Supreme court

On the 12th of January, 500 of the great and good, or at any rate the well-heeled, sat down to a sumptuous dinner at the Guildhall at a cost of £500 a head. This was to celebrate the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta, widely regarded as one of the most important documents in the world. Celebrate? A funeral procession would have been more appropriate. Clause 38 provided, ‘No judicial officer shall initiate legal proceedings against anyone on his own mere say-so, without reliable witnesses brought for that purpose.’ Yet the British government had given away, less than three months earlier, the protection provided by that clause. It voluntarily ‘opted in’ to

London is at risk of another blow from Brussels. Currently, the UK Supreme Court is hearing a sanctions case involving the Iranian Bank Mellat, which could prove pivotal in the on-going controversy surrounding the many Russian companies and individuals subject to financial restrictions. Acting at Brussels’ behest and under the Counter Terrorism Act of 2008, the Treasury blacklisted the Iranians for their alleged role in furthering Teheran’s nuclear ambitions. As a direct result, UK financial institutions were prohibited from doing business with the lender. Irked by this development, Bank Mellat challenged the decision both with the Luxembourg-based European Court of Justice (ECJ) and Britain’s Supreme Court – and won. In

There is, I realise, no perfect, neutral way of describing ‘assisted dying’, the substance of Lord Falconer’s bill which comes up for its second reading on 18th July. ‘Right to die’ is a bit tricky; dying is one of those rights that are thrust upon us without our even asking. It’s part of the human condition; just wait long enough, and it’s yours. And as Jenny McCartney eloquently makes clear in her piece on the subject, it’s actually assisted suicide — the assistance being provided by a doctor – or if you prefer, killing by request. As for the safeguards in the bill about it being limited to those with

On the face of it, the Supreme Court’s decision to allow three suits to be brought against the Ministry of Defence is surprising, almost shocking. My colleague Alex Massie has castigated the judgment; but, while I don’t necessarily disagree with Alex’s sentiments, the judgment merits very close attention. It is a politically far-reaching decision. The Court was asked to consider whether British military personnel on active duty overseas are under the jurisdiction of the European Convention of Human Rights. If they are, then the British state has a duty to secure the human rights of its overseas personnel (specifically their right to life under article 2 of the Convention) as

The British Army may never go to war again. Not because it is under-resourced and over-stretched but because, as of today, it may no longer be able to afford casualties. That, at any rate, is one thought prompted by the Supreme Court’s extraordinary – to my mind – ruling that dead soldiers’ families can sue the ministry of Defence for damages. According to the Supreme Court justices, the MoD may have been negligent in its “duty of care” and, consequently, the families may sue the government for failing, apparently, to safeguard the human rights of soldiers killed in Iraq (and, presumably, elsewhere). The court dismissed the MoD’s suggestion there might

Sharon Shoesmith cut into Ed Balls on the Today programme this morning. She said: “Why don’t we ask Ed Balls why he acted on November 12, 2008 when he knew for 15 months that Peter Connelly had died and I was working with his officials, I was going to the government office, they were reading the draft reports. Haringey council knew all about it. We examined the conduct of our social workers, we found a disciplinary against them, but they weren’t sacked – all of that was open and clear and on the table and everyone knew everything about that. It wasn’t until the spat in the House of Commons

Whitehall sources say Michael Gove will appeal the Court of Appeals judgement which decided Sharon Shoesmith’s dismissal was so ‘legally flawed as to be null and void’ to the Supreme Court. Although Gove recognises that Balls blundered in the way he dismissed her, he also believes that there are important constitutional principles at sake in this case about how Ministers make important and urgent decisions and what the role of the courts is in challenging such decisions. Gove wants the Supreme Court to consider these issues because of the huge importance of judicial reviews, which are being used repeatedly by opponents of the government to try and stymie its agenda.

As we wait for the result of tonight’s ping pong between the Lords and the Commons over the forty percent threshold, there is one point worth noting about the row over the court ruling on the sex offenders’ register. The court that ruled that sex offenders sentenced to two and a half years cannot be placed on the sex offenders’ register for life was the British Supreme Court taking its cue from the European Convention on Human Right. This shows that merely pulling out of the jurisdiction of the Strasbourg Court will not be enough to end these human rights cases. The only guaranteed solution would be to remove the