Search Results for: puberty blockers consent/page/25/Freedom of information - right of access) [2015] UKUT 159 (AAC) (30 March 2015)
31 July 2015 by Guest Contributor
O’Connell & anor v the Turf Club [2015] IESC 57 – read judgment
This recent judgment of the Irish Supreme Court addressed the issue of whether the decisions of a sport’s organising body should be amenable to judicial review. This is an issue of some vintage and vexation in this jurisdiction’s legal debate, that provides a useful backdrop against which to ask what exactly it is that makes a decision-making duty or power ‘public’.
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27 February 2020 by David Hart KC
[2020] EWCA Civ 214 – read judgment
Airport expansion has taken a long and winding road, not least at Heathrow. But the proponents of the 3rd runway at Heathrow would have been heartened by the Secretary of State’s decision in June 2018 to set out a policy which preferred Heathrow over Gatwick and which was designed to steer planning processes thereafter in support of the new runway.
It is this decision which has just been declared unlawful by the Court of Appeal.
I am afraid this is where the planning jargon starts and the acronyms proliferate. The challenged decision was an Airports National Policy Statement (ANPS). Under planning legislation, an ANPS “sets the fundamental framework within which further decisions will be taken,” as the CA put it in [275]. Those further decisions include the grant of permission for the particular project, done through the Development Consent Order (DCO) process. But you cannot challenge that fundamental framework later in the DCO process; you cannot say later, for instance, that expansion is not necessary at all, or there is a better alternative, say, Gatwick, if the ANPS has decided otherwise.
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10 April 2017 by Poppy Rimington-Pounder
Chemical attacks in the northern Syrian province of Idlib have left at least 80 dead and 100 more injured. It has been reported that in a raid last Tuesday morning Syrian government planes exposed countless civilians in the town of Khan Sheikhun to toxic gas, suspected to be sarin. While Syrian President Bashar al-Assad denies claims that he is the author of these attacks, outrage has erupted across the world, which culminated in US President Donald Trump commencing airstrikes on Syria.
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29 July 2011 by Adam Wagner
Updated | The family courts in conjunction with the Judicial College and the Society of Editors have has published a Guide to Media Access and Reporting. It has been written by two barristers, Adam Wolanski and Kate Wilson.
It seeks to address “the tension between concerns about “secret justice” and legitimate expectations of privacy and confidentiality for the family (update – read Lucy Series’ analysis with a focus on Court of Protection cases).
This is interesting and, on a quick glance through the detailed document, useful. Family judges have been critical of journalists’ reporting of sensitive cases recently, and this guide is clearly an attempt to guide judges on what can and can not be reported, and journalists on how to report responsibly. The guide would benefit from a contents page and executive summary, but aside from that it will no doubt prove useful to practitioners and journalists.
One line I am predictably fond of: “Although it remains a matter for the judge, senior members of the judiciary have encouraged the making of public judgments”
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22 June 2011 by Adam Wagner
Updated | Yesterday saw the release of the Government’s flagship justice bill, the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill.
There is a lot in the bill. In terms of its long term effect on the justice system, the most important parts relate to legal aid and litigation funding; that is, the options available to claimants to fund their cases – for example, no-win-no-fee arrangements or government funding. The reforms have been long-heralded, and the government has now responded to its consultations on both (see here for legal aid and here for litigation funding).
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13 July 2010 by Adam Wagner
The criminalisation of support for terrorist organisations has arisen in various domestic and international contexts recently, and it is likely that the issue will continue to attract controversy as states attempt to trace the boundaries of what can fairly be considered “support” for terrorism, and risk criminal legislation unjustifiably infringing on human rights.
The Human Rights in Ireland blog has posted the first in a series addressing the issue (update – the second post in the series is now available, see below). In the post, Dr. Cian Murphy suggests that “One of the most corrosive effects on political freedom during the “war on terrorism” has been that caused by material support legislation.” He goes on to refer to three recent decisions, including the 2008 Kadi case on EU implementation of UN sanctions against individuals linked to the Taleban, al-Qaeda and bin Laden (see ASIL case comment).
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3 May 2016 by David Hart KC
R (o.t.a. Dilner) v. Sheffield City Council [2016] EWHC 945 (Admin), Gilbart J, 27 April 2016, read judgment
A quick note on the latest Aarhus Convention point to come before the domestic courts.
In November 2015, I posted on the decision by Ouseley J in McMorn here that a gamekeeper’s challenge fell within the scope of Aarhus, and that as a result there should be a more intense scrutiny of the underlying merits of the claim than would typically be allowed under domestic public law principles.
The current case bears on the standard of review point. Mr Dilner and other environmental campaigners challenged the tree-felling policies of Sheffield City Council, and one of his arguments was that tree-felling required an environmental assessment under the Environmental Impact Assessment Directive. This environmental claim fell within the protections conferred by the Aarhus Convention, and hence, it was said, required such an intense scrutiny. Mr Dilner relied upon Ouseley J’s reasoning.
Gilbart J robustly rejected the argument, and did not follow Ouseley J’s ruling.
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19 November 2015 by Leanne Woods
Judgments in best interests cases involving children often make for heart-wrenching reading. And so it was in Bolton NHS Foundation Trust v C (by her Children’s Guardian) [2015] EWHC 2920 (Fam), a case which considered Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health guidance, affirming its approach was in conformity with Article 2 and Article 3 ECHR. It also described, in the clearest terms, the terrible challenges facing C’s treating clinicians and her parents.
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1 October 2010 by Guest Contributor
To celebrate our six-month birthday, and following the Inforrm Blog’s lead, here are our 10 most popular posts of all time.
We launched the UK Human Rights Blog on 31 March 2010 and since then have had 86,070 page views, with over 20,000 coming this month alone. So thank you to all of our readers, and enjoy the top 10! As always we welcome your comments on any aspect of the blog.
- British Airways strike and human rights – The union strikes back
- Pilot accused of 9/11 plot entitled to compensation
- Rooney, Coulson and Hague scandals reveal the need for stronger protection of the press
- Human Rights Act may be safe under new Justice secretary Ken Clarke
- European Court of Human Rights sharpens its teeth
- Sarah Ferguson scandal raises debate on right to privacy
- Sex offenders’ lifelong living and travel restrictions were breach of human rights
- Religious versus other freedoms: the future of Article 9?
- Lord Bingham of Cornhill dies, loss of eloquent advocate for individual rights
- France expulsion of Roma: the EU law perspective
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2 June 2011 by Adam Wagner
The House of Commons Home Affairs Committee has today published a report, The work of the UK Border Agency (November 2010–March 2011), which accuses the UKBA of effectively creating an amnesty for hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers whose cases have been delayed for years.
The report is not particularly easy to find online – it should be available on the Home Affairs Committee website, but isn’t for some reason. You can download a PDF here, see the previous reports here or read on this page via Scribd.
As has been picked up in media reports, the report concludes that the UKBA’s success in clearing a backlog of around 400,000 to 450,000 unresolved asylum cases has been achieved
through increasing resort to grants of permission to stay… or the parking of cases in a controlled archive, signifying that the applicant cannot be found and the Agency has no idea whether or not the applicant remains in the UK, legally or otherwise.
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26 September 2011 by Adam Wagner
Today, an open letter from 158 lawyers and academics has been published in The Guardian claiming that the law on squatting, on which the Government has proposed reforms, has been misrepresented by politicians and the media.
I am one of the letter’s signatories. Amongst other things, it states that:
a significant number of recent media reports have stated that squatters who refuse to leave someone’s home are not committing a criminal offence and that a change in the law – such as that proposed by the government – is needed to rectify this situation.
The accompanying article is here. One interesting aspect of this campaign is that it was organised in part by one of the longest standing and best legal blogs, Nearly Legal. Nearly Legal have used social media, which an ever increasing number of lawyers follow, to gather many of the signatures. Their response is here and some of their previous posts on the topic here and here.
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10 July 2018 by Rajkiran Barhey
It was reported on Thursday, 5 July 2018, that three core participants in the Undercover Policing Inquiry are intending to launch a legal challenge against the Home Secretary’s decision not to appoint a panel to sit with the Chair, Sir John Mitting.
They say a diverse panel is needed who will better understand the issues of racism, sexism and class discrimination that the inquiry will inevitably raise. So where has this challenge come from, and is it likely to succeed?
Background
Three years ago, Home Secretary Theresa May announced the establishment of the Inquiry, amid great controversy concerning the conduct of undercover police officers over a number of decades. Lord Justice Pitchford was appointed as chairman, but as a result of ill-health, he had to step down in 2017 and was replaced by Sir John Mitting (a judge of the High Court).
Mitting J has experience of surveillance and the security services, having been Vice-President of the controversial Investigatory Powers Tribunal and Chairman of the Special Immigration Appeals Commission.
However, his chairmanship of the inquiry has been mired in dispute, starting with a series of decisions to grant anonymity to many officers because public disclosure of their real names would breach their Article 8 rights to private and family life. Some had also raised concerns about Mitting J’s membership of the all-male Garrick Club.
Compounding matters, at a hearing on 5 February 2018, Phillippa Kaufmann QC, counsel for the victims (who had core participant status at the Inquiry), made the point that it was impossible to rule out wrongdoing, including deceptive sexual activity, on the basis of an individual’s personal or family circumstances. Mitting J responded:
Of course it is impossible to rule it out, but you can make a judgment about whether or not it is more or less likely. We have had examples of undercover male officers who have gone through more than one long-term permanent relationship, sometimes simultaneously. There are also officers who have reached a ripe old age who are still married to the same woman that they were married to as a very young man. The experience of life tells one that the latter person is less likely to have engaged in extramarital affairs than the former.
The comments were not well received and, later in the hearing, Mitting J acknowledged that he “may stand accused of being somewhat naive and a little old-fashioned” but that he would “own up to both of those things” and would take it into account and revisit his own views.
The Walk-Out
At the next hearing, on 21 March 2018, Ms Kaufmann made a number of submissions criticising the inquiry:
The first concerns the failure to ensure that the Inquiry is heard by exactly that, a panel representing a proper cross-section of society and in particular — and this is absolutely essential for reasons I’m going to come to — including individuals who have a proper informed experiential understanding of discrimination both on grounds of race and sex. Two issues that lie absolutely at the heart of this Inquiry. I’m sorry to say this, but instead we have the usual white upper middle class elderly gentleman whose life experiences are a million miles away from those who were spied upon. And the very narrow ambit of your experience is not something I’m simply creating out of thin air. It has been exemplified already in the way that you have approached these applications.
She then referred to Mitting J’s comments at the February hearing and concluded by inviting him to either recuse himself or appoint a panel to sit alongside him. She then walked out of the hearing, accompanied by her legal team and the core participants.
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10 February 2025 by Rebecca Ebner-Landy
In UK News
Medical experts have claimed that Lucy Letby did not murder any babies at the Countess of Chester Hospital, concluding that the infants died of natural causes and negligent medical care. Having reviewed the medical evidence, a panel of 14 world-leading neonatologists have concluded that they “did not find any murders”. The case has been submitted to the Criminal Cases Review Commission in light of what Letby’s legal team described as overwhelming evidence of a miscarriage of justice. Letby is currently serving 15 whole-life prison terms having been convicted of murdering seven babies. Two previous attempts to challenge her convictions at the Court of Appeal have been dismissed. The CCRC is expected to review the panel’s full report in the coming weeks. If it is decided that there is a real chance of quashing the convictions, the CCRC can send the case back to the Court of Appeal.
Master of the Rolls, Sir Geoffrey Vos,has urged lawyers and judges to embrace generative artificial intelligence at the LawtechUK Generative AI event for three reasons. First, the industrial, financial and consumer sectors, which lawyers serve, will be using it “at every level”. Second, lawyers are going to be “at the forefront of AI liability disputes” in the coming years with regard to the negligent or inappropriate use of AI, and if lawyers do not master the capabilities and weaknesses of AI they will not be able to advise clients properly. Finally, it will save time and money and engender greater efficiency. Vos expressed irritation towards those who use “silly examples of bad practice as a reason to shun the entirety of a new technology” and stressed that there is nothing “inherently problematic with AI”. Rather, it is a question of understanding what AI is doing and using it appropriately. Ultimately, for Vos, it is “uncontroversial” that lawyers should be using AI to “promote and improve access to justice and the quality of decision-making”.
In International News
China has unveiled tariffs on the United States in response to the 10% levies that President Trump recently imposed on China. China has justified its retaliatory tariffs by arguing the United States’ levies violated WTO rules, damaging economic and trade cooperation between the two countries. Trump contended that the imposition of Chinese tariffs is a response to trade deficits, and the flow of fentanyl into the US. Whilst Trump postponed the 25% levies imposed on Canada and Mexico for one month, no such postponement measures were enacted in the case of China. The levies have caused significant volatility in the global financial markets. Trump has suggested that he would pursue similar action against the EU but that a deal could be “worked out” with the UK. The UK now needs to decide if it aligns itself with the EU or the US, or neither. If the UK aligns itself more closely on trade with the EU, this will likely entail accepting the EU’s regulations on agriculture and food safety. However, the United States’ standards in such areas differ significantly from those of the EU. If the UK were to adopt EU agricultural standards, this may make a UK-US trade deal much harder given that the US would likely not want an agreement that excludes agriculture. This is at the same as the EU are wrangling with the UK over a closer relationship going forward. Key issues pertain to the youth mobility scheme (a priority for Germany) and an extension to current fishing rights arrangements (a priority for France). In the next few weeks, we may get clarity as to how the UK chooses to position itself between major global trading blocs.
In the Courts
The Court of Appeal has allowed an appeal over whether a local authority which has ‘corporate’ parental responsibility for a child under the age of 16 can consent to the deprivation of their liberty. The case concerns a 14 year old disabled boy known as ‘J’ who is ‘looked after’ under S.20 of the Children Act 1989 and who resides in a specialist children’s home. In J: Local Authority consent to Deprivation of Liberty, Re [2024] EWHC 1690 (Fam), Lieven J held that a local authority could deprive J of his liberty and did not need the court’s approval to do so. This was because the decision the local authority was being asked to make under S.33(3)(b) of the Children Act 1989 was not of “such magnitude” that the Court would need to make it instead. For Lieven J, depriving J of his liberty was “essential to ensuring his best interests” so necessarily fell “within the LA’s statutory powers” under S.33 of the Children Act [34]. All parties in the case felt that the local authority should not deprive J of his liberty without the court’s approval. The interveners (Article 39 and Mind, the Secretary of State for Education and the Children’s Commissioner) also supported court oversight. With a panel comprising the President of the Family Division, Sir Andrew McFarlane, Lady Justice and Lord Justice Singh, the Court of Appeal confirmed the appeal was successful and made a deprivation of liberty order, with full reasons due to be provided at a later date. Consequently, Lieven J’s ruling should not now be followed.
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14 October 2019 by Thomas Hayes
Harry Dunn’s family after meeting with the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, last week. Photograph: Credit: The Guardian, Peter Summers/Getty Images.
The usually obscure concept of diplomatic immunity came to the fore this week after it emerged that the wife of an American diplomat was wanted for questioning in connection with the death of a motorcyclist in Northamptonshire. Anne Sacoolas was spoken to by police after a collision with Harry Dunn in which he was killed whilst riding his motorbike, prior to her return to the United States.
Article 31 of the 1961 Vienna Convention grants immunity from the criminal jurisdiction of the receiving state to diplomats, a feature extended to their family members by article 37. However, both the United Kingdom and the United States were this weekend reported as having agreed that diplomatic immunity was no longer “pertinent” in the case of Mrs Sacoolas. This raised the possibility of the UK seeking her extradition, despite President Trump being photographed this week with a briefing card stating that she would not be returning to Britain.
Meanwhile, the country’s attention turned back towards Brexit, with the week ahead promising to, in the Prime Minister’s words, be “do or die” for the prospects of a negotiated deal. At the beginning of the week it was widely reported that talks had faltered, with Downing St leaks suggesting a deal was “essentially impossible”. However, the mood surrounding negotiations changed significantly on Thursday, with Taoiseach Leo Varadkar describing the emergence of a “pathway” to a deal following his meeting with Boris Johnson.
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20 June 2012 by Guest Contributor
The real “democratic deficit” in the courts is about limited public access not “unelected judges“, Adam Wagner argued on the UK Human Rights Blog at the weekend, challenging a recent political and media narrative.
In his view, the internet age necessitates “a completely new understanding of the old adage ‘Not only must Justice be done; it must also be seen to be done‘”.
Wagner is one of 14 authors who contributed to a new working publication entitled ‘Justice Wide Open’, produced by the Centre for Law, Justice and Journalism (CLJJ), City University London, following an event on February 29 2012. The individual chapters can be accessed electronically.
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O’Connell & anor v the Turf Club [2015] IESC 57 – read judgment
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