Latest Cases

Family proceedings – Orders in family proceedings. The judgment was concerned with IS, the daughter of estranged parents (the father and the mother). The matter came before the English court in order to decide issues of contact and jurisdiction between the United Kingdom and Israel. The Family Division agreed with the parties that the family would be assisted in making progress with contact by a family assessment being conducted with a view to the court making recommendations as to how best to promote contact between IS and her father. There would be a request to the Israeli court for cooperation in a judicial moratorium to allow the assessment to proceed. 

European Union – Trade marks. The General Court of the European Union allowed the action brought by Turkiye Garanti Bankasi AS (Turkiye) for annulment of the decision of the Fourth Board of Appeal of the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs) relating to opposition proceedings between Turkiye and Card & Finance Consulting GmbH (Card) in respect of the application by Card for registration of a figurative sign as a Community trade mark. 

Family proceedings – Orders in family proceedings. The proceedings concerned a child who was habitually resident in the United Kingdom, but who was found to have been wrongly retained in Poland. The mother applied to the court for the father and paternal grandmother's committal for breach of orders of the court requiring the child's return and for the hearing to proceed despite their absence at the hearing. The Family Division held that the application should proceed in the absence of the father and grandmother in respect of the father alone, in view of the potential prejudice to the mother of any delay in the application. On the facts, the father had breached the orders. The determination of penalty for those breaches and the application concerning the grandmother were adjourned. 

Sterilisation – Mentally handicapped person. The proceedings concerned DD, a 36-year-old woman with autistic spectrum disorder and mild to borderline leaning disability, who had six children all being raised by permanent substitute carers. The Court of Protection held that she lacked capacity to litigate, and to make the critical decision about contraception and sterilisation. Having weighed the relevant considerations, it held that laparoscopic sterilisation was in DD's best interests and authorised the applicants to undertake that procedure. It further permitted forcible entry into DD's home, and the withholding of the date of the procedure from her and her partner. 

Immigration – Refugee. The claimant non-Arab Dafuri sought judicial review of the defendant Secretary of State's decision to remove him to France as a safe third country, without considering his asylum claim. The Administrative Court, in dismissing the application, held that the evidence relied upon on the claimant's behalf had not come close to rebutting the significant evidential presumption that France complied with its international obligations. Accordingly, the Secretary of State had been full entitled to conclude that there was no real risk of the claimant being refouled to Sudan by France in breach of his right to asylum and his right not to be subjected to torture, or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. 

European Union – Employment. The present request for a preliminary ruling concerned the interpretation of art 30 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and Council Directive (EC) 1999/70 (concerning the framework agreement on fixed-term work concluded by ETUC, UNICE and CEEP). The request had been made in proceedings between Ms Poclava and her employer concerning Ms Poclava's dismissal. The Court of Justice of the European Union decided that the employment contract at issue was not a fixed-term contract that fell within the scope of Directive 1999/70. Accordingly, the Court did not have jurisdiction to answer the questions put by the referring court. 

Contempt of court – Committal. The claimant sought judicial review of decisions by the first two defendants, supported by the third defendant, that civil contemnors committed to prison were not entitled to have time spent on remand deducted from their sentence by the prison. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, dismissed the claim. The part of the claimant's case that was based purely on the domestic law, in particular, s 14 of the Contempt of Court Act 1981 and s 43 of the Policing and Crime Act 2009, was rejected. The claimant's challenge under arts 5 and 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights was also rejected. 

Negligence – Information or advice. Following the purchase of a development site, the claimants alleged, inter alia, that the defendant N had made representations which were false and that the defendant was liable in the tort of deceit or on the basis that there was actionable negligent misrepresentation/misstatement or for breach of an alleged collateral contract. N denied each of the claimants' allegations. On the evidence, the court had reached the clear conclusion that the allegations made against N by the claimants had not been made out. It followed that the claimants' claims had to be dismissed. 

Elections – European Parliament. The 1,015 applicant serving prisoners complained that they were prevented from voting in elections, relying on art 3 of the First Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights (art 3). The European Court of Human Rights, in allowing the application, held that there had been a violation of art 3, given that the impugned legislation remained unamended after the court's decision in Greens v United Kingdom (Application No 60041/08) ([2010] All ER (D) 280 (Nov)), which had required amendment to render the electoral law compatible with the requirements of the Convention. 

Environment – Protection. The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal by the appellant association, which was concerned with the protection of the environment of the Shetland Islands, against the decision by the Inner House of the Court of Session to uphold the decision by the respondent Scottish Ministers to grant consent to developers for the construction and operation of a wind farm. The Court held, amongst other things, that, contrary to the decision of the Lord Ordinary, the duty of the respondents in considering such development proposals was not to conduct a full review of their functions under Directive (EC) 2009/147 (on the conservation of wild birds), but to take that directive into account as one of a number of material considerations in reaching a lawful decision whether to grant consent under the Electricity Act 1989.