Search Results for: puberty blockers consent
17 April 2024 by Catherine Churchill
In the News
Dr Hilary Cass, Chair of the Independent Review of gender identity services for children and young people, submitted her final report last Wednesday to NHS England. The Cass Review was commissioned in 2020 to look into the effectiveness of the gender care services provided to young people by the NHS. The report stressed that gender-affirming care is an extremely poorly researched area, and that the “toxicity” of the conversation surrounding transgender identity was severely hampering competent medical care for trans youth. Further research studies commissioned by the review were “thwarted” by the lack of cooperation from NHS gender care services, and the little evidence already available was insufficient to suggest that, in their current state, NHS gender services are producing positive outcomes. The report has made a total of 32 recommendations to the NHS – notably, Cass argues for a more holistic approach to gender care for children, factoring in support for mental health and neurodiversity. Taking a non-partisan stance, Cass noted in her report that ‘for some, the best outcome will be transition, whereas others may resolve their distress in other ways. Some may transition and then de/retransition and/or experience regret. The NHS needs to care for all those seeking support.’ The report follows news last month that puberty blockers will no longer be a routinely available treatment option on the NHS for children with gender dysphoria.
The Government announced last week that they will be closing another 150 asylum hotels by the beginning of May, following the closure of 50 in January and a further 50 by March. Home Secretary James Cleverly stated that the process will ‘keep going until the last hotel is closed’. Concerns have been raised regarding the impact that the asylum hotel closures may have on housing services for local councils – Chair of the Local Government Association, Shaun Davies, has suggested that ‘councils are becoming increasingly concerned over the numbers of asylum seekers presenting as homeless, which is likely to dramatically increase when Home Office accommodation is withdrawn.’ Charity Refugee Council published a report last week revealing that official Government statistics show a 239% increase in the number of households requiring homelessness support from local authorities following eviction from Home Office asylum support accommodation. The Government statement from last week ends: ‘Ultimately, the best way to save money is by deterring people from coming to the UK illegally in the first place, and our partnership with Rwanda intends to do just that’.
The European Parliament voted to pass a new pact on migration and asylum last Thursday. The new laws brought in through the pact have been ten years in the making and are intended to provide a ‘robust legislative framework’ that ‘puts humanity first’. The pact, comprised of a series of 5 closely related laws, was passed by a narrow margin – the laws received an average of 300 votes for to 270 against. The laws cover a variety of issues including biometric data collection, detention regulations, and national security. The pact establishes a system of ‘mandatory solidarity’ between EU member states, seeking implement procedures which will divide responsibility for migration throughout the EU bloc. The pact has already been criticised on both sides of the political spectrum: Amnesty International have claimed the pact will cause a ‘surge in suffering’, while Jordan Bardella, President of France’s far-right party National Rally, called the pact ‘terrible’ and asked voters to give it the ‘worst possible defeat’ when France heads to the polls in June. The President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, admitted that the pact ‘will not solve everything overnight’, but argued that ‘it is 10 giant leaps forward’.
In the Courts
Last Tuesday, the European Court of Human Rights delivered a judgment that, for the first time, held that government climate inaction constituted a breach of human rights under the ECHR. A group of Swiss older women – as part of the activist group KlimaSeniorinnen, Senior Women for Climate Protection – brought the case to the Court. They alleged that Switzerland’s poor climate policies has put them at increased risk of death during heat waves caused by climate change. The judgment confirms that the convention places countries under positive obligations to take effective and timely measures to fight climate change; finding a breach of Article 8 by sixteen votes to one, the Court held that Article 8 confers a right upon citizens to be protected from the ‘serious adverse effects of climate change on lives, health, wellbeing, and quality of life’. The Court also found unanimously that there had been a breach of Article 6 § 1 (access to court) as domestic courts in Switzerland had not taken the complaints of the KlimaSeniorinnen sufficiently seriously. Though the Court also dismissed two other cases making similar arguments for issues of admissibility, six other climate cases previously adjourned can now be fully considered by the Court in light of this historic decision. The case was discussed in more detail earlier this week on the latest episode of Law Pod UK, available here.
The Supreme Court of Arizona ruled last Tuesday that a near-total ban on abortion can come back into force following the repeal of Roe v Wade. The law in question was originally established in 1864 and bans all abortions with no exceptions but to save a woman’s life. It was stated in judgment that the case is only one of ‘statutory interpretation – it does not rest on the justices’ morals or public policy views regarding abortion; nor does it rest on [the law’s] constitutionality, which is not before us’. The judges ruled that, in the absence of any legislation restricting the law or authorising abortion, and in light of the repeal of Roe v Wade, the law was enforceable. Despite this, the Supreme Court did delay enforcement for two weeks to allow the plaintiffs to commence further challenges against the law – in particular with regard to its constitutionality – in the lower courts. Katie Hobbs, Governor of Arizona, has come out against the judgment. In an official statement released after the ruling, she stated: ‘I will not let overzealous county attorneys take this as an opportunity to target any individual. As long as I am Governor, no Arizonan will be prosecuted by extremist county attorneys for seeking abortion care’. She has reiterated that an Executive Order she passed last year will continue to stand, which centralises all abortion-related prosecutions to Democrat Attorney General, Kris Mayes, and prohibits Arizona state agencies from assisting in abortion-related investigations.
In a judgment handed down by the Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) last week, the Court held that Home Office decisions to refuse to grant family reunion visas to refugees feeling Gaza without biometric checks were ‘irrational and unreasonable’. The applicants had requested their applications be substantively decided in advance of the submission of biometric data, since, as a result of the ongoing conflict, the visa centre in Gaza is not functioning. The nearest centre conducting biometric checks is in Cairo, Egypt. The Home Office policy required that for visas to be approved without biometric data, applicants must prove they face a ‘personal risk of harm, which is separate to the level of risk faced by the wider population’. Jackson J stated that he does ‘not consider that in the context of the conflict in Gaza […] that it is necessary for a person to show that they are specifically targeted to be able to establish that they are at risk due to their personal circumstances.’ The Court thus held that the Home Office policy was a disproportionate infringement on the Palestinian families’ right to private and family life, and thus in breach of Article 8 ECHR.
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22 August 2022 by Lucy Stock
In the news
- The UK government has submitted its argument in the case which may settle whether Members of Scottish Parliament could legislate for a vote on Scottish independence without Westminster’s backing. The submission from the Advocate General precedes a full hearing on 11 and 12 October when oral arguments will be heard. The Supreme Court will rule on whether Holyrood alone has the power to hold an independence vote, which First Minister Nicola Sturgeon wants to hold on 19 October 2023. Last month, the Scottish government published its own case, arguing the referendum is ‘advisory’ and would have no legal effect on the union.
- The House of Commons Women and Equalities Committee published a report on 4 August recommending the government should improve legal protections for unmarried couples by introducing an opt-out cohabitation scheme proposed by the Law Commission in 2007. The scheme aims to protect eligible cohabitants who are economically vulnerable, preserve individual autonomy, maintain a distinction with marriage and civil partnership, and provide certainty about who qualifies as a cohabitant. The committee said the government should commit to publishing draft legislation for scrutiny in the 2023-24 parliamentary session.
- On 10 August, Suella Braverman delivered a speech for the Policy Exchange’s Judicial Power Project stressing the need for the government to better clarify the scope of fundamental rights. She called to curb the influence of the European Court of Human Rights, citing the ‘intensive standard of proportionality under the Human Rights Act’. The speech dealt with issues including the Equality Act, Single Sex Spaces- specifically in schools- convention rights and illegal migration.
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15 July 2024 by Emilia Cieslak
In UK news
Since coming into power in the recent general election, PM Keir Starmer has announced that the Rwanda asylum scheme is “dead and buried”. The announcement was made as three claimants, known only as SM, SY and YXY, were challenging their imminent removal to Rwanda on a flight scheduled for 24 July. On 09 July, the High Court held a case management hearing in which barristers acting for the government confirmed that no removal flights to Rwanda were planned and the three individuals’ asylum claims would be processed in the UK. However, the barristers did not confirm the government’s wider position on the Rwanda policy, and the impact on asylum seekers whose claims were classified as inadmissible for processing in the UK under the Rwanda policy. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees has sent a list of recommendations to the new government. These include repealing the Illegal Migration Act 2023, resisting the “externalisation” of asylum processing to third countries, and streamlining the asylum process to tackle the backlog of asylum claims.
Despite media speculation and the urging of leading lawyers, the new government has not announced whether or not it will continue the UK government’s intervention in the International Criminal Court (ICC)’s decision regarding arrest warrants against Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and Minister of Defence Yoav Gallant. The UK government seeks to argue that the ICC does not have jurisdiction over Israeli individuals because the Oslo Accords state that Palestine does not have criminal jurisdiction over Israeli individuals and so cannot delegate criminal jurisdiction over Israeli individuals to the ICC. The UK government does not recognise the State of Palestine. The ICC has given the UK government until 26 July to provide their full submissions.
In international news
Amnesty International has published a report analysing what it argues is a decline in protest rights in 21 European countries. The report argues that many European countries have been cracking down on protest rights through “the passing of repressive laws, establishment of onerous procedural obligations, imposition of arbitrary or discriminatory restrictions, racist policing and the use of unnecessary or excessive force against peaceful protestors, arbitrary interferences including the arrest, prosecution and imprisonment of protesters, as well as increasing use of invasive surveillance technology”. Amnesty International comments that those most impacted by these measures are groups already facing discrimination in society due to, among other things, race, religion or immigration status.
In the courts
The High Court has allowed University of Birmingham and University of Nottingham to evict Palestine solidarity protesters who had set up camps on university campuses. The court held that the protesters have no real prospect of establishing discrimination on the grounds of their beliefs, a breach of the public sector equality duty, a breach of section 43 Education (No.2) Act 1986 (which ensures freedom of speech in universities), or European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) rights. The court held that there were many other ways in which the students could have chosen to protest and so the severity of the impact on their rights by removing the encampment “does not (by a significant margin) come anywhere close to outweighing the importance of the objective of the University being able to regain possession of its own land”. The court therefore gave the universities a summary possession order, which allows them to evict the protest camps without a full trial.
In W.W. v Poland, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) held that the refusal to allow a transgender person to continue hormone therapy in prison amounted to a violation of her Article 8 right to a private life. Ms W.W. is a trans woman who was undergoing a gender reassignment procedure since 2019 while detained in prison. When she was transferred to a different prison in 2020, the head of the prison’s medical unit refused to allow her to continue hormone therapy without additional medical tests and failed to organise prompt appointments with specialist doctors. The ECtHR held that the freedom to define one’s gender identity is “one of the most basic essentials of self-determination” and the prison official’s requirement that Ms W.W. should undergo further consultations, after she had already started a beneficial course of treatment, was disproportionate in the circumstances. In the UK, the advocacy group TransActual is currently challenging the emergency ban on the use of puberty blockers as medication for trans children, arguing that the ban was based on the Secretary of State’s personal view rather than expert or medical evidence.
The impact of the Supreme Court’s decision in R (Finch) v Surrey County Council & Ors is already being felt. In ongoing litigation regarding the approval of a coal mine in Whitehaven, Cumbria, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government conceded the legal challenges. The Secretary of State admitted that an error was made as the downstream emissions caused by the inevitable burning of the extracted coal were not factored into the Environmental Impact Assessment. However, litigation may continue as the other defendant in the case, West Cumbria Mining, does not agree with the Secretary of State’s position.
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29 July 2023 by Marina Wheeler QC
Despite what the parties and their supporters hoped, this case (Mermaids v The Charity Commission of England and Wales & LGB Alliance [2023] ULKFTT 563 (GRC)) was not – said the Tribunal – about the rights of gender diverse people (as represented by Mermaids) or the rights of gay, lesbian and bisexual people (represented by the LGB Alliance).
On the face of it, the issue decided by the Tribunal (General Regulatory Chamber, Charity) on 6 July 2023 was a narrow one: whether Mermaids was entitled to challenge the Charity Commission’s decision to register the LGB Alliance as a charity. But its ruling – that Mermaids could not – was highly significant as a robust affirmation of the value of debate in a democratic society.
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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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29 March 2015 by Dominic Ruck Keene
Al-Saadoon & Ors v Secretary of State for Defence [2015] EWHC 715 – read judgment
The High Court has ruled that the ECHR applies to situations where Iraqi civilians were shot during security operations conducted by British soldiers. When taken together with the parallel cases being brought against the MOD for breach of its Article 2 obligations towards its own soldiers, it appears increasingly likely that any operation undertaken by the British Army in the future will lead to legal challenges being brought against almost every aspect of its actions pre, during and post any use of military force.
Mr Justice Leggatt was asked to consider the scope of the UK’s duty under the ECHR to investigation allegations of wrongdoing by British Forces in Iraq. The Secretary of State accepted that anyone taken into custody by British Forces did have certain rights under the ECHR, in particular the right to life and the right not to be tortured. However, the one of two key areas of controversy were whether non detainee civilians who were killed outside the period when the UK was an ‘occupying power’ (1 May 2003 – 28 June 2004), were within the jurisdiction of the UK for the purposes of Article 1 of the ECHR.
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19 November 2020 by Shaheen Rahman
This three-part extended analysis will discuss the important recent authorities on article 2 ECHR in the context of the provision of healthcare and identify important trends in the development of the law in this area.
Where article 2 of the Convention is invoked to allege inadequate provision of healthcare by the state, recent Strasbourg and domestic authority suggest an increasingly restrictive approach.
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23 November 2014 by Guest Contributor
R (on the application of Nakash) v Metropolitan Police Service and General Medical Council [2014] EWHC 3810 (Admin) – read judgment
The High Court has ruled that although information obtained unlawfully by the police is admissible in regulatory proceedings (even if not in criminal proceedings), it “carries little weight” in the assessment of competing interests required by Article 8(2).
The General Medical Council [“GMC”] has wide powers under section 35A Medical Act 1983 to require disclosure of information which appears relevant to the discharge of the Council’s statutory functions in respect of a practitioner’s fitness to practise.
Where the police are in possession of confidential material that they are reasonably persuaded is of some relevance to an investigation being conducted by the GMC, a doctor’s rights under Article 8 of the ECHR are not breached by the police disclosing that information, even where it was unlawfully obtained. However, the police must undertake the careful scrutiny and balancing exercise required by Article 8 before the decision as to disclosure is made.
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6 July 2020 by Dominic Ruck Keene
In R (Dunn) v The Foreign Secretary and the Chief Constable of Northamptonshire [2020] EWHC 1620 (Admin) the Divisional Court dismissed two applications made in anticipation of the forthcoming rolled up judicial review arising out of the death of Harry Dunn.
Harry Dunn was killed when his motorcycle collided with a car being driven on the wrong side of the road by Mrs Anne Sacoolas, the wife of a member of the administrative and technical staff of the US Embassy based at RAF Croughton. The Claimants (Harry Dunn’s parents) sought to adduce expert evidence from a retired diplomat Sir Ivor Roberts, and also made an application for specific disclosure.
The Divisional Court summarised the background to the applications as being the judicial review of:-
- The decision made by the Foreign Secretary that Mrs Sacoolas had diplomatic immunity under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations;
- The allegedly unlawful obstruction by the Foreign Secretary of a criminal investigation by the Northamptonshire Police;
- The allegedly unlawful acceptance by the Northamptonshire Police of the advice of the Foreign Secretary or the Metropolitan Police that Mrs Sacoolas had diplomatic immunity;
- The alleged breach of the investigative duty under Article 2 ECHR as a result of the Foreign Secretary and the Northamptonshire Police’s error of law as to Mrs Sacoolas’s diplomatic immunity;
- The allegedly unlawful ceding of sovereignty over a military base in the UK without Parliamentary consent; and
- The alleged suspension of the laws of the land without Parliamentary consent through affording diplomatic immunity to family members of the relevant personnel.
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27 April 2021 by Rosalind English
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
Mental Health Act
Mental Capacity Act 2005
For more posts about the Covid vaccine, see here.
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8 September 2015 by Thomas Raine
The Christian Institute (and others) v Scottish Ministers [2015] CSIH 64, 3rd September 2015 – read judgment
The Court of Session’s appeal chamber – the Inner House – has unanimously rejected challenges to the Scottish government’s controversial named person scheme. Three individual petitioners, as well as The Christian Institute, Family Education Trust, The Tymes Trust, and Christian Action Research and Education (CARE), contested the appointment of named persons and the scheme’s provisions for data sharing.
The Named Person Scheme
The named person scheme is part of a package of measures introduced by the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014. According to the Scottish government, the aim of the legislation is to ensure that the rights of children are respected across the public sector.
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10 February 2021 by Rosalind English
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).
I write this solely to draw attention to the cogent summary of these questions published by Boyes Turner LLP on the 5th February via Lexology: A Shot in the Arm – Can Leisure and Hospitality require a vaccine to access their Services? They ask, whatever the government does, are there legal risks in private vaccination enforcement measures? Their points are, in short:
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26 February 2018 by Dominic Ruck Keene
In Razumas v Ministry of Justice [2018] EHWC 215 a prisoner who had made a claim for clinical negligence against the Ministry of Justice, rather than against the specific health care provider, had his claim dismissed.
In a judgment that sheds light on the current approach to both vicarious liability and non-delegable duties of care, Cockerill J held that: (1) the MOJ had not breached its limited direct duty of care, (2) did not owe a non-delegable duty of care and (3) was not vicariously liable.
The Claimant alleged that there was a negligent failure to diagnose and treat a soft tissue sarcoma, a rare form of cancer, which developed in his calf muscle in 2010. He has since had to undergo a left leg amputation above the knee and also surgery for metastatic disease in his left shoulder muscle. It is estimated that there is a 70% chance that he will develop further metastases in the future. His life expectancy has been sharply reduced.
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14 January 2019 by Conor Monighan
Conor Monighan brings us the latest updates in human rights law
In the News:
Credit: The Guardian
The Government is considering whether to abolish prison sentences lasting six months of less.
Rory Stewart, the Prisons Minister, has argued that short jail terms are only serving to increase crime by mixing minor offenders with hardened criminals. He cited research suggesting that community sentences may help reduce the risk of reoffending when compared to short term prison sentences.
In Scotland there is already a presumption against such sentences. Re-offending has fallen to its lowest level for nearly two decades and the Scottish government are looking to widen the scheme.
The change would impact upon around 30,000 offenders, helping alleviate pressure on the overburdened prison system. Exceptions would be made for offenders who were violent or had committed sexual crimes.
The suggestion has already proven controversial. The Ministry of Justice has emphasised it is only exploring options and no decision has been made.
In Other News….
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24 May 2011 by Adam Wagner
Lots of lawyers are blogging and tweeting. Should they be?
I spoke last Thursday at the second #lawblogs event, kindly hosted in the grand (not to mention establishment) surrounding of The Law Society. The event was attended by around 75 people, most of whom had a passion for legal blogging and tweeting. You can read the Twitter feed of the event here, or reviews by James Wilson, Mike Scutt, James Dean of The Times (paywall) and The Guardian’s Siobhain Butterworth .
One issue which I tried to explore was the professional ethics of lawyers blogging and tweeting. There are a number of questions which lawyers could, and probably should, ask themselves before making their social media debut . Is it right for lawyers to comment publicly on the law? What about on their own cases? And might there be a positive ethical duty to explain the law to the general public?
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