If the Guardian’s right that News Group Newspapers have illegally hacked, or paid investigators to illegally hack, the mobile phone messages of celebrities, then those investigators and journalists may have committed the offence of unlawful interception under section […]

Harrow Council has abandoned its prosecution of Mrinal Patel today. No surprise there, then. I expressed myself in moderate terms while criminal proceedings were under way, but summonsing her under the Fraud Act 2006 always looked dodgy – […]

It’s been widely reported that Jack Straw has turned down parole for Ronald Biggs.

For the parole board to recommend his release may be humane in the individual case, but it would not be right in the broader […]

On Tuesday the Federal Constitutional Court ruled that the Lisbon Treaty is fundamentally compatible with the German Constitution – the Grundgesetz or Basic Law. The judgment is vast and verbose (German/English) but here’s a (still quite […]

I’m grateful to John Bolch (again) for his reminder last week about what happened to Lord Lester’s Cohabitation Bill: it ran out of time, basically, after committee stage in the Lords on 30 April, and since the government […]

I’m always amused when anyone – often it’s some kind of campaign group – claims that this or that Parliamentary bill “could” breach human rights. As often as not, it’s simply a tactical claim: whoever it is opposes the measure […]

I don’t propose to comment at any length on this Lords judgment from the week before last. It has interesting facts, and signals that the BBC are planning to screen an interesting programme about possible “wrong acquittals”, which in […]

Yesterday’s judgment in this case is interesting: their Lordships have decided that Kerrie Gray, who was injured in the Ladbroke Grove rail crash of 1999, cannot recover damages in negligence from Thames Trains and Network Rail for the consequences […]

I admire and respect the professional mainstream press; but the behaviour of the Times in “outing” the Orwell Prize winning blogger NightJack has dented that respect considerably. Here’s Eady J’s judgment, refusing the injunction the blogger sought.

I said I’d write about the case; and now, finally, I am doing. Here’s last week’s judgment about control order. There’s also the podcast I recorded with Charon QC about it, don’t forget.

I must admit, I […]