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Reeves v. Northrop, CA, 17 April 2013, – read judgment
Randy Northrop is a Californian and a wanderer in spirit. He lives with his family aboard MY Cannis – see the pic. He got fed up of “living in a grotty council house in a rough area” of Bristol, so bought and renovated this former Thames tug. And nice inside it sounds too – two open fireplaces, several flat screen TVs, a music room and grand piano.
He spent 8 years moored in Bristol, but the “authorities there aren’t too keen on “live-aboards.”” So he moved on and in 2008 ended up in North Devon moored off Chivenor.
How then did he have the misfortune to stray into one of the backwaters of the law – the law of council tax? Because, after featuring in the local paper, he made a generous offer “as a gesture of good citizenship” to pay some “voluntary” council tax. And instead of the authorities saying “how kind, than you very much” he got a “statement” saying that he was Band A – “fait accompli” as he rightly observed. But a po-faced response which did not indeed endear itself to Randy. Hence this challenge by him to the authorities’ decision.
Sounds a bit dry? Not at all. In the witty and elegant prose of Sir Alan Ward, even rating law is made interesting – and the retired Lord Justice pokes fun at the pompous verbiage you have to wade through to answer the question – do you have to pay council tax on a moored boat?
Abdi v United Kingdom (application no. 27770/08) 9 April 2013 – read judgment
The Strasbourg Court has ruled that a Somali national’s detention pending deportation was not lawful under domestic law.
The following summary is based on the Court’s press release:
The applicant, Mustafa Abdi, is a Somali national who is currently detained in HMP Brixton. Mr Abdi arrived in the United Kingdom on 7 May 1995 and, although refused asylum, was granted exceptional leave to remain in the United Kingdom until February 2000. On 23 July 1998 he was convicted of a number of offences, including rape, and sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment. On 20 May 2002 the Secretary of State for the Home Department ordered Mr Abdi’s deportation and on 27 May 2002 he issued an authority for detention until the making of a deportation order. On 3 September 2003 Mr Abdi’s release became automatic; however he remained in detention on the basis of the authority issued on 27 May 2002. On 5 April 2004 the Secretary of State for the Home Department authorised Mr Abdi’s detention until his deportation. Continue reading →
The Queen (on the application of Newhaven Port and Properties Limited (Respondent)) v East Sussex County Council (Appellant) and Newhaven Town Council (Interested Party) [2013] EWCA Civ 276 – read judgment
This is a tale of common law rights, open water swimming, and individual freedoms. It is about the flip side of codified human rights: the time-honoured principle, that that which is not specifically prohibited, is – or should be – permitted in English law.
Our current preoccupation with certain sorts of intolerance must not allow us to lose sight of another threat to our individual freedoms: the encroaching requirement that our use of wild spaces is subject to the permission of the public authority who happens to be vested with certain statutory power over the land in question. This ruling confirms, if it needed confirming, that “toleration” does not mean the same as “permission”. If we allow the one to collapse into the other, the inference will become widespread that use of such land is permissive by virtue of an implied licence, a licence which can be easily withdrawn at any time. Continue reading →
Raw and others v France – read judgment (only available in French)
This complicated inter-jurisdictional battle between estranged parents is a stark illustration of how difficult it can be in these sorts of cases to apply the law in the fog of family warfare.
Even though the mother’s case was upheld in the Strasbourg Court, one can tell from the modesty of the damages awarded and the strength of the minority opinions that the judges were extremely reluctant to apply hard letter law to the complicated case before them. Indeed in one partially concurring judgment, Judge Nussberger found it distinctly odd that the mother was able to join the children as parties, in the light of their opposition to her wish that they leave their father to join her. Continue reading →
The Queen (on the Application of James Dowsett) v Secretary of State for Justice [2013] EWHC 687 (Admin) – read judgment
The secretary of state’s policy in respect of rub-down searches of prisoners, which allows cross-gender searches in the case of male prisoners but not for female prisoners, does not discriminate against male prisoners on grounds of sex.
Background
The claimant, who has been a serving prisoner since 1989, challenged Secretary of State’s policy made under section 47(1) of the Prison Act 1952. This is the policy on so-called “rub-down” searches and, in particular, the policy that a male prisoner cannot normally object to such searches conducted by a female prison officer other than when his case falls within the exceptions based on “religious” or “cultural” grounds (a cultural ground means an objection that arises from a sincerely and deeply held belief, so it is not clear how this ground differs from religion). In consequence, the claimant had been searched by female officers on many occasions. Current policy with regard to female prisoners was that they could only be searched by female staff. Continue reading →
R (on the application of) Lord Carlile of Berriew and others v Secretary of State for the Home Department 20 March 2013 [2013] EWCA Civ 199 – read judgment
Last year the Divisional Court upheld the Home Secretary’s decision to prevent a dissident Iranian politician coming to the United Kingdom to address the Palace of Westminster: see that decision here and my post discussing the “Politics of Fear” here.
In this appeal, the parliamentarians contended that the Divisional Court had failed to consider the proportionality of the exclusion decision with sufficient scrutiny, and, by giving precedence to the possibility of unlawful actions by the Iranian regime, had given inadequate weight to the rule of law. It was perverse, they said, to justify the exclusion decisions by reference to risks to local staff and British government property in Tehran. Furthermore they argued that there had been unfairness in failing to consult the Parliamentary appellants. Continue reading →
Cancer Voices Australia v Myriad Inc 13 February 2013 – read judgment
Another battle in the war against gene patenting has been lost, this time in Australia.
The US litigation is still ongoing, with the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upholding Myriad’s patents on DNA sequenced in the laboratory: see my post on that judgment. On 30 November 2012, the US Supreme Court announced that it would hear an appeal in the Myriad case. The US law in relation to the patentability is therefore not likely to be settled until the Supreme Court reaches it own decision on the issue.
This Federal Court ruling in Australia has now endorsed the government’s rejection of calls for an outright ban on the patenting of genes by ruling that isolated nucleic acid (including isolated DNA and RNA) is patentable. Continue reading →
Eon v France, no. 26118/10 14 March 2013- read judgment (in French only)
The applicant, Hervé Eon, is a French national, a socialist and anti-GM activist living Laval (France). The case concerned his conviction for insulting President Sarkozy.
During a visit by the President to the département of Mayenne on 28 August 2008, Mr Eon had waved a placard reading “Casse toi pov’con” (“Get lost, you sad prick”), a phrase uttered by the President himself several months previously when a farmer had refused to shake his hand at the International Agricultural Show. The utterance was widely disseminated in the media and on the internet, attaining the status of a slogan. Continue reading →
R (on the application of A) v the Chief Constable of Kent Constabulary [2013] EWHC 424 (Admin) – read judgment
This was an application for judicial review, and a claim under the Human Rights Act 1998, in respect of the defendant’s decision to disclose allegations of neglect and ill-treatment of care home residents in an Enhanced Criminal Records Certificate dated 12th October 2012.
Background
In August 2012, the defendant received a request from the Criminal Records Bureau for an enhanced check to be made in respect of the Claimant concerning her proposed employment by Nightingales 24 7 as a registered nurse. The information related to the alleged mistreatment of several elderly and vulnerable adults resident in the care home in which [A] worked as a Registered General Nurse. The allegations were made by the residents and the health care workers in the charge of A, a registered nurse who qualified in Nigeria. She claimed that these allegations had been made maliciously because the health care assistants resented the way in which she managed them. She also claimed that some of the allegations were motivated by racism. Continue reading →
Meiklejohn v St George’s Healthcare Trust [2013] EWHC 469 (QB) – read judgment
Richard Booth of 1 Crown Office Row acted for the claimant in this case. He is not the author of this post.
There is no doubt that medical diagnosis and therapy are struggling to keep pace with the genetic information pouring out of the laboratories and sequencing centres. And the issue of medical liability is being stretched on the rack between conventional treatment and the potential for personalised therapy. Treatment of disease often turns out to be different, depending on which gene mutation has triggered the disorder. However fine tuned the diagnosis, it may turn out to be profoundly wrong in the light of subsequent discoveries.
This is perhaps an oversimplified characterisation of what happened in this case, but it exemplifies the difficulties facing clinicians and the courts where things go wrong, against the backdrop of this fast-moving field of scientific endeavour. Continue reading →
Tesla Motors Ltd and another v British Broadcasting Corporation [2013] EWCA Civ 152 – read judgment
The Court of Appeal has refused an appeal against the strike out of a libel claim against the BBC in relation to a review of an electric sports car by the “Top Gear” programme. The judge below had been correct in concluding that there was no sufficient prospect of the manufacturer recovering a substantial sum of damages such as to justify continuing the case to trial.
The manufactures of an electric sports car made two of their “Roadsters” available to BBC’s “Top Gear” programme for review. The show’s tests were designed to push the cars to the limits of their performance in terms of acceleration, straight line speed, cornering and handling. One of the cars was driven by the presenter of the show, Jeremy Clarkson, who was filmed driving it round the test track and commenting on his experience. Continue reading →
Heafield v Times Newspaper Ltd (Religion or Belief Discrimination) [2013] UKEAT 1305_12_1701 (17 January 2013) – read judgment
The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has found that the use of bad language was evidently merely an expression of bad temper and not intended to express hostility to the Pope or Catholicism and that it did not constitute harassment within the meaning of the Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003.
Background
The Appellant, a casual sub-editor on the Times Newspaper, was a Roman Catholic. He was working at the Times during the visit to the United Kingdom of the Pope in 2010. During March the Times was preparing a story about the Pope relating to allegations that he had protected a paedophile priest. There was some delay in producing the story, and one of the editors in the newsroom, a Mr Wilson, shouted across to the senior production executives “can anyone tell what’s happening to the fucking Pope?”. When there was no response he repeated the question more loudly. The Appellant was upset and offended what he heard. He raised a complaint, which in his view was not properly progressed, and he then brought a claim in the Employment Tribunal for harassment and victimisation on the grounds of his religious belief. Continue reading →
RCW v A Local Authority [2013] EWHC 235 (Fam) (12 February 2013) – Read judgment
This case, described by Cobb J as an “unusual and troubling” case, concerns a 1 year old girl “SB” and a woman “RCW”. SB was born prematurely, at 27 weeks, weighing just 1 kg; almost immediately she was abandoned by her natural mother.
She spent many months in the Special Care Baby Unit. In October 2012 SB was matched with RCW, a single woman who worked as a project manager for the NHS. In January 2013 things took an “unexpected and wretched turn” in the form of RCW’s diagnosis with a brain tumour. Hurriedly, RCW made arrangements with a cohort of friends to care for SB while RCW underwent surgery to remove the tumour which was situated near the optic nerve. The operation, whilst successful in removing the tumour, left RCW without sight; it is not known whether the lack of sight is temporary or will be permanent.
The Court of Appeal has ruled that in principle, an internet service provider that allowed defamatory material to remain on a blog hosted on its platform after it had been notified of a complaint might be a “publisher” of this material, although in this case the probable damage to the complainant’s reputation over a short period was so trivial that libel proceedings could not be justified.
This interesting case suggests there may be an opening for liability of Google for defamation, if certain steps have been taken to fix them with knowledge of the offending statement. Mr Tamiz, who claimed to have been defamed by comments posted on the “London Muslim Blog” between 28 and 30 April 2011, appealed a decision in the court below to decline jurisdiction in his claim against the respondent corporation and to set aside an order for service of proceedings on Google out of the jurisdiction. Continue reading →
Moore v British Waterways Board [2013] EWCA Civ 73 – read judgment
A boat owner has won his appeal against the British Waterways Board preventing him from mooring his boats alongside his land on a tidal stretch of the Grand Canal. Although he had no common law right to permanently moor the boats, he had committed no actionable wrong in doing so, and they were therefore not moored “without lawful authority” within the meaning of the British Waterways Act 1983. This judgment is an interesting and important endorsement of the principle in English law that everything is permitted except what is expressly forbidden.
This key “rule of law” principle applies as much to the BWB as it does to the police and other law enforcement agencies. Continue reading →
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Reeves v. Northrop, CA, 17 April 2013, – read judgment
R (on the application of A) v the Chief Constable of Kent Constabulary [2013] EWHC 424 (Admin) – 
Tesla Motors Ltd and another v British Broadcasting Corporation [2013] EWCA Civ 152 – 
Heafield v Times Newspaper Ltd (Religion or Belief Discrimination) [2013] UKEAT 1305_12_1701 (17 January 2013) – 
RCW v A Local Authority [2013] EWHC 235 (Fam) (12 February 2013) – 
Tamiz v Google Inc [2013] EWCA Civ 68 –
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