government

News Corp withdraws its undertakings: but why?

July 11, 2011

This changes everything. As Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt said in the House in his statement this afternoon, News Corporation has withdrawn its proposed “undertakings in lieu” in relation to BSkyB. These were its undertakings, for instance “spinning off” Sky News to make it independent, and protect it from News Corp dominance. Since it was that [...]

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Can the NewsCorp-BSkyB deal be stopped?

July 6, 2011

A lot of people must be wondering this, given recent allegations and revelations about phone hacking by the News of the World. So can the Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt now block the planned merger of News Corporation and BSkyB? He has already said he is minded to allow it, subject to certain undertakings relating in [...]

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Government note on the legal basis for deployment in Libya

March 21, 2011

The government has today published a note (hat tip to Paul Waugh) setting out a summary of the legal basis of the government’s deployment in Libya. Actually it does no more than explain that UN Resolution 1973 authorises member states to take all necessary measures to enforce a no-fly zone and to protect civilians in [...]

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Have lawyers really “cleared” the government to defy Strasbourg over prisoners’ votes?

February 18, 2011

Today the Times is running a (£) story headlined: Cameron is cleared to defy Europe on human rights The story is based on an eight-page memo prepared for Nick Clegg that Sam Coates has published on Twitter: It’s not clear who the advice is from or to (although its file name beginning “mojlegaladvice …” suggests [...]

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Charon QC podcast: prisoners’ votes

February 11, 2011

Today I talked to Charon QC on the issue of prisoners’ votes, following MPs vote yesterday in favour of defying the European Court of Human Rights, and retaining the UK’s current “blanket ban”. We explain what the ECtHR is and its role as an international court, consider what if any difference MPs decision yesterday might [...]

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MPs vote on prisoners’ votes: how to square the circle

February 10, 2011

MPs in the Commons will today debate the motion put down by David Davis, Jack Straw and others (main business, over half way down the order paper), which is in these terms: That this House notes the ruling of the European Court of Human Rights in Hirst v the United Kingdom in which it held [...]

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Lord Phillips doubts his own independence

February 9, 2011

I never thought we needed a Supreme Court, myself. The Law Lords worked perfectly well as far as I was concerned. But we got one, the main justification for the increased expense being increased judicial independence. To me, this supposed gain was always a pure abstraction: no one really thought the Law Lords lacked independence [...]

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Prisoners’ votes: another dodgy ruling from the European Court

January 18, 2011

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled today that an Italian prisoner’s rights were breached where he was sentenced to prison for life, and as a result lost the right to vote indefinitely. The ECtHR’s ruling in Scoppola v Italy (the judgment is only available in French for the moment, I’m afraid) will cause [...]

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Taking Vince Cable off the BSkyB case

December 21, 2010

Vince Cable has not resigned over his reported remark that he’d “declared war on Rupert Murdoch” – but the Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt will make any further decision on the proposed News Corporation takeover of BSkyB instead of him. There are a number of legal points to be made about this. First, there’s no constitutional [...]

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Why I back the legal aid reforms – and more

November 22, 2010

It’s taken me a week to respond to Ken Clarke’s statement last Monday about legal aid, so unsurprisingly, quite a few people have got there before me. Jonathan Freedland in the Guardian is opposed “root and branch”. John Bolch thinks the proposals on family law do not make good reading, and impliedly calls them “crass” [...]

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