‘The Senior President of Tribunals, Sullivan LJ, has launched a consultation paper on altering the composition of the First-tier Tribunal (General Regulatory Chamber) in some Information Rights cases. With the support of GRC Chamber President, Judge Warren, it is proposed to remove the requirement that a judge sit with two non-legal members and allow the Chamber President flexibility to direct that certain cases be heard by a judge alone.’
Panopticon, 18th August 2014
Source: www.panopticonblog.com
‘Eleven female carers to the elderly are taking their employers to a tribunal claiming they were only paid by the minutes they spent with clients rather than their rostered working hours. The staff, who were on zero-hours contracts, allege that, due to the arrangements, they were paid less than the minimum wage of £6.31 an hour. It is understood that some of the employees at Apex Care in Romsey, Hampshire, where the firm was commissioned to provide the home care service by the council, believe their real hourly wage was close to £3.50.’
The Guardian, 17th August 2014
Source: www.guardian.co.uk
‘The question is: how does one earn a living in sport? By skill? Hand-eye coordination? Fancy footwork? Fast reactions? By luck? By cheating – and getting away with it? Or none of these. As far as we are concerned, the living is earned in the law. The law by, with, to and from all aspects of sport because a legal principle from every page of every textbook will apply somewhere in the entire spectrum of sports activities on and off the field. Think of the law that applies to staff, betting,merchandising of team brands, the corrections of misdemeanours and their effects, ownership of buildings, copyright issues. If I just do a list, it will go on forever. I do not have “a little list.” Mine is endless and what I propose to do is to follow, if not the rules, then the pattern of sport by touching on a topic haphazardly then running back, in an intellectual sort of way, to the other side of the court before starting again on a different tack. There are so many sporting metaphors to mix.’
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Henderson Chambers, 8th July 2014
Source: www.hendersonchambers.co.uk
‘Public bodies defending a decision to withhold information requested under freedom of information (FOI) laws can submit evidence to an information rights tribunal in secret, the Court of Appeal has ruled.’
OUT-LAW.com, 4th August 2014
Source: www.out-law.com
‘Last month I penned a post on the issue of how the principle of natural justice can be reconciled with the use of closed procedures in FOIA appeals. The post was written against the backdrop of the Court of Appeal hearing of the appeal in the Browning case. Today the Court of Appeal has handed down its judgment. Mr Browning’s appeal was dismissed.’
Panopticon, 30th July 2014
Source: www.panopticonblog.com
Browning v Information Commissioner and Another [2014] EWCA Civ 1050; [2014] WLR (D) 346
‘The First-tier Tribunal (General Regulatory Chamber) Rules 2009 permitted the tribunal when hearing an appeal against a decision of the Information Commissioner to adopt a closed material procedure in which a party and his legal representatives were excluded from the hearing or part of it.’
WLR Daily, 30th July 2014
Source: www.iclr.co.uk
‘Women are being priced out of justice in the workplace, according to figures which show the number of sex discrimination claims brought by women against employers have fallen 80 per cent since court charges were introduced.’
The Independent, 29th July 2014
Source: www.independent.co.uk
‘The UK’s highest court will rule on a landmark decision of whether illegal immigrants should be deprived of fundamental workers’ rights, following the appeal of a Nigerian national who was trafficked into the UK. Judges from the Supreme Court, including Britain’s most senior female judge Lady Hale, will deliver the verdict on Wednesday in a case which could set an important precedent for the rights of workers found to be treated as modern-day slaves.’
The Independent, 27th July 2014
Source: www.independent.co.uk
‘The question of whether information is ‘held’ by a public authority for FOIA or EIR purposes can raise difficulties. This is especially so where the boundaries between public and private service provision are blurred: consider outsourcing, privatisation of services, public/private partnerships, joint ventures, the use of external consultants and so on. Legal separation and practical day-to-day realities can often point in different directions in terms of who holds information on whose behalf.’
Panopticon, 16th July 2014
Source: www.panopticonblog.com
‘A new charging scheme proposed by BT, the telecommunications firm, for connecting calls from mobile networks to its ‘0800’, ‘0845’ and ‘0870’ non-geographic fixed line phone numbers should not have been rejected by regulator Ofcom, the UK’s highest court has ruled.’
OUT-LAW.com, 11th July 2014
Source: www.out-law.com
‘A tribunal is to hear a legal challenge by civil liberty groups against the alleged use of mass surveillance programmes by UK intelligence services.’
BBC News, 14th July 2014
Source: www.bbc.co.uk
‘A dispute resolution clause in an existing and enforceable contract which required the parties to seek to resolve a dispute by friendly discussions in good faith and within a limited period of time before the dispute could be referred to arbitration was enforceable.’
WLR Daily, 1st July 2014
Source: www.iclr.co.uk
The Upper Tribunal has again found itself considering the issue of Rent Repayment Orders and has provided some further enlightenment on its position after the case of Parker v Waller.
NearlyLegal, 6th July 2014
Source: www.nearlylegal.co.uk
‘The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has lost its appeal against a decision to overturn a £300,000 monetary penalty it served on an individual for his part in what the watchdog claimed was a serious breach of UK privacy laws.’
OUT-LAW.com, 23rd June 2014
Source: www.out-law.com
‘The spamming industry is a decidedly irritating but sadly almost unavoidable feature of our networked world. There is no question but that spamming (i.e. the sending of unsolicited direct marketing electronic communications) constitutes an unlawful invasion of our privacy (see further regs 22-23 of the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 (SI 2003/2426) (PECR), implemented under EU Directive 2002/21/EC). The question is what can be done to stop it, particularly given that individual citizens will typically not want to waste their time litigating over the odd spam email or text?’
Panopticon, 19th June 2014
Source: www.panopticonblog.com
‘Terrorism insurance is an increasingly contentious issue in service charge cases; in short, many leaseholders think it is unnecessary and simply serves to increase the their service charges (and, potentially, acts as an additional source of commission for landlords, itself a very contentious issue). Well, in Qdime Ltd v Various Leaseholders at Bath Building (Swindon) and others [2014] UKUT 261 (LC), the Upper Tribunal has given an unqualified endorsement of terrorism insurance and, in the process, may well have greatly extended the number of properties which are now required to obtain such insurance.’
NearlyLegal, 13th June 2014
Source: www.nearlylegal.co.uk
‘The outgoing head of the tribunal which hears appeals relating to social security benefits has said that the work capability assessment (WCA) has undergone “virtual collapse” and accused the Department for Work and Pensions of being overly optimistic about the pace at which fit-for-work tests were being carried out.’
The Guardian, 11th June 2014
Source: www.guardian.co.uk
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