. Assuming the reforms are implemented, the Ministry of Justice predicts it will take a decade for the criminal court’s backlog to fall below pre-Covid levels.
Separately, the Bill reforms evidential rules in sexual offence trials. A complainant’s previous false allegations will only be admissible where there is a “proper evidential basis” for concluding the allegation was false. The Bill also provides guidance on when evidence of a complainant’s sexual behaviour is admissible, and raises the threshold for the inclusion of evidence regarding a complainant’s previous compensation claims.
On Monday, the Home Secretary published a white paper outlining her proposals for reforming the police. The proposed changes include the establishment of a National Police Service to oversee policing of organised crime, counter-terrorism and trafficking across England and Wales. This body will also appoint a Senior National Coordinator for public order policing, who will manage police responses to large scale national protests, such as the riots following the Southport stabbings in July 2024.
The Home Secretary also seeks to invest in new policing technologies, establishing a National Centre for AI policing and expanding the use of Live Facial Recognition vans to locate offenders. Meanwhile, on Tuesday and Wednesday this week, the High Court heard a judicial review challenge to the Met Police’s September 2024 Live Facial Recognition policy, on the basis that it violated Articles 8, 10 and 11 ECHR (R (Thompson and Carlo) v Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis).
Finally, the white paper also suggests that the policing of non crime hate incidents is to be overhauled, with the aim of ‘reducing unnecessary recording burdens’.
Government confirms 20-25% cuts to prison education delivery hours
In November 2025, the Justice Committee released a report expressing its alarm regarding reports of cuts of up to 50% to prison education budgets. It recommended that the Government clarify the scale of, and rationale for, planned cuts to prison education budgets, and set out how it plans to ensure core education provision continues.
The government’s response was published this week, stating that whilst the budget had increased in recent years, these increases had been outpaced by rising delivery costs. As such, the government has implemented a national reduction of prison education delivery hours of around 20-25%, with some prisons experiencing more significant reductions.
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