Articles tagged as Public Law
Latest Law Papers tagged as Public Law
Including law essays, dissertations, problem questions, case summaries, and law lectures, suitable for law students working towards their LLB / LLM qualifications or those studying for the new SQE.
Nuclear Decommissioning Authority v EnergySolutions EU Ltd [2017] UKSC 34
Case Summaries
The Supreme Court decided preliminary issues on damages for breach of the public procurement rules in the award of a contract to decommission Magnox power stations. It held that European Union law requires a breach to be sufficiently serious before damages are recoverable and that the Public Contracts Regulations 2006 implement that minimum without going […] ...
Last modified: 3rd Nov 2026
Poshteh v Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea [2017] UKSC 36
Case Summaries
When deciding whether a homeless applicant could reasonably accept a particular home, how should a reviewing officer weigh the applicant’s fears and the medical evidence? Ms Poshteh’s appeal raised that question and a second one about the right to a fair hearing under article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Ms Poshteh had […] ...
Last modified: 3rd Nov 2026
R (A and B) v Secretary of State for Health [2017] UKSC 41
Case Summaries
In 2012 a girl from Northern Ireland travelled to England for an abortion that was lawful there. She and her mother had to raise the cost privately. Their case asked whether the Secretary of State for Health had a duty to make that treatment available free on the English NHS. It concerned the funding arrangements […] ...
Last modified: 3rd Nov 2026
R (on the application of Hemming (t/a Simply Pleasure Ltd) and others) v Westminster City Council [2017] UKSC 50
Case Summaries
Westminster could charge successful licensees for enforcing its licensing scheme. Could the licensees keep the money the council had refunded because it collected that fee too early? The Supreme Court separated the unlawful demand for money on application from the lawful fee due once a licence was granted. This judgment follows the Supreme Court’s decision […] ...
Last modified: 3rd Nov 2026
R (UNISON) v Lord Chancellor [2017] UKSC 51
Case Summaries
A worker owed a few hundred pounds in wages might be able to find the money for a tribunal fee and still have no sensible reason to bring a claim. That distinction between theoretical and practical access to justice lay at the heart of UNISON’s challenge to the 2013 employment tribunal fees. Until the Employment […] ...
Last modified: 3rd Nov 2026
R (Forge Care Homes Ltd and others) v Cardiff and Vale University Health Board and others [2017] UKSC 56
Case Summaries
The Supreme Court decided how far the NHS, rather than local authorities or care home residents, must pay for registered nurses working in Welsh care homes. Section 49 of the Health and Social Care Act 2001 stops local authorities from providing or arranging “nursing care by a registered nurse”, but it neither covers everything a […] ...
Last modified: 3rd Nov 2026
R (HC) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and others [2017] UKSC 73
Case Summaries
In 2017 the Court considered a parent whose right to live in the UK derived from her British children’s EU citizenship. Local authority support enabled the family to stay together in the UK. The question was whether that right also entitled the parent to the same mainstream benefits as a British national. HC was the […] ...
Last modified: 3rd Nov 2026
Scotch Whisky Association and others v The Lord Advocate and another [2017] UKSC 76
Case Summaries
Scotland proposed a floor price for each unit of alcohol sold in shops and other licensed premises. The trade bodies challenging it accepted that protecting health was a legitimate aim. Their strongest objection was that a tax increase could achieve the same aim while interfering less with trade. The outcome turned on whose consumption each […] ...
Last modified: 3rd Nov 2026
R (Black) v Secretary of State for Justice [2017] UKSC 81
Case Summaries
Mr Black wanted prisoners to be able to report second-hand smoke to the local authority through a confidential telephone line. Whether the authority could act depended on a question of statutory interpretation: did Parliament intend the smoking ban in the Health Act 2006 to bind the Crown, which operated the prison? Mr Black was a […] ...
Last modified: 3rd Nov 2026
R v Secretary of State for Justice [2016] UKSC 2
Case Summaries
In R (C) v Secretary of State for Justice, the Supreme Court had to decide whether a patient could keep his identity private when challenging a decision about leave from hospital. Anonymity depended on the risks that identification posed in his particular case. The appeal did not revive the challenge to the Secretary of State’s […] ...
Last modified: 3rd Nov 2026
Mirga v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2016] UKSC 1
Case Summaries
A Polish national refused income support and an Austrian national refused homelessness housing assistance argued that United Kingdom residence conditions breached their EU rights. The Supreme Court held that neither had a right of residence as a worker or a self-sufficient person, so they could be excluded from those benefits. Refusing the benefits was not […] ...
Last modified: 3rd Nov 2026
Youssef v Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs [2016] UKSC 3
Case Summaries
In 2005 the Foreign Secretary, sitting on a United Nations sanctions committee, lifted the United Kingdom’s hold on listing Mr Youssef, an Egyptian national living in Britain, as a person associated with Al-Qaida. The listing led to an asset freeze. The Supreme Court dismissed his appeal, holding that the Secretary of State did not have […] ...
Last modified: 3rd Nov 2026
The Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime v Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Co (Europe) Ltd and others [2016] UKSC 18
Case Summaries
During the August 2011 riots, a fire started by rioters destroyed the Sony DADC warehouse in Enfield and the stock and equipment inside it. Insurers and businesses claimed compensation from the police authority under the Riot (Damages) Act 1886, including for consequential losses such as lost rent and lost profits. The Supreme Court held that […] ...
Last modified: 3rd Nov 2026
In the matter of an application by JR55 for Judicial Review (Northern Ireland) [2016] UKSC 22
Case Summaries
A general practitioner refused to pay £10,000 which the Northern Ireland Commissioner for Complaints had recommended to the widow of a patient who died of a heart attack. The Supreme Court dismissed the Commissioner's appeal. He could not properly make that recommendation, or threaten a special report to the Assembly, where the widow had sought […] ...
Last modified: 3rd Nov 2026
Lee-Hirons v Secretary of State for Justice [2016] UKSC 46
Case Summaries
The Supreme Court considered what explanation must be given when the Secretary of State recalls a conditionally discharged restricted patient to hospital. Telling Mr Lee-Hirons only that his mental health had deteriorated was legally sufficient at the moment of recall. Later conceded failures to give a fuller explanation within three days, and in writing, breached […] ...
Last modified: 3rd Nov 2026
R (on the application of Bancoult (No 2)) v Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs [2016] UKSC 35
Case Summaries
In 2008 the House of Lords, by a majority, upheld a 2004 Order removing any right of abode in the British Indian Ocean Territory, relying on a 2002 study which said that long-term resettlement of the outer Chagos Islands was likely to be prohibitively expensive. Mr Bancoult later asked the Supreme Court to set that […] ...
Last modified: 3rd Nov 2026
R (Public Law Project) v Lord Chancellor [2016] UKSC 39
Case Summaries
The Supreme Court held that the Lord Chancellor could not introduce a residence test for civil legal aid by a statutory instrument amending the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012. The draft order would have removed most civil legal aid from people who failed lawful-residence conditions. That was not a power to […] ...
Last modified: 3rd Nov 2026
R (Carmichael, Daly, A and Rutherford) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2016] UKSC 58
Case Summaries
The Supreme Court held that the housing benefit under-occupation rules unlawfully discriminated against Mrs Carmichael, who could not share a bedroom with her husband because of disability, and against the Rutherford family, whose disabled grandson needed an overnight carer. Those cases were not reasonably distinguishable from situations the regulations already exempted. The rules did not […] ...
Last modified: 3rd Nov 2026
The Christian Institute and others v The Lord Advocate [2016] UKSC 51
Case Summaries
The UK Supreme Court held that the information-sharing provisions of Scotland’s named person scheme were outside the Scottish Parliament’s legislative competence. Part 4 of the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 required public bodies to share information about a child’s wellbeing with a named person. Those provisions interfered with the article 8 rights of […] ...
Last modified: 3rd Nov 2026
Hastings Borough Council v Manolete Partners Plc [2016] UKSC 50
Case Summaries
In June 2006 Hastings Borough Council used an emergency power to close much of Hastings Pier after engineers warned that crowd-loading might cause a collapse. Stylus Sports Ltd, which ran a bingo hall and an amusement arcade near the entrance, claimed compensation for the business lost during that closure. The Supreme Court held that Stylus […] ...
Last modified: 3rd Nov 2026
MB v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2016] UKSC 53
Case Summaries
MB, registered male at birth, had lived as a woman and undergone gender reassignment surgery, but remained married. She was refused a state retirement pension at 60 because, without ending that marriage, she could not obtain a full gender recognition certificate and was still treated as a man for pensionable age. The Supreme Court was […] ...
Last modified: 3rd Nov 2026
Habib Khan v General Pharmaceutical Council [2016] UKSC 64
Case Summaries
A review of a professional suspension cannot extend it merely because the original panel thought the longest period it could impose was too short to reflect the gravity of the misconduct. The Supreme Court so held where a Glasgow pharmacist, Habib Khan, had been removed from the register after convictions arising from domestic violence. It […] ...
Last modified: 3rd Nov 2026
