Month: March 2021

Waiting for the (free) bus to come

Posted on by foluke.adebisi

by Antonia Layard, Professor of Law, University of Bristol Law School

In Scotland, children and young people will have free bus travel in 2021. They join children and young people in London who also have free travel, seeing off an attempt to take the concession away through a feisty #don’tzapthezip campaign last year. Since 2008, older and disabled people have even greater concessions, able to catch a bus anywhere in England after 9.30am on weekdays as well as  all day at weekends and on bank holidays, receiving subsidised travel as part of the English National Concessionary Travel Scheme (ENCTS).

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Minority report(ing) on vaccinations: Who are the priorities and the dilemma of protection

Posted on by foluke.adebisi

By Ben Kassten, Vice Chancellor’s Fellow, Law School.

By Daniel Paquet

Against a backdrop of disproportionate morbidity and mortality from COVID-19, the need to prioritise and protect ethnic and religious minorities as part of the UK’s new vaccine programme has been the focus of recent media, public health and government attention. My question is who is considered a ‘priority’ and how can public health bodies engage productively and sensitively with ethnic and religious minorities.  (more…)

A Paean to Judicial (Self) Restraint: The UK Supreme Court Shamima Begum Decision

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by Devyani Prabhat, Professor, Law School, University of Bristol

The Supreme Court has refused permission for Shamima Begum, who left the UK as a 15-year-old British schoolgirl for Syria in 2015, to come back to the UK so that she can effectively challenge the removal of her citizenship (decision dated 26th February 2021; [2021] UKSC 7). Begum was found in a camp in Syria two years back. The Home Secretary removed her British citizenship soon thereafter, arguing that she has eligibility for Bangladeshi citizenship, and would not be left stateless without British citizenship. (more…)

Stop Period Shaming: A Campus Movement or Ethical Care?

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Prof. Xinyu Wang (China University of Political Science and Law) and He Xiao (a law PhD student at the University of Bristol)

Photo Marco Verch

Since October 2020, a “Stop Period Shaming” campaign has been quietly taking place within universities in China. It all started in early 2020, during China’s fight against the COVID-19, with various socially sponsored donations of medical supplies and an extreme shortage of feminine period products. The female doctors and nurses, who made up more than half of the medical team that went to Wuhan, overcame their cycles’ fragility and fought like the male doctors. (more…)