Tag: accountability
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Lewis Graham and Leah Trueblood: A right to information in domestic law: five points of interest for public lawyers
In a recent decision, the Upper Tribunal (‘the UT’) has found that the operation of section 44 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (‘FOIA’) breaches the right to access information under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (‘ECHR’). The decision will obviously be of interest to lawyers working in the field…
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Bhavya Johari – The Political Constitution’s Broken Promise: Arms, Sanctions and Accountability after Al-Haq
In September 2024, the Government suspended around thirty arms export licences to Israel, having found a clear risk that United Kingdom equipment might be used to commit serious violations of international humanitarian law. It exempted one category, creating a carve-out for components made in the United Kingdom for the F-35 combat aircraft, which continued to…
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Jonathan Collinson: A New Independent Appeals Body for Immigration and Asylum: Accountability, Transparency, and Oversight
This post examines questions of accountability, transparency and oversight in the context of the UK government’s proposal for a new Independent Appeals Body for immigration and asylum decisions, replacing the existing First-tier Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) (hereafter, FtT). It is prompted by the government’s official consultation which, amongst other things, asked: What mechanisms should…
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Antoinette Nestor: “We’re Going on a Bear Hunt”: Real-World Consequences and Environmental Assessment after Finch
Environmental Impact Assessments in the UK increasingly resemble We’re Going on a Bear Hunt. In Michael Rosen’s story, every obstacle presents the same catch phrase: “We can’t go over it. We can’t go under it. Oh no! We’ve got to go through it!” The Supreme Court’s judgment in Finch insists on the same approach. It makes clear that public authorities cannot…
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Marianne Holbrook: Should Decisions of the Attorney General be Judicially Reviewable?
In July 2025, the Divisional Court in R (Campbell) v Attorney General [2025] EWHC 1653 (Admin), held that “there is a category of functions of the Attorney General which are immune from review on any ground”. In November, the Supreme Court granted Mr Campbell direct leave to appeal. In the meantime, the Law Commission of…
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Dane Luo: The Anomalous Islands of Public Interest Functions Immune from Judicial Review
The Attorney-General is an ancient office that is endowed with a very wide range of discretionary powers and functions. Some of those are classed as ‘public interest functions’. These derive from statutes and the prerogative, and include granting consent for certain prosecutions, applying for orders preventing vexatious litigants from bringing proceedings, entering a nolle prosequi,…
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Cassandra Somers-Joce: A New Chapter for Governmental Candour? The Public Office (Accountability) Bill
The Public Office (Accountability) Bill was introduced into the House of Commons on 16 September 2025. It gives effect to the Labour Party’s 2024 Manifesto commitment to introduce a ‘Hillsborough Law’ which will ‘place a legal duty of candour on public servants and authorities and provide legal aid for victims of disasters or state-related deaths’. As the Government’s ‘Duty of…
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Jonathan Collinson: From Learning to Lawyering: When Can Political Accountability Have Legal Consequences?
The responsibility for holding the government to account for its failings is the core constitutional role of a range of ‘watchdog’ bodies outside of Parliament, such as inspectorates, commissioners, public inquiries, independent reviews, and ombudsmen. Accountability is seen as a tool to make and keep governments, agencies and individual officials effective in delivering on their…
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Ting Xu: The Legal Fiction of State Neutrality: Rethinking Accountability in Disability Home Adaptations
How should the state be held to account when it funds and organises essential services—but then denies responsibility for their failure? This post examines that question through the lens of disability-related home adaptations in the UK. It explores how the legal and administrative structures surrounding the Disabled Facilities Grant (DFG) scheme allow local authorities to…
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Paolo Sandro: Soft, But for Whom? Law and the Creation of Accountability
*Editors’ note – this post is part of a series on ‘The Rule of Guidance?’. The other posts in the series will be available here. Five years on, and with a potential new pandemic on the horizon (if not already here), researchers from all disciplines have been very busy evaluating how the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic was managed…