Category: Judiciary
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Paul Craig: IRAL: The Panel Report and the Government’s Response
The Report of the Independent Review of Administrative Law, IRAL, was made public on 16 March. It stretches to 195 pages in total, although one third of this comprises annexes and the like. This blog considers the Report of the Panel and the government response. The Panel Report The IRAL Panel is refreshingly open and…
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Michael Foran: Shamima Begum, the Separation of Powers, and the Common Good
The Supreme Court has come under significant criticism for its handling of the Shamima Begum case, decided on 26 February. Much has already been said in relation to the deference that the court showed to the executive, with some arguing that it was improper or even a complete abdication of the judicial role itself. This…
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Mikołaj Barczentewicz: An empirical study of the gender of counsel before the UK’s highest court.
During the live television coverage of the Supreme Court hearings in Miller (No 1), some commentators (and no doubt many members of the public) noted that almost all lawyers in the courtroom were male. That image of the UK’s “Supreme Court bar” (to borrow a US term), though not entirely accurate, highlighted an ongoing problem…
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David Stott: Ministerial Influence in Judicial Appointments – Taking Back Control?
Not since the Blair era has a government been so committed to a significant programme of constitutional reform as the Johnson government, but with very different objectives. The Blair government sought to modernise the constitution and, through the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, to formalise a separation of powers in respect of the judges by (i)…
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David Feldman: Departing from Retained EU Case law
The Issue Following the end of the UK’s transition period for withdrawing from the EU, the status of earlier case law on retained EU law is somewhat complicated. Section 6(3) and (4)(a) and (b) of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, as amended by the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020, provides that the Supreme…
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Dimitrios Kyriazis: Does EU law preclude national constitutional provisions under which the executive plays a role in the appointment of members of the judiciary?
‘The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.’ Madison’s famous proclamation in the Federalist Papers (No 47) forms the theoretical basis underpinning the doctrine of the separation of…
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Nicholas Reed Langen: Reforming the Supreme Court
Fresh from inaugurating its Independent Review of Administrative Law, this government is still not finished with the judiciary, at least according to recent policy proposals leaked to the Sunday Telegraph. Downing Street has also turned its eye onto the Supreme Court and its structure and composition. According to the leaked policy proposals, the government’s reforms…
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Atina Krajewska: The judgment of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal on abortion: a dark day for Poland, for Europe, and for democracy
On 22nd October 2020, the Polish Constitutional Tribunal (CT) held unconstitutional a statutory legal provision, which had previously allowed women to access abortion on the grounds of fatal foetal abnormality. The provision under review, Article 4a para 1 (2) of the Act for Family Planning and the Protection of the Foetus (1993), had decriminalised abortion…
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Nicholas Reed Langen: Is the Supreme Court more interventionist?
The global outpouring of grief upon the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in September showed how complete her transfer from justice of the Supreme Court to international icon was. Notorious enough to just be known by her initials, RBG was a judge celebrated in popular culture like no other. Hollywood A-lister Felicity Jones portrayed…
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Philip Lau: Hong Kong’s New National Security Legislation: The Devil in the Details
The Chinese Government has recently enacted a piece of National Security Law (‘the Law’) on Hong Kong, establishing crimes such as ‘secession’, ‘subversion’, ‘terrorism’ and ‘collusion with foreign country’, alongside with excessive powers for scrutiny of citizens to the police. The Law has raised concerns in the international community, with UK Supreme Court President Lord…