‘The director of public prosecutions, Max Hill, is being threatened with legal action over the failure to investigate Dominic Cummings for alleged breaches of the lockdown rules.’
The Guardian, 10th June 2020
Source: www.theguardian.com
‘How should individuals conduct themselves during a public health emergency, and more specifically how much reliance should we have on “instinct” and “rules”? Dominic Cummings, the Prime Minister’s chief adviser, has been accused of breaking the social distancing rules. The allegations revolve around travelling from London to Durham to isolate himself and his family, as well as taking additional trips whilst in that isolation. The specific law he is alleged to have breached is regulation 6 of the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) Regulations 2020. Regulation 6(1) provides that “During the emergency period, no person may leave or be outside of the place where they are living without reasonable excuse.” In the course of defending his adviser, the Prime Minister argued that “he followed the instincts of every father” in seeking to protect his family. In response, Independent journalist Tom Peck stated that; “There is no guidance in place anymore, none at all. Just do what Dominic Cummings did and ‘follow your instincts’ and you’ll end up in the right place”.’
UK Constitutional Law Association, 28th May 2020
Source: ukconstitutionallaw.org
‘This post analyses the changes made on 13 May 2020 to the coronavirus social distancing regulations for England. The criterion for analysis is the basic Rule of Law requirement of legal certainty. Certainty allows us to plan our actions, lets the police know what it is they should be enforcing, and most importantly stops us from inadvertently breaking the law. The very limited case-study is the question posed in many households today – can I go to the park please Dad?’
UK Constitutional Law Association, 15th May 2020
Source: ukconstitutionallaw.org
‘In this post I argue, with reference to Privacy International, that the nature of legislation as a speech act entails that the tension between parliamentary sovereignty and the rule of law is not as profound as is often thought.’
UK Constitutional Law Association, 20th April 2020
Source: ukconstitutionallaw.org
‘It has long been recognized in English law that it is no defence to a breach of an order of the court to assert that the order itself was invalid [1]. The public policy grounds for this are obvious; justifying conduct breaching a court order on the basis that the defendant took the view, rightly or wrongly, that the order was invalid would undermine the central principle of legal certainty. Therefore, the correct time to mount such a challenge was before any conduct had taken place that breached the order. This has, of course, the effect of holding individuals liable for breaches of orders that should never have existed in the first place.’
6KBW College Hill, 20th February 2020
Source: blog.6kbw.com
‘Now is a dangerous time to roll back judicial power, the vice president of the European Court of Human Rights has said in a public rebuff to Lord Sumption’s high profile criticism of ‘law’s expanding empire’.’
Law Society's Gazette, 22nd February 2020
Source: www.lawgazette.co.uk
‘Downing Street’s frustration over what it believes is excessive use of the judicial review process to overturn ministerial decisions – this week preventing deportations – has focused political attention on the complex courtroom process.’
The Guardian, 11th February 2020
Source: www.theguardian.com
‘The general election on 12 December 2019 has fundamentally changed the political dynamic driving the Brexit process. The European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill (WAB), which will become law before 31 January 2020, has been substantially revised (from the version which was presented in October 2019) to reflect this Government’s approach to Brexit. The Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law has published a report that looks in depth at some of the main Rule of Law issues in the WAB. This version of the WAB indicates that this Government will take a different approach from the previous one in terms of dealing with some of the key constitutional issues arising from Brexit. This post examines some of the Rule of Law implications of the main constitutional issues in the WAB.’
UK Constitutional Law Association, 16th January 2020
Source: ukconstitutionallaw.org
‘The corrupt leaders of Russia are manipulating courts and tribunals around the world – with a particular focus on the UK – with “blatant lies, forged documents, and utterly implausible explanations”, it was claimed today.’
Litigation Futures, 13th January 2020
Source: www.litigationfutures.com
‘The European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill 2019-20 will pave the way for the UK to ratify the UK-EU Withdrawal Agreement and thus depart from the European Union (EU) soon thereafter, having received its third reading in the House of Commons just last week. This contribution examines certain major consequences deriving from the Bill becoming law and, in particular, the controversial, but little discussed Clause 26 which (as Lord Pannick remarked in a recent article in the Times) requires particularly careful scrutiny.’
UK Constitutional Law Association, 14th January 2020
Source: ukconstitutionallaw.org
‘Lord Briggs at the Sultan Azlan Shah Law Lecture, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.’
Supreme Court, 5th November 2019
Source: www.supremecourt.uk
‘Denying access to justice risks creating fresh conflicts at a time when the international rule of law is under threat, the Commonwealth secretary general has warned ahead of a meeting of the organisation’s law enforcement officers.’
The Guardian, 5th November 2019
Source: www.theguardian.com
‘Lady Hale has thrown her wig into the debate on whether the law, represented by the courts, is gaining power while politics in Parliament is losing it. She is not the first to critique Lord Sumption’s Reith Lectures, as they were covered at ALBA’s Annual Conference too (see Law Pod UK episodes 88, 89, and 91).’
UK Human Rights Blog, 16th October 2019
Source: ukhumanrightsblog.com
‘The Shield of Achilles, as described in the Iliad, portrays two cities. One of them is at war, circled by ‘a divided army/gleaming in battle-gear’. In the other, there is a promise of peace through the exercise of law: ‘the people massed, streaming into the marketplace/where a quarrel had broken out and two men struggled/ over the blood-price for a kinsman just murdered./One declaimed in public, vowing payment in full –/the other spurned him, he would not take a thing –/so both men pressed for a judge to cut the knot./ The crowd cheered on both, they took both sides,/but heralds held them back as the city elders sat/on polished stone benches, forming the sacred circle,/grasping in hand the staffs of clear-voiced heralds,/and each leapt to his feet to plead the case in turn.’’
London Review of Books, 26th September 2019
Source: www.lrb.co.uk
‘Are there principles that trump democracy? This was one of a number of profound philosophical and legal questions addressed by former UK Supreme Court Justice Jonathan Sumption in his recent and controversial Reith Lectures, which addressed subjects such an law’s expanding empire, the challenges posed by human rights, and the advantage of an unwritten constitution.’
UK Human Rights Blog, 29th July 2019
Source: ukhumanrightsblog.com
‘The treatment of ouster clauses in R (Privacy International) v Investigatory Powers Tribunal has been said to violate parliamentary sovereignty. This post disagrees. That assertion, it argues, misapprehends the rule of law as founded upon the sovereignty of “Parliament” by “the High Court of Parlyament” as recognised in the Crown and Parliament Recognition Act 1689. The separation of the supreme court from the legislature in O’Connell v R, and the creation of the Supreme Court by the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, undo neither the parliamentary character of the Court nor its participation in the sovereignty of Parliament. This view supports the dicta of Lord Carnwath in Privacy International, with whom Lady Hale and Lord Kerr agreed, that courts may refuse to recognise or enforce ouster clauses.’
UK Constitutional Law Association, 18th July 2019
Source: ukconstitutionallaw.org
‘Much attention in the media and political world is paid to the senior judiciary because that is where the more newsworthy, high-profile and ground-breaking judicial activity tends to occur. But this is not where the overwhelming majority of judicial decisions are made. Thousands of salaried and fee-paid judges dispense justice at first instance in Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals, in decisions of acute importance to those involved in them.’
Courts and Tribunals Judiciary, 3rd July 2019
Source: www.judiciary.uk
‘A defendant cannot defend himself from prosecution for breach of a Community Protection Notice (‘CPN’), on the basis that the CPN is invalid. The reason, stated in Stannard v The Crown Prosecution Service [2019] EWHC 84 (Admin), is that there is an effective means to challenge the CPN – either by exercising the right of statutory appeal or by judicial review. Allowing a challenge to the validity of the CPN at trial is not what the relevant statute (the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, ‘the 2014 Act’) intends, nor is it an effective remedy because the person subject to a CPN should not be required to breach a CPN in order to exercise a right to challenge it.’
UK Police Law Blog, 31st January 2019
Source: ukpolicelawblog.com
‘Garden Court Chambers’ Amanda Weston QC delivered the plenary speech at our inaugural Migrant Support Conference with Legal Action Group (LAG) on 28 November 2018.’
Garden Court Chambers, 3rd December 2018
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