October 2009

A suggestion for Suzy Gale

October 29, 2009

They’re still at it. Suzy Gale, wife of the Conservative MP Roger Gale, says I have taken advice from an employment lawyer and if this goes ahead I will be taking legal action for unfair dismissal or positive [sic] discrimination against whatever authority I can. But also Gale said advice she had received suggested it [...]

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Law and Sir Chris Kelly: MPs’ spouses

October 28, 2009

We’re getting used by now to MPs moaning that the sensible expenses rules now being applied to them are supposedly unlawful. The latest claim is that preventing MPs from employing spouses and relatives would lead to unfair dismissal, sex discrimination and wrongful dismissal. Again, and predictably, this is rubbish. We don’t know of course the [...]

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Binyam Mohamed: torture and secrecy; wood and trees

October 23, 2009

Following on from my Charon podcast yesterday, I thought it might help to put my thoughts in writing about last Friday’s judgment. It might be farcical, except that it relates to the cruel treatment and possibly torture of a prisoner. It’s the latest in a series of judgments, of course, and there have been no [...]

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Charon QC podcast: the Binyam Mohamed case

October 22, 2009

I spoke to Charon QC this afternoon about last Friday’s judgment in R (Mohamed) v Foreign Secretary, in which the Administrative Court ruled that it should make public in its original judgment 7 paragraphs, consisting of 25 lines, summarising American intelligence agency reports to British officers, in which they apparently admit Mohamed was subjected to [...]

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In defence of superinjunctions

October 20, 2009

I’m pleased the Guardian defeated Carter-Ruck in the Trafigura, Minton report, superinjunction affair. I don’t know or understand why a superinjunction was granted preventing publication of the fact of the injunction (as opposed to an ordinary injunction merely preventing publication of the Minton report), and I doubt it was right for the judge to grant [...]

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Trafigura give up on Minton

October 17, 2009

As you may well already know, Trafigura have abandoned their attempts to injunct publication of the “Minton report” – as the Guardian reported last night. I’m sorry to keep saying I told you so but the Guardian story confirms my view that the legal basis for the injunction was that the report was legally privileged, [...]

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Trafigura and sub judice

October 16, 2009

The Guardian today is reporting that Carter-Ruck has written to the Speaker arguing that discussion of Trafigura and the injunction against the Guardian is sub judice. Here’s the Carter-Ruck letter. First, what the letter says. To be fair to Carter-Ruck, most of the letter is not about sub judice at all, but merely an attempt [...]

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EHRC v BNP: a brilliant victory

October 15, 2009

The news that the BNP has conceded the need to change its constitution in the face of legal action by the EHRC represents a brilliant victory for the equality watchdog and its legal director, John Wadham. I take my hat off to him, and them. This is rather awkward timing for the BNP, of course, [...]

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Law and Sir Thomas Legg: MPs want it all ways

October 15, 2009

Some MPs are, predictably, whining about the letters being sent to them by Sir Thomas Legg, who’s been auditing their expenses going back over the last few years. Ann Widdecombe for instance has suggested there’s a “legal question mark” over his approach to audit, and Martin Salter has suggested some MPs may “choose to mount [...]

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Jacqui Smith, Damian Green and all that: to say the least, debatable

October 15, 2009

In all this week’s discussion of Trafigura, relatively little attention has been paid to other legal stories – but HMIC’s review of the lessons learned from the Greengate-Galleygate affair deserves closer attention, I think, than it’s had. And Jacqui Smith has managed to escape without close enough scrutiny of her conduct in the affair. One [...]

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