Last night I gave a work-in-progress talk at the Centre for Public Law, on the topic of the boundaries of judicial review of administrative action. You can listen to my presentation above, or click on this link. Here is the abstract: The purpose of this paper is to suggest that the boundaries of judicial review […] Read more

Today at the Centre for Public Law, we kicked off a new series of seminars, New Faces in Public Law, designed to bring to the Faculty emerging scholars who have produced interesting work on important issues of public law. to Dr Sarah Nason (Bangor University) introduced her new book, Reconstructing Judicial Review (Hart, 2016). Here […] Read more

There is a very interesting discussion in a recent UK Supreme Court case — Re Brewster’s Application [2017] UKSC 8 — of how much deference courts should afford to post hoc rationalisations of administrative decisions. Brewster’s fiancé died suddenly. He had been entitled to a government pension. His cohabiting survivor (Brewster) was entitled to receive […] Read more

At issue in R v Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, ex parte World Development Movement Ltd [1995] 1 WLR 386 was a grant of development aid to Malaysia to build the Pergau Dam. The grant was made under the Overseas Development and Co-operation Act 1980, s. 1(1) of which gives the Minister […] Read more

R (Privacy International) v Investigatory Powers Tribunal [2017] EWHC 114 (Admin) is a rare example of an effective ouster clause. The applicant took issue with the Tribunal’s conclusion that, as a matter of law, the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary was entitled to engage in computer hacking under s. 5 of the Intelligence Services Act 1994. […] Read more

I had a free evening earlier this month and put together a submission to the House of Lords Constitution Committee’s Legislative Process Inquiry. You can find my submission here. Here is a brief excerpt:   Henry VIII clauses are constitutionally exceptional and exceptionable. Several examples can be given from jurisdictions with written and unwritten constitutions. […] Read more

President Trump’s Executive Order on immigration derives its authority from the following statutory provision: Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall […] Read more

American public lawyers have found themselves a little bit short of material in recent times. With Antonin Scalia’s seat on the Supreme Court of the United States still unfilled months after his death, the eight-member Court has released few high-profile decisions. For instance, in the eagerly anticipated litigation on President Obama’s immigration reforms, the Court […] Read more

Readers will be interested to note that the bill that responds to the UK Supreme Court’s judgment in Miller has now been published. The European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill contains one substantive section, which provides: (1) The Prime Minister may notify, under Article 50(2) of the Treaty on European Union, the United Kingdom’s intention […] Read more

From the UK Supreme Court’s decision this morning in Miller it is quite clear that legislation is required to authorise the triggering of Article 50. But what form should such legislation take? The majority decision does not give much explicit guidance. At para. 86, we are told that there must be “domestic sanction” in “appropriate […] Read more