You’ve not heard much from me recently – I was taking advantage of the silly season to catch up with other things. And my blog break is going to continue for one more week, because I’m going to take a […]

It appears that the Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill is likely to announce today the release on compassionate grounds of the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi. Brtitish justice ministers are obviously feeling quite compassionate this summer.

Having written about asylum detention yesterday, an interesting Employment Appeal Tribunal judgment caught my eye today. Father Seraphim Vänttinen-Newton, a Russian Orthodox priest, has won his appeal for unfair dismissal against GEO Group, the private firm that runs Campsfield House Immigration Detention Centre (or "removal centre", as the UK Borders Agency website calls it).

It's frustrating and dispiriting to read the judgment in R (Rostami) v Home Secretary. And I think difficult to work out what you think about the problem of asylum detention generally.

The Liberal Democrats have today called for better supervision of the use of surveillance powers: they think magistrates should have to approve any use of legal powers of surveillance. Fair enough. What I do have a problem with, though, is the suggestion often made in the debate around these powers that surveillance should not be used to tackle supposely "trivial" offending and anti-social behaviour. If like me you think laws on these matters should be respected and enforced, and you want to give councils the job of enforcing them - then councils should be allowed the tools to do so.

I was interviewed on the Damian Green affair for today’s 5 Live morning reports, which went out at the crack of dawn: you can listen here for the next week. The Damian Green item starts at […]

The Christmas rush has, I’m afraid, “got” to this blog somewhat – sorry. It’s not the greatest blogging period of the year, of course. But rest assured, normal service will be resumed as from 5 January at the latest.

The Speaker and the Leader of the House will no doubt be under pressure to allow a debate on the Damian Green/Christopher Galley leakgate affair after Parliament opens tomorrow – and so they should, as early as possible, and allowing […]

Today the Lords has given judgment bringing to an end the challenge by Corner House and the Campaign Against the Arms Trade to the SFO Director’s decision in December 2006 to discontinue the investigation into alleged corruption by BAe […]

Sarika Watkins-Singh has today won her race and religious discrimination case against her school for refusing to allow her to wear the kara, a Sikh bracelet, and for excluding her for breaching the school’s no-jewellery uniform policy.