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The recent Supreme Court decision in Vince v Wyatt aroused much media interest because it allowed an ex-wife to proceed with a financial claim against her ex-husband, who became a millionaire years after they divorced. The judgement is available at http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKSC/2015/14.html In this video Dr Brian Sloan describes the reasoning behind the decision focusing on the limits of

The conviction of Oscar Pistorius for committing culpable homicide in relation to the shooting of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp made worldwide news. In this video Professor Christopher Forsyth reflects on his previous comments (see https://www.law.cam.ac.uk/press/news/2015/01/law-focus-mental-element-murder-reflections-pistorius-case-christopher-forsyth) about the original conviction, and

On 9th April 2024 the European Court of Human Rights delivered Grand Chamber rulings in three cases relating to climate change: Carême v. France - https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-233261 Duarte Agostinho and Others v. Portugal and 32 Others - https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-233174 Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz and Others v. Switzerland - https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-233206 In

At the 2012 Conservative Party conference, new Justice Secretary Chris Grayling announced plans to amend the criminal law to ensure that even householders who react in a way that may seem disproportionate in the cold light of day will be protected from prosecution. This reopened a long-running discussion about the balance of legal rights between the home owner and those trespassing onto the

This video discusses six issues arising out of the recent statement of Prime Minister David Cameron to the House of Commons entitled “Prime Minister’s Response to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee on the Extension of Offensive British Military Operations to Syria”

The trial of Oscar Pistorius for the murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp aroused worldwide media interest. From the beginning Pistorius claimed that he had no intent to kill Reeva because when he fired the fatal shots her he thought he was firing at an intruder. And so whether he had the necessary intent to kill became a crucial issue in his trial. In this video Professor Christopher Forsyth

This video discusses explores some aspects of the important decision of the Supreme Court in Nicklinson (R (Nicklinson and another) v Ministry of Justice; R (AM) v The DPP [2014] UKSC 38) focusing on the minority judgement of Baroness Hale. The case can be found at http://supremecourt.uk/decided-cases/docs/UKSC_2013_0235_Judgment.pdf The case is also discussed on Nicola's blog at https://blog.fitz

In an interview with the BBC yesterday (23 July 2015), US President Barack Obama argued that having "the United Kingdom in the European Union gives us much greater confidence about the strength of the transatlantic union and is part of the cornerstone of institutions built after World War II that has made the world safer and more prosperous." He continued: "And we want to make sure that United

The House of Lords Reform Bill, which is currently before Parliament, is the latest of many attempts to reform the upper chamber of the UK Parliament. It is over a hundred years since the enactment of the Parliament Act 1911, which changed the balance of power between the Lords and the Commons, but which was intended only as a stopgap measure pending the transformation of the Lords into an

The Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill seeks to circumvent the UK Supreme Court's recent judgment holding the Government's Rwanda policy, concerning the removal of certain asylum-seekers, to Rwanda. The Bill contemplates placing the UK in breach of its international obligations, including under the European Convention on Human Rights and the Refugee Convention, while forming part of a

The Effect of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 on Legal Aid for Family Cases. The legal aid system was created in 1949 as part of the development of the post-war Welfare State, alongside the National Health Service. It provides funding both for legal advice and out-of-court representation by lawyers, for example in negotiating the settlement of disputes, and --

At the end of November 2016, the British Government published an open consultation green paper on corporate governance reform, seeking views on proposals relating to executive pay, employee and customer voice, and corporate governance in large private businesses. The consultation is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/corporate-governance-reform In this latest edition of the

The government has recently announced that it intends to quash by legislation convictions of hundreds of subpostmasters who had been prosecuted by the Post Office for, variously, theft, fraud and false accounting. This follows a number of appeals which have already succeeded where it has been accepted that convictions that are based on generated by the Horizon software are necessarily unsafe.

On Monday 13 June, the UK Government published the text of the proposed Northern Ireland Protocol Bill. The Northern Ireland Protocol forms part of the Withdrawal Agreement between the United Kingdom and the European Union. The Protocol creates a special legal position for Northern Ireland in the light of its particular political circumstances, effectively enabling Northern Ireland to remain

This video discusses C-131/12 Google Spain; Google v Agencia Española de Protección de Datos (AEPD), Mario Costeja González (2014), the Court of Justice of the European Union's long awaited "right to be forgotten" case which examined the rights of individuals mentioned in public domain material indexed on Google search. This Court decision enunciated both the scope and breadth of data

Prior to the 2015 general election, the Conservative Party undertook in its manifesto to repeal the Human Rights Act 1998 and to enact a British Bill of Rights. In this video, Mark Elliott addresses three key questions raised by these proposals: First, what lies behind the desire of some politicians to secure the Human Rights Act’s repeal? Second, how might a British Bill of Rights differ from