REUTERS | Paulo Whitaker
12/09/2016

Public children law digest (May 2016 – August 2016) Part 2

This is part two of the public children law update blog to give readers a snapshot of the important cases, issues and developments from May 2016 to August 2016. The remaining topic to be covered from part one, is that of transparency.  Other interesting cases of note will also be covered. Please feel free to submit a comment below or send us an Ask query if you have any views on the cases, issues, or legal developments that are covered or if you think we have missed something that should be brought to the attention of child care law practitioners. Continue reading →

REUTERS | Aly Song
07/09/2016

Adult Social Care Quarterly Digest (May – August 2016)

This is the latest in our series of quarterly adult social care update blogs giving readers a snapshot of the most important cases, issues or developments in adult social care. This post looks at developments from May 2016 to August 2016. Please feel free to submit a comment below or send us an Ask query if you have any views on the cases, issues, or legal developments that are covered or if you think we have missed something that should be brought to the attention of adult social care practitioners.

In this post we look at:

  • Legislative developments.
  • Recent case law.
  • Government consultations.
  • Government guidance and policy statements.
  • Local Government Ombudsman decisions.

Continue reading →

REUTERS | Darren Staples
31/08/2016

Avoiding loss by acquiescence: costs and concession in judicial review

The Administrative Court’s summer recess presents a welcome opportunity for public law practitioners to consolidate recent case law developments in judicial review.

A short but interesting judgment concerning costs and the court’s assessment of success in judicial review proceedings was the Court of Appeal’s (CoA) decision in Rashid v London Borough of Merton [2016] EWCA Civ 622, handed down on 10 May 2016. The case may serve to focus minds both on the potential effects of interim orders on costs and the importance of a robust response to an interim order application. The perceived “concession” of the relief secured by an interim order, even where the respondent indicated that it would later resist the order, had significant costs consequences in this case. Continue reading →

REUTERS | Dani Cardona
30/08/2016

Public children law digest (May 2016 – August 2016) Part 1

This is a public children law update blog to give readers a snapshot of the important cases, issues and developments from May 2016 to August 2016. Please feel free to submit a comment below or send us an Ask query if you have any views on the cases, issues, or legal developments that are covered or if you think we have missed something that should be brought to the attention of child care law practitioners.

In this post, we look at the following:

  • Damages and costs for European Convention on Human Rights breaches.
  • Habitual residence and jurisdiction.
  • Adoption issues.
  • Transparency of judgments.

Continue reading →

REUTERS | Nikola Solic
23/08/2016

What’s more difficult than decommissioning nuclear reactors? Ten Lessons from the recent judgment in Energysolutions EU Limited v Nuclear Decommissioning Authority

One might expect there to be little more difficult than decommissioning 12 nuclear facilities, not least given the rather worrying fact that in some cases, “nobody knows how much radioactive waste is present in temporary storage vaults, how radioactive it is, nor how many highly radioactive springs are stored there” and further that “there are few reliable design drawings available of the facilities themselves.”

It would, however, seem from the recent judgment in Energysolutions EU Limited v Nuclear Decommissioning Authority [2016] EWHC 1988 (TCC), that procuring the decommissioner might be just as, if not more, difficult. At 324 pages and 948 paragraphs (not including 5 appendices, some confidential) it is a daunting tome, but it still demands to be read by anyone with an interest in procurement law for its elucidation of a wide variety of procurement and civil litigation issues, from the everyday to the genuinely exceptional.

For those without the time to grapple with Mr Justice Fraser’s comprehensive analysis, I have distilled ten key lessons from his judgment.   Continue reading →

REUTERS | Russell Boyce
10/08/2016

“Burdened with an excess of paper”: Administrative Court criticises voluminous evidence in judicial review proceedings

In PS v Royal Borough of Greenwich [2016] EWHC 1967 (Admin), a judicial review decision handed down on 3 August 2016, Mr Justice Collins expressed dissatisfaction with the volume of supporting material filed by the parties. He reiterated a long standing principle that it was inappropriate for the court to embark upon a detailed analysis of the evidence in judicial review. The significant volume of documentation filed by the parties in this case was, therefore, largely irrelevant and should not have been adduced. This case, together with recent further judicial commentary on this issue, serves as a reminder to practitioners in respect of appropriate and orderly document submission in judicial review proceedings. Continue reading →