“A New Form of Discrimination”: Civil Partnerships for Different-Sex Couples in the UK Supreme Court
Civil partnerships were introduced by the New Labour government in the UK in 2005 to give same-sex couples many of the protections and rights afforded to married couples without actually...
Landmark Judgment for Women’s Rights
The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom concluded on the 7th June 2018 that Northern Ireland’s laws on termination of pregnancy are incompatible with human rights. More specifically, in situations...
(No) Freedom of Speech at Universities?
Universities are meant to be places where freedom of speech flourishes. The issue of free speech in universities in the UK has been recently examined by the Joint Committee on...
The UK Supreme Court Decision on Abortion in Northern Ireland: A Pyrrhic Defeat?
In the wake of the Irish referendum vote to end the country’s ban on abortion via the repeal of the eighth amendment of the Irish constitution, the spotlight has turned...
Valuing Dignity of the Windrush Generation
In listening to the experiences of the Windrush generation and their treatment by the UK Home Office, what stands out to many of us in the Commonwealth Caribbean is the...
Cakes and the Conscience Wars
Last week, the U.K. Supreme Court heard argument in Lee v. Ashers Baking Company. The case involves a baker whose Christian beliefs led him to refuse to bake a cake...
Draft Copenhagen Declaration – Diluting European Supervision by ‘Robust Subsidiarity’
As a prelude to the High Level Conference to be held in Copenhagen in April 2018, the Danish chairmanship of the Council of Europe recently issued the Draft Copenhagen Declaration....
Establishing a breach of Article 3 in medical cases: The ‘applicability’ of Strasbourg jurisprudence (update)
Following my earlier blog post on the case of EA, the CA last week handed down its judgment in AM (Zimbabwe) v SSHD, providing some further guidance on the approach...
Haralambous: The Supreme Court, Closed Proceedings and the Common Law, Round Three
The right to a fair trial is undoubtedly one of the most sacrosanct rights in most modern legal systems, and is manifested in one of the most important articles in...
Establishing a breach of Article 3 in medical cases: The ‘applicability’ of Strasbourg jurisprudence
In EA & Ors (Article 3 medical cases – Paposhvili not applicable) [2017] UKUT 00445, the Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) refused to follow the most recent Strasbourg caselaw...
Einarsson v Iceland: Worrying Implications for Discussing Rape Allegations on Social Media
This post analyses Einarsson v Iceland, a defamation case in which a celebrity sued an Instagram user (‘X’) for calling them a ‘rapist’ on social media. The judgment has worrying...
Bărbulescu v. Romania: The Next Step in the Continuing Struggle for Standards for Workplace Communication Monitoring
On 5 September, the Grand Chamber (GC) of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) delivered its judgment in Bărbulescu v. Romania (hereinafter Bărbulescu GC Judgment). The central question which...
