Day: 8 August 2025

‘Comfort Olufunmilayo Olawo, 82, spent decades flying between UK and Nigeria on tourist visas every six months.’

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The Guardian, 2nd August 2025

Source: www.theguardian.com

‘Law and policy concerning personal decision-making increasingly recognizes a role for support to enable greater autonomy and legal recognition for adults whose decision-making ability may be limited. Support for decision making (SFDM) is embedded in England and Wales under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA). It has also gained traction internationally through the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), to which the UK is a signatory. However, these two legal reference points diverge in their understanding of SFDM, which presents challenges for putting it into practice. A pragmatic review methodology identified 40 resources containing SFDM guidance, providing insight into its implementation and conceptualization in England. An analysis indicates the need for authoritative guidance that provides more multifaceted advice, recognizing key variables including: the nature of the decision, source of decision-making difficulties, and the relationship of the supporter. Gaps in guidance provision are also identified for decision-makers, third parties, and the mental health context. The resources largely conceptualize SFDM as a means to enable mental capacity. However, recent developments propose a CRPD-aligned approach that includes SFDM in the context of substituted decisions. This generates a dualistic model of SFDM in England, raising new questions in this area.’

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Medical Law Review, 31st July 2025

Source: academic.oup.com

‘What progress have bills announced in the 2024 King’s Speech made in the current Parliament?’

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House of Commons Library, 6th August 2025

Source: commonslibrary.parliament.uk

‘Judges need to be “on their guard” about expert witness evidence, according to a leading supreme court judge, who urged the legal profession to improve their “scientific and technical literacy” to help prevent miscarriages of justice.’

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The Guardian, 8th August 2025

Source: www.theguardian.com

‘Millions of people involved in running UK businesses will be required to verify their identity with Companies House, the UK registry for companies, beginning from the middle of November this year.’

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OUT-LAW.com, 6th August 2025

Source: www.pinsentmasons.com

‘The Qualifying Law Degree (QLD) resulted in law degrees tending to be similar in design, with compulsory foundation modules at their core. The Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE) represents a significant change to solicitor qualification and potentially frees universities from the constraints of the foundations. There was also speculation that some universities would feel pressure to align undergraduate curricula to the SQE. This paper makes a contribution to knowledge by undertaking the first content analysis of LLB webpages since the SQE’s implementation. The data reveals that: (1) law schools still overwhelmingly require mandatory study of all the foundations; (2) there has been an incremental shift towards vocationalism; (3) a small minority of webpages may be overstating the extent that their LLB prepares students for the SQE; and (4) a significant proportion of webpages contain factually inaccurate or confusing information about programmes or routes to qualification. It confirms an inherent irony: the deregulation of undergraduate solicitor education in England and Wales had led to more vocational alignment than experienced under the previous system but has not resulted in a significant shift away from the foundations. We present a novel explanation as to why this is the case, based on institutional theory and organisational strategic theory.’

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Legal Studies, 31st July 2025

Source: www.cambridge.org

‘A prisoner trapped on an indefinite jail term has been cleared of multiple counts of criminal damage to a maximum-security prison after using the toll of his sentence as a defence in what is believed to be a legal first.’

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The Independent, 6th August 2025

Source: www.independent.co.uk

‘A High Court judge has criticised a police force for “unjustifiable redactions” in a child proceedings case, noting that the failure led to both delay and a “significant waste of public funds”.’

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Local Government Lawyer, 7th August 2025

Source: www.localgovernmentlawyer.co.uk