By: Rosalind English
9 December 2010 by Rosalind English
The Child Poverty Action Group (Respondent) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions(Appellant) [2010] UKSC 54 – Read judgment / press release
The Supreme Court has ruled that where benefits are overpaid as a result of a mistaken calculation, the department responsible cannot claim these amounts back via the common law route of restitution; the Secretary of State’s only recourse is via Section 71 of the Social Security Administration Act.
The following summary is taken from the Supreme Court site’s Press Release, with my comment below:
This appeal concerns the question whether, in cases of social security benefit awards mistakenly inflated due to a calculation error, the Secretary of State is entitled to recover sums overpaid under the common law of unjust enrichment or whether section 71 of the Social Security Administration Act 1992 (the “1992 Act”) provides the only route to recovery (nb. the Supreme Court press summary wrongly refers to the Social Security Benefits Act 1992).
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8 December 2010 by Rosalind English
This time two years ago two obscure environmental groups, Clientearth and the Marine Conservation Society , took a step that may make more difference to the enforcement of environmental rights in this country than all the recent high-profile “green” NGO campaigns put together.
They submitted a complaint – euphemistically called a “communication” – to the enforcement body of the Aarhus Convention, a treaty which lays down baseline rules for proper environmental justice in the EU, alerting it to various shortcomings in the legal system of England and Wales (inelegantly but conveniently referred to in the report as E & W).
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6 December 2010 by Rosalind English
This morning we reported on the case of Sinclair Collis Ltd v Secretary of State for Health & Anor [2010] EWHC 3112 (Admin) – see Isabel McArdle’s post on the case. Rosalind English analyses the implications of the High Court’s decision.
Hard on the heels of Petsafe, the administrative court has been asked once again to give close attention to Article 36 TFEU and member states’ scope for imposing restrictions to free movement of goods (see our post on the “health of animals” derogation). It seems that human health is such a core value of the common market that any reference to it by way of justifying a ban or restriction on goods or services is very hard to resist, particularly when the step is one taken by the legislature rather than the executive.
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2 December 2010 by Rosalind English
R (on the application of Zagorski and Baze) v Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills and Archimedes Pharma UK Ltd – read judgment
The Administrative Court has put down a marker on the potential applicability of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights about the morality of certain trade with the United States. The case concerned the export of Sodium Thiopental, an anaesthetic drug that is used as a preliminary to the lethal injection for prisoners on death row. This is the first time a domestic court has made a definitive ruling on the potential role of the EU Charter in domestic law. Earlier this year the Court of Appeal referred a question on the Charter to the ECJ for determination on its relevance to asylum proceedings: see R (S) v Home Secretary & (1) Amnesty International & AIRE Centre (2) UNHCR and our post on the subject.
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30 November 2010 by Rosalind English
Big business between government and property developers may be at risk from public interest challenges in the courts if current obstacles are removed.
Following critical findings by a UN environmental body, the Government has set out its latest proposals for allocating the costs burden in environmental cases. The current position is that an applicant who seeks to dispute the lawfulness of a decision, say, to grant permission for a development, will only get a court order preventing commencement of construction if they are prepared to pay for the developer’s loss should their claim fail at the full trial of the merits.
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26 November 2010 by Rosalind English
MA (Somalia) (Respondent) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (Appellant) [2010] UKSC 49 – read judgment (press summary in earlier post)
The Supreme Court has ruled that where the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal (AIT) had directed itself correctly as to the impact of an asylum seeker’s lies on his claim, the Court of Appeal should have been very slow to find that it had gone on to apply that direction incorrectly.
This case brings to the fore the very difficult task facing immigration judges trying to determine the veracity of claimants’ testimony in asylum cases. The Supreme Court declined to express a conclusive view on the standard of proof in this area, a point which was acknowledged to be “both difficult and important”. It was left for an authoritative decision by that Court – but when such an occasion arise? The importance of settling this point cannot be overstated.
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25 November 2010 by Rosalind English
MA (Somalia) (Respondent) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (Appellant) [2010] UKSC 49. Read judgment
Update, 26 November – Rosalind English’s case comment is here
The following report is based on the press summary provided by the Supreme Court.
The issues raised in this appeal were: (1) the correct approach to the relevance of lies told by an asylum seeker in the assessment of real risk of persecution on return to his or her country of origin; and (2) how far it is legitimate for an appeal court to interfere with the assessment of facts made by a specialist tribunal on the grounds of error of law.
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24 November 2010 by Rosalind English
Iraqis whose applications for asylum are unsuccessful will be continued to be deported, according to a government minister. The announcement comes despite the European Court of Human Rights effectively calling for a freeze on the practice.
The BBC reported on Monday that Foreign Office minister Alistair Burt told the them that Iraq was now considered safe enough for people to return to. An earlier post explored the legal implications of the return by the UK of Baghdad last year. The Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) held that the degree of indiscriminate violence in Iraq was not so high that the appellants could resist return.
Other parties, such as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, maintain that much of Iraq remains unsafe, although the majority are sent to the North where explosions and shootings are not the danger they are in the South. But as long as the UK government maintain the view that Iraq is no longer a war-torn country, there are no grounds for the Iraqi’s continued presence in here.
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23 November 2010 by Rosalind English
Updated | The recent High Court decision upholding the ban on electronic training collars for domestic animals raises the interesting and topical issue of animal welfare and its role in EU law.
In her post on the case Catriona Murdoch discusses the various arguments involved, from human rights to irrationality to proportionality under EU law, and the extent to which the language of human rights can be enlisted in the service of animal protection. Conor Gearty has analysed this topic in a persuasive paper published in 2008; here we look at the question in relation to permitted justifications for impeding free movement for goods and services in the Community.
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12 November 2010 by Rosalind English
The much-debated “sovereignty clause” has now been published in the European Union Bill.
As predicted by our previous post on the subject and the wealth of commentary elsewhere, the declaratory provision does nothing more than set out, in unambiguous terms, the common law principle of parliamentary sovereignty; the principle that Parliament, being sovereign, cannot abandon its own sovereignty. It has no effect on the rights and obligations conferred by EU law. It simply serves as a reminder that the enforceability of these rights and obligations are dependent on the continuing survival of the European Communities Act 1972, and nothing more.
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10 November 2010 by Rosalind English
R v Chaytor and others (Appellants) UKSC 2010/0195 (Awaiting judgment)
The Supreme Court has dismissed the appellants’ appeal from the decision of the Court of Appeal Criminal Division that the Crown Court does have jurisdiction to try a Member of Parliament in relation to the submission of an allegedly dishonest claim for Parliamentary expenses or allowances.
The Appellants had argued that the court was deprived of jurisdiction by either or both of (i) Article 9 of the Bill of Rights 1688; or (ii) the exclusive jurisdiction of Parliament.
As can be seen from our previous posts on this matter, the appellants had each been committed for trial in the Crown Court on charges of false accounting contrary to s 17(1) Theft Act 1968 arising from their submission of claims for parliamentary expenses and/or allowances at a time when each appellant was a sitting Member of Parliament. At a preparatory hearing the appellants contended that the Crown Court did not have jurisdiction to determine the charges by reason of parliamentary privilege.
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10 November 2010 by Rosalind English
Robert Elwyn Watkins v Philip James Woolas [2010] EWHC 2702 (QB) 5 November 2010- read judgment
Update – read our 3 December 2010 post on his defeat in the administrative court
The Election Court has ruled that the Labour MP for Oldham knowingly and deliberately misled the constituency and as a result his election is void under Section 106 of the Representation of the People Act (1983). Permission for judicial review of the decision has been refused.
The provision of the 1983 Act makes it an offence for anyone to publish “any false statement of fact in relation to the candidate’s personal character or conduct” to prevent them being elected “unless he can show that he had reasonable grounds for believing, and did believe, that statement to be true”.
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9 November 2010 by Rosalind English
As we have seen from the recent ruling from the Supreme Court in Pinnock, British judges regard themselves as constrained to follow a “clear and consistent” line of authority from Strasbourg, even though the latter has no binding authority over the appellate courts in this country. Indeed, as we have noted in our post on the case, it overruled three of its own precedents without any ado.
How different the picture is in Germany, where the highest Constitutional Court, the Bundesverfassungsgericht, is armed with tremendous powers by the German Grundgesetz, or Basic Law, to uphold its own interpretation of national law in judgments that go to the heart of what the executive is or isn’t allowed to do.
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5 November 2010 by Rosalind English
Updated | We posted earlier on the Supreme Court ruling in Manchester City Council (Respondent) v Pinnock (Appellant), that requires courts to be satisfied that any order for possession sought by local authorities must be “in accordance with the law”, and (ii) “necessary in a democratic society” – that is, that it should be proportionate in the full meaning of the word.
How far this takes us from the previous position, where the role of the county court was limited to conducting a conventional judicial review of the councils’ decision in such cases, remains to be seen.
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4 November 2010 by Rosalind English
McLaughlin & Ors v London Borough of Lambeth & Anor [2010] EWHC 2726 (QB) – Read judgment
The High Court has been asked to consider whether the rule which prevents public authorities from suing in libel – to allow uninhibited criticism of government institutions – has the effect of preventing libel actions being taken by individual managers and employees of those institutions.
This was a claim by the defendants to strike out a libel action on grounds of abuse of process.The claimants are respectively head teacher, director of educational development and chairman of the governors of a primary school in Lambeth. The school was maintained by the first defendant pursuant to its statutory obligations. Now it is an Academy it is maintained by central government.
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The Child Poverty Action Group (Respondent) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions(Appellant) [2010] UKSC 54 – Read judgment / press release
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