‘In this latest Environmental Law News Update, Laura Phillips, Mark Davies and Angelica Rokad consider a parliamentary report on the Government’s 25 year plan for the environment, the Brexit White Paper and a recent Court of Appeal case clarifying sentencing in fire safety cases.’
Six Pump Court, 30th July 2018
Source: www.6pumpcourt.co.uk
‘Tanfield barristers Marc Glover and Chloe Sheridan successfully represented the Claimants in a High Court dispute over East Thurrock United Football Club. In a judgment handed down on 25th July 2018, the Court dismissed the defendant’s and additional parties’ claims to a share in the land used by the Football Club, claimed to be worth £10 million.’
Tanfield Chambers, 6th August 2018
Source: www.tanfieldchambers.co.uk
‘The Supreme Court issued a unanimous landmark judgement declaring that the provisions in the Civil Partnership Act 2004 preventing opposite sex couples from entering into a civil partnership is incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.’
Zenith Chambers, 29th June 2018
Source: www.zenithchambers.co.uk
‘An appeal on the issue of whether disability discrimination should be considered afresh on an application for stay of warrant following breach of a suspended possession order.’
Nearly Legal, 5th August 2018
Source: nearlylegal.co.uk
‘It is not uncommon for public authorities who hold statistical data to decline to disclose specific figures in categories for which the number is fewer than five, on the basis of a fear that the number of affected people is sufficiently small that they are reasonably identifiable. In other words, they rely on section 40(2) FOIA to withhold the number.That approach has now been considered by the Upper Tribunal in Information Commissioner v Miller [2018] UKUT 229 (AAC). That case concerned a request to (what is now) MHCLG for their information supplied by local authorities on a range of homelessness statistics. In relation to parts of the dataset which related to five or fewer individuals, section 40(2) was relied on. The FTT disagreed in a decision on the papers and the ICO appealed.’
Panopticon, 3rd August 2018
Source: panopticonblog.com
‘Applicants for QC status should not have to approach a judge for a favourable reference, the Law Society has said, suggesting that providing a list of substantial cases they had acted in would help remove the ’apparent bias’ against solicitor advocates. It was responding to a consultation by QC Appointments (QCA) on improving the appointments process to the historic rank.’
Law Society's Gazette, 6th August 2018
Source: www.lawgazette.co.uk
‘According to the Intellectual Property Office’s Facts and Figures for 2016 and 2017, 24 out of the 38 inter partes disputes that came before the Office’s tribunals arose from disputes over ownership of inventions. This can be an expensive and time consuming process as I explained in Disputes over Ownership of Inventions 6 Aug 2015 NIPC Southeast. Disputes over ownership of other intellectual property (“IP”) rights result in infringement actions like MEI Fields Designs Ltd v Saffron Cards and Gifts Ltd and another [2018] EWHC 1332 (IPEC) (6 June 2018).’
NIPC Law, 4th August 2018
Source: nipclaw.blogspot.com
‘The High Court here in London has recently considered the status of an islamic marriage, that did not comply with all the usual formalities required in England & Wales. It has generated a lot of confused and confusing headlines – the marriage has been reported as both valid and void, as ‘covered by’ English law (but not necessarily all islamic marriages) and as the first example of our courts recognising sharia law.’
Transparency Project, 3rd August 2018
Source: www.transparencyproject.org.uk
‘Civil claimants despairing at Part 36 costs rules have a ray of hope following a court’s decision to swing the pendulum their way again. In Holmes v West London Mental Health NHS Trust the High Court ruled last week that a defendant party who waited 15 months to accept a Part 36 offer must pay indemnity costs covering the period of delay.’
Law Society's Gazette, 3rd August 2018
Source: www.lawgazette.co.uk
‘Stewart J has dismissed the first test case in this group litigation, in which over 40,000 Kenyans bring claims for damages against the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office, alleging abuse during the Kenyan Emergency of the 1950s and early 1960s.’
UK Human Rights Blog, 6th August 2018
Source: ukhumanrightsblog.com
‘Stunt v Associated Newspapers Ltd [2018] EWCA Civ 1780 is a dispute between the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday and Mail Online, and the eye-wateringly rich former son-in-law of Berne Ecclestone about coverage of the latter by the former. Simply googling the claimant’s name and seeing the Mail Online headines gives some idea of why he might find that coverage less than flattering. It is, in short, a dispute where most people would like both sides to lose.Happily, thanks to the Court of the Appeal, they have. Both sides now have to fund a reference to the CJEU about the compatibility of section 32(4) of the Data Protection Act 1998 (still alive and kicking for these purposes) with Directive 95/46/EC, and the considerable delay built into that process. The reference was made because the Court split two to one (Sir Terence Etherton MR and Macfarlane LJ against Sharp LJ) on whether the stay mechanism imposed by section 32(4) was consistent with Article 9 of the Directive (freedom of expression rights) and Article 22 (effective remedy rights). At first instance, Popplewell J had found the provision to be a permissible implementation of the Directive.’
Panopticon, 6th August 2018
Source: panopticonblog.com
‘Government attempts to cut legal aid fees for solicitor evidence work have declared unlawful by the high court.’
Rights Info, 3rd August 2018
Source: rightsinfo.org
‘In Akhter v Khan [2018] EWFC 54, the couple had had a nikah ceremony in 1998 but had not registered the marriage under civil law. They had four children together. The petitioner, Nasreen Akhter, sought a divorce from Mohammed Shabaz Khan in November 2016. The husband (so called for convenience) defended the divorce on the basis that the parties had not entered a marriage valid according to English law; the wife (ditto) argued that the presumption of marriage arising out of cohabitation and reputation applied so as to validate the marriage. In the alternative, she averred that the marriage was a void marriage within section 11(a)(iii) of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973. There were two central questions: whether the parties were to be treated as a validly married under English law by operation of a presumption of marriage and, if not, was the marriage a void marriage susceptible to a decree of nullity.’
Law and Religion UK, 3rd August 2018
Source: www.lawandreligionuk.com
‘The procedural exemptions in sections 12 and 14 of FOIA are some of the most commonly used, and most commonly litigated, provisions of the legislation. Unsurprisingly, they have led to a disproportionate degree of appellate involvement. More surprisingly, they continue to do so. Three recent Upper Tribunal decisions add to that body of jurisprudence which ought to be considered by authorities faced with burdensome requests. This post is, as a result, quite burdensome itself.’
Panopticon, 3rd August 2018
Source: panopticonblog.com
‘A “very dangerous” man who threw a baby out of a window after trying to gouge its eyes out has been jailed for life. Sean Ziemelis, 31, also tried to strangle the baby boy before throwing him from a second-storey window in the early hours of 1 August 2017, Luton crown court heard.’
The Guardian, 3rd August 2018
Source: www.theguardian.com
‘An 18-year-old who became one of the youngest women to be convicted of terrorism offences in the UK has been sentenced to life in prison with a minimum of 13 years.’
The Guardian, 3rd August 2018
Source: www.theguardian.com
‘A senior solicitor who sent offensives tweets about Islam, Catholicism and Judaism – and also retweeted some – has been suspended from practice for 18 months.’
Legal Futures, 6th August 2018
Source: www.legalfutures.co.uk
‘Defendants are “gaming the system” in specialist domestic violence courts by intimidating partners into not appearing in the expectation that magistrates will drop charges, a critical report has said.’
The Guardian, 5th August 2018
Source: www.theguardian.com
‘R(Gullu) v LB Hillingdon [2018] EWHC 1937 (Admin)
This was another challenge to LB Hillingdon’s policy of requiring 10 years residence in borough for admission to the housing register. It follows after TW, SW, and EM, R (On the Application Of) v London Borough Of Hillingdon (2018) EWHC 1791 (our note here) which found that Hillingdon’s policy unjustifiably discriminated against Travellers. But with a very different outcome.’
Nearly Legal, 5th August 2018
Source: nearlylegal.co.uk
‘Alex Ruck Keene, barrister at 39 Essex Chambers, examines the Supreme Court’s confirmation in An NHS Trust and others v Y (by his litigation friend, the Official Solicitor) [2018] UKSC 46, [2018] All ER (D) 167 (Jul) that it was not mandatory to seek court approval for withdrawal of clinically assisted nutrition and hydration (CANH) from a patient suffering from a prolonged disorder of consciousness (PDOC) where the patient’s clinical team and family agreed that continued treatment was not in his best interests.’
Family Law, 3rd August 2018
Source: www.familylaw.co.uk
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