Latest Cases

Passport – United Kingdom passport. The cancellation of each claimant's passport had been necessary and proportionate, and the defendant Secretary of State had not been legally obliged to give them advance notice of the basis on which she had been minded to cancel their passports. Accordingly, the Administrative Court dismissed the claimants' application for judicial review of the decision on the behalf of the defendant Secretary of State's to cancel each of their British passports.

Family proceedings – Orders in family proceedings. The total amount which the husband had to pay was £4.05m following the wife's application for financial provision. The Family Court based that on an initial lump sum in respect of housing and capitalised maintenance of £3.65m, with an additional £400,000, being a little bit less than half of the total sum due on her litigation loan.

European Union – Police and judicial co-operation in criminal matters. Article 4(6) of Council Framework Decision 2002/584/JHA should be interpreted as meaning that, where a person who was the subject of a European arrest warrant (an EAW) issued for the purposes of enforcing a custodial sentence resided in the executing member state and had family, social and working ties in that member state, the executing judicial authority could, for reasons related to the social rehabilitation of that person, refuse to execute that warrant, despite the fact that the offence which provided the basis for that warrant was, under that national law of the executing member state, punishable by fine only, provided that, in accordance with its national law, that fact did not prevent the custodial sentence imposed on the person requested from actually being enforced in that member state, which was for the referring court to ascertain. The Court of Justice of the European Union so held in proceedings concerning the execution, in Belgium, of an EAW by the Romanian authorities against the defendant.

European Union – Employment. Article 7(1) of Directive (EC) 2003/88 should be interpreted as precluding national legislation which, for the purpose of calculating remuneration for annual leave, allowed collective agreements to provide for account to be taken of reductions in earnings resulting from the fact that during the reference period there had been days when no work was actually performed owing to short-time working, with the consequence that the worker received, for the duration of the minimum period of annual leave to which he was entitled under art 7(1) of the directive, remuneration for annual leave that was lower than the normal remuneration which he received during periods of work. The Court of Justice of the European Union so held, among other things, in a preliminary ruling in proceedings concerning the calculation of remuneration for annual leave, namely the payment to which the employee was entitled in respect of his paid annual leave.

Human rights – Right to liberty and security. The Mental Health Act 1983 did not give a responsible clinician the power to impose conditions which had the concrete effect of depriving a community patient of his liberty, within the meaning of art 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Supreme Court so ruled in allowing an appeal by an appellant who had argued that the arrangements under a community treatment order amounted to an unlawful deprivation of his liberty and that he should, therefore, be discharged from it.

Public procurement – Public contracts. By entering into a development agreement, the defendant local authority had effectively agreed to act unlawfully in the future, by committing itself to acting in breach of the legislative regime for procurement. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, in allowing the claimant's appeal, held that that was, in itself, unlawful, whether as an actual or anticipatory breach of the requirements for lawful procurement under Directive (EC) 2004/18 and the Public Contracts Regulations 2006, SI 2006/5, or simply as public law illegality, or both.

Local government – Housing. In two joined appeals, in which the local housing authorities owed the relevant applicants a full housing duty imposed by s 193 of the Housing Act 1996, the Court of Appeal, Civil Division, allowed the appeal of the local authority in the first appeal and dismissed the second applicant's appeal. In so doing, the court reiterated and applied various housing law principles in relation to allocation of resources and the giving of reasons on review.

Rates – Rateable occupation. A completion notice had been served on the respondent company by the appellant local authority under Sch 4A to the Local Government Finance Act 1988, notwithstanding transmission via a person not authorised to accept service and being transmitted via email. The Supreme Court held that as long as there had been sufficient causal connection between the authority's actions and the receipt of the notice by the recipient, service had been effected for the purpose of the statute.

Pension – Pension scheme. The appellant's appeal against the decision of the Court of Appeal, Civil Division, in a pensions dispute failed. He claimed that the reduced figure of his pension, resulting from its calculation by reference to his part-time, rather than full-time salary, had constituted 'unfavourable' treatment because of his inability to work full time. The Supreme Court held that the appellant's formulation depended on an artificial separation between the method of calculation and the award to which it would have given rise. It was enough that the award had not been in any sense 'unfavourable', nor could it reasonably have been so regarded.

Criminal law – Prosecution. There was no merit in the grounds and challenge to defendant Director of Public Prosecutions' confirmation of an earlier decision not to prosecute the interested party, a former undercover police officer, for the offences of rape, indecent assault, procurement of sexual intercourse and misconduct in public office. The Divisional Court, in dismissing the claimant's application for judicial review, rejected her contention that the defendant had erred as a matter of law in concluding that the interested party's deception had vitiated consent.