R (Bailey) v Brent: law against the cuts (and politics)

As a resident of Brent in north-west London, I’m not sure what I think about the Labour council’s planned library cuts. I’m not happy that any should be cut. I don’t want social care to be cut any more than it needs to be, either, or any of the other important things councils do. And […]

Lap-dancing clubs and human rights

I’ve written at Comment is Free today about the threat, made by lap-dancing club owners, to use the Human Rights Act to challenge the new legislation regulating them: It’s difficult to argue that firms should never enjoy convention rights – if they didn’t, media organisations like the Guardian would be unable to enforce freedom of […]

Mrinal Patel case dropped

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 difficult to see how you can really call a school place property. I agree with Harrow […]

A good week for Basildon

It was a jolly good week in court last week for Basildon Council. First, they won against the Equality and Human Rights Commission in this case about travellers in the Court of Appeal; then they followed it up with this win against the golf club in the High Court. All sections of society must tremble […]

The Southall Black Sisters case

Rahila Gupta in today’s Guardian writes about the victory of Southall Black Sisters in its judicial review a couple of weeks ago: Ealing Council had wanted to cut its support for the organisation in order to fund another means of domestic violence provision not targeted at black and Asian women. Well, it looks as though […]