Latest Cases

European Union – Directives. The Court of Justice of the European Union gave a preliminary ruling concerning the interpretation of arts 1(2) and 2(1) and (8) of Directive 2010/64/EU (on the right to interpretation and translation in criminal proceedings), and of arts 2, 3(1)(c) and 6(1) and (3) of Directive 2012/13/EU (on the right to information in criminal proceedings). The request had been made in criminal proceedings brought against Mr Covaci for road traffic offences committed by him. 

Town and country planning – Permission for development. The claimant sought judicial review of the defendant local planning authority's grant of outline planning permission. The Planning Court, in allowing the application, held that a councillor's participation in the decision to grant planning permission, when he was a director of an association that had an interest in the development, had given rise to an appearance of potential bias. 

European Union – Insolvency proceedings. The Court of Justice of the European Union gave a preliminary ruling deciding, among other things, that art 13 of the Regulation (EC) 1346/2000 should be interpreted as meaning that its application was subject to the condition that, after taking account of all the circumstances of the case, the act at issue could not be challenged on the basis of the law governing the act (lex causae). 

European Union – Customs and excise. The Court of Justice of the European Union gave a preliminary ruling, deciding that art 27(1)(d) of Directive (EEC) 92/83 should be interpreted as meaning that the obligation to exempt the alcohol products covered by that directive from the harmonised excise duty when they were used for the production of medicine applied to ethyl alcohol used by an undertaking for cleaning or disinfecting equipment and facilities used in the production of medicines. 

Sentence – Mandatory life sentence. The offender, when aged 15 years, with his brother, had stabbed their sister's former boyfriend 40 times, for which he was convicted of murder and a minimum term of 14 years, less time spent on remand, had been imposed. The present proceedings concerned the review of the minimum term. The Administrative Court refused to recommend a reduction of the tariff, as the offender's very good progress was not such that it could cross the extremely high hurdle of exceptional and unforeseen. 

Minor – Removal outside jurisdiction. An order had been made under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction 1980, for the return of four children to Australia. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, allowed the father's appeal. A finding that the children objected to returning to Australia would be substituted and, in the exercise of the resulting discretion, the mother's application for the children's summary return was dismissed. 

European Union – Freedom of movement. The Court of Justice of the European Union gave a preliminary ruling, deciding that EU law, in particular the principles of equivalence and effectiveness, should be interpreted as not precluding, in circumstances such as those in the dispute in the main proceedings, a situation where there was no possibility for a national court to revise a final decision of a court or tribunal made in the course of civil proceedings when that decision was found to be incompatible with an interpretation of EU law upheld by the Court after the date on which that decision had become final, even though such a possibility did exist as regards final decisions of a court or tribunal incompatible with EU law made in the course of administrative proceedings. 

Prison – Prisoner. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, dismissed the claimant's appeal against the dismissal of his challenge by way of judicial review of the lawfulness of his recall to prison, under s 254 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, as amended. It held, among other things, that the defendant Secretary of State had been lawfully entitled to recall the claimant to prison, and it was clear that the information and conclusions set out in a recall and review report had been adequate. 

Child – Care. A local authority contended that a judge had been wrong not to make findings on the evidence that fractures discovered during a post-mortem examination of a ten month old child had been the result of non–accidental injury and to identify the probable perpetrator or pool of possible perpetrators. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, in allowing the authority's appeal, held that the judge's fact-finding exercise had been fatally flawed in all matters relating to the central and significant issue of the child's injuries, and the judgment rendered unreliable. 

Personal Injury – Liability – Contributory negligence. Court of Session: In an action in which the pursuer sued as the guardian of a pedestrian who was injured in a road traffic accident after a car driven by the defender struck him, and in which counsel for the defender accepted that primary liability for the accident rested with the defender, the court rejected the pursuer's primary submission that the accident was caused as a result of a deliberate act by the defender and concluded that he was 90% responsible for the accident and that the injured man should bear 10% of the responsibility.