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In October 2020 the App Drivers & Couriers Union (‘ADCU’) filed a legal challenge against Uber Technologies Inc. for the dismissal of drivers by an algorithm in the UK and Portugal. The District Court of Amsterdam heard claims by the ADCU on behalf of three drivers from the UK, and a fourth driver from Lisbon, Portugal, was represented by the International Alliance of App-based Transport Workers.
The claims were brought under Article 22 of the General Data Protection Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2016/679) (‘GDPR’). The drivers’ complaints related to dismissals resulting from, among others, Uber systems’ detection of irregular trips associated with fraudulent activities in one case, and the installation and use of software with the intention and effect of manipulating the Uber’s Driver App in another case. The drivers were dismissed, given no further explanation, and denied the right to appeal. The Court was asked to determine to what extent the GDPR could protect individuals from unfair automated decision-making, specifically, individuals have the right to certain protections from automated decisions which create negative affects but are carried out without meaningful human intervention.
Episode 143 features Isabel McArdle and Sarabjit Singh QC of 1 Crown Office Row. Isabel practises in indirect tax, healthcare law, personal injury and public law. Sarabjit (“Sab”) specialises in tax, with a particular emphasis on all forms of indirect tax and the interface between tax and public law. They have both given seminars on the implications of Brexit for tax lawyers. In this episode, Rosalind English discusses with Sab and Isabel a number of laws containing Henry VIII powers, including the Childcare Act 2016, Section 8 of the European Union Withdrawal Act 2018, Section 31 of the EU Future Relationship Act 2020, the Coronavirus Act 2020 and Section 51 of the Taxation (Cross-Border Trade) Act 2018. Emma-Louise Fenelon did of course explore this subject in depth with the Public Law Project and Lord Anderson of Ipswich QC in Episode 129: Brexit and the Flaws of Delegated Legislation ; this episode takes this important subject further.
Henry VIII powers enable a minister to amend primary law by secondary legislation, effectively bypassing parliament. They also touch on the popularity of so-called “skeleton bills”. These bills are favoured by those in power because they have no policy in them so there’s nothing to scrutinise by both Houses of Parliament. And Henry VIII clauses are what feed these bills.
Following Brexit, everything from financial services, immigration from Europe, fisheries, agriculture – can all be achieved under Henry VIII in skeleton bills. The concern, from a constitutional perspective, is that there’s a lack of parliamentary scrutiny. They give huge power to ministers to amend and repeal Acts of Parliament.
We have to apologise for the building works sound effects in the background of this episode. We welcome our listeners to perceive them as an appropriate metaphor for the government hammering home their policies under these Henry VIII powers.
On 8 April 2021, the Weimar District Family Court ruled in Amtsgericht Weimar, Beschluss vom 08.04.2021, Az.: 9 F 148/21) that two Weimar schools were prohibited with immediate effect from requiring pupils to wear mouth-nose coverings of any kind (especially qualified masks such as FFP2 masks), to comply with AHA minimum distances and/or to take part in SARS-CoV-2 rapid tests. At the same time, the court ruled that classroom instruction must be maintained.
This is the first time that expert evidence has now been presented before a German court regarding the scientific reasonableness and necessity of the prescribed anti-Corona measures.The expert witnesses were the hygienist Prof. Dr. med Ines Kappstein, the psychologist Prof. Dr. Christof Kuhbandner and the biologist Prof. Dr. Ulrike Kämmerer were heard. 2020NewsDe has published a summary of the judgment, the salient parts of which are set out in full below (translation by DeepL).
The reason for highlighting this judgment in such detail is because of the consequences reported by the news website to the judge of his decision. According to 2020NewsDe, “the judge at the Weimar District Court, Christiaan Dettmar, had his house searched today [26 April 2021]. His office, private premises and car were searched. The judge’s mobile phone was confiscated by the police. The judge had made a sensational decision on 8 April 2021, which was very inconvenient for the government’s policy on the measures.” In a side note on the fringes of proceedings with other parties, continues 2020NewsDe, “the decision in question has been described as unlawful by the Weimar Administrative Court without comprehensible justification.”
A cautionary note: I have been informed by Holger Hestermeyer, Professor of International and EU Law at King’s Law School (@hhesterm), that cases quashing administrative acts (like the one at issue in the AG Weimar case) go to administrative courts in Germany. The case, says Professor Hestermeyer
had, indeed, been brought to the administrative court, but the court had not quashed the administrative act. The attorney then (according to Spiegel reports) was looking for plaintiffs to bring the case before this particular judge via telegram (competence is based on first letters of surnames, so the attorney was looking for plaintiffs with the right surname). The judge then assumed his competence (unprecedented), ruled not just for the plaintiffs but all kids at the school (peculiar), excluded an oral hearing (hmmm), rejected all mainstream scientific advise to base the judgment exclusively on the minority of experts rejecting all such measures (again hmmm) and excluded an appeal.
So there are important procedural problems with this judgment which must be borne in mind when reading my summary with excepts both from the original judgment and the report by 2020De below.
The court case was a child protection case under to § 1666 paragraph 1 and 4 of the German Civil Code (BGB), which a mother had initiated for her two sons, aged 14 and 8 respectively, at the local Family Court. She had argued that her children were being physically, psychologically and pedagogically damaged without any benefit for the children or third parties. At the same time, she claimed this constituted a violation of a range of rights of the children and their parents under the law, the German constitution (Grundgesetz or Basic Law) and international conventions.
Informed consent to medical treatment is at the heart of the vaccine debate. Consent is also at the centre of most of the cases that come before the Court of Protection. So now we have a very specific problem: what happens, if someone lacks capacity under the Mental Capacity Act, and their family for whatever reason objects to the Covid vaccine?
In the latest episode of Law Pod UK, Rosalind English talks to Amelia Walker of 1 Crown Office Row about three recent cases that came before the COP where the “protected person” (incapacitous under the Mental Capacity Act) was due to be vaccinated, but family members objected. Here are the citations to the cases discussed and the relevant statutes:
E (by her Accredited Legal Representative, Keith Clarke), Applicant v London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham (Respondent) and W (2nd Respondent) [2021] EWCOP 7
SD (Applicant) v Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (Respondent) [2021] EWCOP 14
NHS Tameside & Glossop CCG v CR (by his litigation friend CW) [2021] EWCOP 19
In her latest episode of 2903cb, Professor Catherine Barnard looks back on the past 100+ days since the UK withdrew from the EU. The dire forecasts of chaos at our borders have not been realised, and the doomsayers of Brexit have probably got it wrong. The Covid effect has obviously been dramatic. The economy is likely to bounce back post Covid, but we don’t know how the effects of Brexit will play out for the fishing industry, and other major areas of the UK economy. On the other hand the “vaccine wars” with the EU, and the relatively slow rollout of vaccinations in the bloc compared with Britain’s swift action in getting its population protected against Covid-19, have not reflected well on the EU.
Or, as Andrew Neil put it on the Spectator TV News Channel this week, “A Dripping Roast For Lawyers”. To be fair, Neil was referring to the patchwork of mandatory vaccines across the United States. But with the publication yesterday of the Government’s consultation paper on vaccine requirements for all staff deployed in a care home supporting at least one older adult over the age of 65, the debate raging about “vaccine passports” has a real target in its sights. Not only because the government has found some primary legislation that gives it the power to introduce mandatory vaccinations, but also because the proposals are not limited to employees.
According to the consultation paper (which will take five weeks to circulate, enough for more age groups to move into vaccine eligibility bands), the vaccine requirement will extend to visiting professionals, in particular
all staff employed directly by the care home provider, those employed by an agency, and volunteers deployed in the care home. It also includes those providing direct care and those undertaking ancillary roles such as cleaners and kitchen staff.
…[and could extend to] those who provide close personal care, such as health and care workers. It could also include hairdressers or visiting faith leaders. We are also carefully considering the situation of ‘essential care givers’ – those friends or family who have agreed with the care home that they will visit regularly and provide personal care
The policy proposals provide clear exemptions, but only on medical grounds. Vaccine refusal based on cultural or religious objections is not exempt. Pregnancy is at the moment included in the medical exemption but is under review.
In Episode 139 of Law Pod UK Alasdair Henderson of 1 Crown Office Row joins Rosalind English to discuss the recent ruling by the UK Supreme Court that drivers whose work is arranged through Uber’s smartphone app work for Uber under workers’ contracts and so qualify for the protections afforded by employment law, such as minimum wage and paid holiday leave. We also touch upon the challenges brought by the other ride hailing app Ola in the Dutch Courts with respect to automated profiling of drivers. See my post on one of those rulings; this was the first time that a court had found that workers were subject to decision making by AI systems.
The Supreme Court, it will be recalled, concluded that the Employment Tribunal had been entitled to find that the claimant drivers were “workers” who worked for Uber under “workers contracts” within the meaning of the statutory definition. The Court was unanimous in its decision that this was the only conclusion which the Tribunal could reasonably have reached.
As we all know, the acquisition of puppies during lockdown has gone through the roof with the inevitable sad consequences of remorse followed by neglect and even abandonment. Dog theft has spiralled as the market responds by escalating the price of pedigree puppies.
But this case involved a different issue that could have arisen at any time (and indeed the relevant transaction took place over a year before the pandemic hit). The facts can be summarised quite briefly.
On 21 June 2018 the claimant bought an Old English Sheepdog puppy for £1000 from a professional breeder, Ms Pendragon. Ms Coom subsequently discovered that her puppy suffered from two conditions, latent at birth but which manifested themselves within months: hip dysplasia and diabetes.
This case has a history: the long running trade mark dispute between Swatch and Apple about the marks ‘I-WATCH’ and ‘I-SWATCH’. I will go back to that in a moment. The dispute in question concerned trade mark applications designating the following signs, covering a wide range of goods including watches and consumer electronic products:
SWATCH ONE MORE THING ONE MORE THING
[Full disclosure: the author of this post was an undergraduate contemporary in the eighties with Iain Purvis QC, the presiding judge in this matter. I have chosen not mischievously to publish this report on 1 April.]
“One more thing” became something of a meme since The well-known Chairman and founder of Apple, Steve Jobs, would reach what would seem to be the end of his keynote address at an industry event chosen for an important announcement, turn as if to leave the stage, and then turn back with the words ‘but there’s one more thing’. In 1998 the first ‘one more thing’ was the return of Apple to profitability. In later years, the ‘one more thing’ would often be a new Apple product. The tradition appears to have lapsed on Steve Jobs’ death in 2011 but was revived by his successor Tim Cook in 2015 for the launch of the Apple Watch.
An Amsterdam Court has ordered Ola (a smartphone-hailing taxi organisation like Uber) to be more transparent about the data it uses as the basis for decisions on suspensions and wage penalties, in a ruling that breaks new ground on the rights of workers subject to algorithmic management.
James Farrarr and Yaseen Aslam, who won the landmark victory in the UK Supreme Court in February, led the action by a group of UK drivers and a Portuguese driver, who bought three separate cases against Ola and Uber seeking fuller access to their personal data.
The following is a summary of the case against Ola taxis. Anton Ekker (assisted by AI expert Jacob Turner, whom we interviewed on Law Pod UK here) represented the drivers. He said that this case was the first time, to his knowledge, that a court had found that workers were subject to automated decision-making (as defined in Article 22 of the GDPR) thus giving them the right to demand human intervention, express their point of view and appeal against the decision.
The Facts
Ola is a company whose parent company is based in Bangalore, India. Ola Cabs is a digital platform that pairs passengers and cab drivers through an app. The claimants are employed as ‘private hire drivers’ (“drivers”) in the United Kingdom. They use the services of Ola through the Ola Driver App and the passengers they transport rely on the Ola Cabs App.
Proceedings are pending in several countries between companies offering services through a digital platform and drivers over whether an employment relationship exists.
By separate requests dated 23 June 2020, the first two claimants requested Ola to disclose their personal data processed by Ola and make it available in a CSV file. The third claimant made an access request on 5 August 2020. Ola provided the claimants with a number of digital files and copies of documents in response to these requests.
Ola has a “Privacy Statement” in which it has included general information about data processing.
All references in this judgment is to the AVG, which is Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data (GDPR).
Sophie Basma (“Sophie”) is 10. She suffers from Type 3 Spinal Muscular Atrophy (“SMA”). SMA is a rare, genetic, neuromuscular disease which progressively leads to sufferers being unable to walk or sit unaided with devastating consequences on their quality of life. Sophie can no longer walk. There is medication for SMA sufferers which would have had the potential of helping Sophie regain her ability to work. But the NHS Trust had concluded that Sophie did not meet the eligibility criteria for this new medication, “Nusinersen”.
By her mother she challenged the decision by way of judicial review. The judge below found that the NHS Trust had lawfully reached the decision that they did. This was her appeal against that finding.
The Hague Court of Appeal has recently handed down a ruling that is of profound importance to environmental lawyers. It is not only the first case at the appellate level in Europe that has resulted in a victory on the merits for the victims, but also the first case to hold that a parent company was under a duty of care with regard to foreign claimants. I will attempt to summarise one of the judgments in the following paragraphs, but readers would do well to look at the detailed analysis of the case by Dr Lucas Roorda on the Rights as Usual blog: “Wading through the (polluted) mud: the Hague Court of Appeals rules on Shell in Nigeria”.
David Hart QC will follow up my post with a piece on the UK Supreme Court decision in Okpabi v Shell on 12 February 2021.
There are in fact three judgments in this case Four Nigerian Farmers and Milieudefensie v. Shell; as Dr Roorda says,
The first (‘Cases A and B’) concerns an oil spill from an underground pipeline near Oruma in 2005; the second (‘Cases C and D’) concerns an oil spill from an underground pipeline near Goi in 2004; the third (‘Cases E and F’) concerns an oil spill from a wellhead near Ikot Ada Udo.
In the latest episode of Law Pod UK Rosalind English talks to Matt Hervey, co-editor with Matthew Lavy of a new practitioner’s text book on Artificial Intelligence. Matt is Head of Artificial Intelligence at Gowling WLG., and advises on all aspects of AI and Intellectual Property, particularly in relation to the life sciences, automotive, aviation, financial and retail sectors. Our discussion ranges across many areas covered by the book, which was conceived a mere three years ago when the only laws we had to deal with machine learning were those to do with self-driving vehicles and automated decision making under the GDPR. This is a very important subject which is why Law Pod UK visits it again and again; Matt compares machine learning to the industrial revolution itself.
The ability to understand patterns in language and sudden unlocking ability of machines to understand language and see things has massive implications.
But there are much greater challenges, particularly on the topics of liability, foreseeability, and the general risks of AI,
a technology that is aiming to replicate or even transcend human abilities.
In the forthcoming months I will be speaking to Matt’s fellow contributors to the book on their specialist subjects, including negligence, liability for physical and economic harm, AI and professional liability, and more on AI and intellectual property, a fascinating subject which Matt touches on in this episode.
In an earlier post I discussed the problem of “vaccine hesitancy” and written evidence to Parliament to Parliament outlining ways in which a vaccination against Covid-19 without consent could be put on a par with capacity under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and with Section 3 of the Mental Health Act 1983.
Since the announcement of successful clinical trials for the vaccination was made in mid-December, the prospect of population-wide vaccinations has become a reality, and, whilst there are still supply problems, there is no doubt that the issue of medical intervention without consent being made mandatory either through private channels has begun to exercise legal minds across the country. Saga cruise line and the airline Qantas for example have indicated their intention to refuse non vaccinated passengers. Such private prohibitions may have almost as broad an effect as the restrictions on civil liberties passed under the Coronavirus Act since lockdown was declared on March 23 2020 (more specifically, the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (All Tiers) (England) Regulations 2020).
Snowed in while locked down? What would be more cheering reading than news from one of the no-frills airlines that there will soon be a fast track for vaccinated passengers to leave these shores for balmy Mediterranean beaches, or as the ad puts it “sunshine destinations”. Ryanair recently put out the slogan
Jab and Go
This advertising campaign, encouraging consumers to book flights following the roll out of the UK vaccination programme, might have been a perfectly understandable response to the year-long shock of having very few passengers to transport and the equally deranging inability of citizens to travel abroad.
But it turns out that Ryanair were somewhat ahead of themselves, as the Advertising Standards Authority has found that it was misleading for the airline to give the impression that most people who are hoping to take to the air over the Easter or summer holidays this year will have had the Covid-19 vaccination in time to do so.
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