July 2009

Charon QC podcast: Lord Falconer on assisted dying and the Supreme Court

July 31, 2009

Earlier this week Charon interviewed Lord Falconer about his attempt to amend the law to legalise assisted suicide in some cases – they also discussed the new Supreme Court. It’s a good listen, timed perfectly for this week with the Purdy judgment being the Law Lords’ last. You can hear the podcast here.

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Debbie Purdy, the Lords and assisted suicide: the easy way out?

July 31, 2009

I’ve been slow in reacting to the Lords’ final judgment yesterday in R (Purdy) v DPP, partly because I was in Cambridge, but partly because I’ve been worrying at the judgment since I heard the news reports yesterday, and even more so since I read it. I’ve been worrying about what’s wrong with it. Because [...]

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McDougal v Liverpool City Council

July 29, 2009

Liverpool City council has claimed that the population of the city has now stabilised after decades of decline – but this case last week shows the effects of that decline still cause problems, as the Council had to decide which of a number of schools to close. It also shows the limitations of judicial review [...]

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Awards, polls and all that

July 29, 2009

I’m delighted to say that LawMinx has awarded me one of her “blawggies” for being even better than Melvyn Bragg, which is very nice indeed. I have to thank Blogger (even though I’m going to desert them as soon as I can work Thesis for WordPress), Gray’s Inn library, my agent, my parents, my toy [...]

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Lord Lester: my life as a goat

July 28, 2009

Lord Lester, writing in the Guardian today, explains why he resigned as the government’s independent adviser on constitutional change. I have some sympathy for Lord Lester – he had the experience (that many civil servants have had) of finding out his role and position was in reality quite different from the one he was offered, [...]

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The Northern Rock case in the Court of Appeal

July 28, 2009

The Court of Appeal has given judgment today in SRM Global Master Fund v HM Treasury – the human rights challenge by Northern Rock shareholders to the government’s compensation scheme on nationalisation. The complaint was based on the article 1 Protocol 1 Convention right to protection of property. The system for calculating compensation, so the [...]

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TotalPolitics best blogs poll

July 25, 2009

I’m encouraging readers to vote for their fave political blogs in TotalPolitics magazine’s poll – there’s a button on the right to make it even easier. You have to name ten blogs in order of preference, so it needs a bit of thinking about. And TotalPolitics sees law as a subcategory in its political blogs [...]

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Directive 2004/38: Commision skirts the gay marriage issue

July 24, 2009

Last month, when talking about the big Californian case about Proposition 8, I mentioned the unexploded bomb created by articles 2, 3 and 4 of Directive 2004/38 on the free movement rights of EU citizens and their families: they give an unconditional right of free movement within Europe not only to every EU citizen but [...]

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Charon podcast: the Supreme Court, and publishing Law Officers’ advice

July 23, 2009

Charon interviewed me today: we spoke about the Supreme Court, its origins and what we expect from it, and whether the superficial change from House of Lords to Supreme Court will bring with it more significant changes, such as the politicisation of appointments, Sotomayor-style confirmation hearings before the Justice Select Committee, and increased judicial assertiveness [...]

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Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill

July 23, 2009

I seriously dislike the word governance. Okay, it has some reasonable uses: in the phrase corporate governance, for instance, in which it has a useful sense of oversight from on high. Otherwise, it’s unbearably pompous. I also suspect politicians who use it have reached the “statesman” stage in which they’re more interested in their international [...]

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