Author: legalresearch

Retained EU law in the EU (Withdrawal) Bill: A Reaction to the House of Lords Constitution Committee Report

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By Prof Michael Ford QC, Professor of Law, and Prof Phil Syrpis, Professor of EU Law (University of Bristol Law School).*

On 29 January the House of Lords Constitution Committee delivered a withering assessment of the EU (Withdrawal) Bill, describing it as ‘fundamentally flawed from a constitutional perspective in multiple ways’. Alongside trenchant criticisms of the delegated powers in the Bill, and the effects for the devolution settlement, the Committee’s Report focuses on the definition and status of ‘retained EU law’.

The aim of this short post is to explore some of the implications of the Committee’s approach to this vexed question. If, as the Committee recommends, ‘retained EU law’ is defined narrowly, it will have the virtue of restricting the scope of the Henry VIII Henpowers in clause 7, which only apply  to operational problems and deficiencies in relation to ‘retained EU law’. But a narrow definition gives rise to problems elsewhere. ‘Retained EU law’ is also the definition used for the purpose of the continuing application of existing CJEU case law and retained general principles of EU law under clause 6. Questions as to the validity, meaning and effect of pre-Brexit UK law which is not ‘retained EU law’ are therefore excluded from these interpretative provisions. In the Bill as worded, it is not clear if this difficulty is resolved by the operation of the principle of supremacy of EU law referred to in clause 5, the meaning and effect of which is very opaque. The Committee recommends that the principle of the supremacy of EU law be abandoned altogether; but if its approach were to be followed, there would be no EU principles which would apply to any law currently in the field of EU law which is not ‘retained EU law’. The implications are assessed by reference to the Equality Act 2010 (EqA). (more…)

Sanctuary Scholarships as a commitment and first step towards truly inclusive access to higher education

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By Dr Katie Bales, Lecturer in Law (University of Bristol Law School).*

Sanctuary Scholarship rep and undergraduate student Stella Ogunlade presenting at a conference on the importance of sanctuary scholarships.

On 8 June 2016, the University of Bristol announced the launch of the ‘Sanctuary Scholarship scheme’ which provides access to higher education for forced migrants facing major barriers in accessing education. In doing so, Bristol joined a cohort of like-minded Universities seeking to provide space and sanctuary for those forced to flee their countries of origin. At present, for example, there are approximately 40 Universities in the UK offering scholarships to forced migrants.

This seemingly noble position is a necessary one as there are many obstacles facing forced migrants wishing to pursue University education – the most significant of which is that student loans are not available to: asylum seekers claiming refugee status; refused asylum seekers; or those with discretionary leave to remain in the UK. As the majority of these persons are also prohibited from working, University fees remove any possibility of their accessing higher education. (more…)

Planning Law and the Housing Crisis in Bristol

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By Mr Ed Burtonshaw-Gunn, PhD Researcher and Land Law Tutor (University of Bristol Law School).

The housing crisis ignites local and national media coverage. It is near impossible to pick up a newspaper or turn on the evening news without reading or hearing a story about the nation’s obsession with (or need for) housing. Soaring house prices, new housebuilding targets championed by politicians or think tanks, or calls to abolish on the much-loved green belt land protection are all on the news agenda. Yet, while covering these stories the media often focus on the effects of the housing crisis, and not the root cause(s). My research is examining how planning law, policy, and practice, shape the production of housing in Bristol, and argues that the housing crisis can be fundamentally reduced to one major factor. For 40 years, the supply of new housing has failed to meet nation’s demand.

On the 6th December, I was invited to present my research to the Property Network of the Bristol Junior Chamber. The audience was made up of a range of Bristol housing stakeholders; property and planning lawyers, planning engagement and public-relations consultants, and housing association managers. The presentation covered three areas; the national housing crisis, house building in Bristol, and a prominent finding from my research, the importance and methods of delivering affordable housing in Bristol. (more…)

New book on enforcement of labour standards through public procurement

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By Dr Albert Sanchez-Graells, Reader in Economic Law (University of Bristol Law School).

Smart procurement aims to leverage public buying power in pursuit of social, environmental and innovation goals. Socially-orientated smart procurement has been a controversial issue under EU law. The extent to which the Court of Justice (ECJ) has supported or rather constrained its development has been intensely debated by academics and practitioners alike. After the slow development of a seemingly permissive approach, the ECJ case law reached an apparent turning point a decade ago in the often criticised judgments in Rüffert and Laval, which left a number of open questions.

More recently, Bundesdruckerei and RegioPost have furthered the ECJ case law on socially orientated smart procurement and aimed to clarify the limits within which Member States can use it to enforce labour standards. This case law opens up additional possibilities, but it also creates legal uncertainty concerning the interaction of the EU rules on the posting of workers, public procurement and fundamental internal market freedoms. These developments have been magnified by the reform of the EU public procurement rules in 2014.

This freshly-released book assesses the limits that the revised EU rules and the more recent ECJ case law impose on socially-orientated smart procurement and, more generally, critically reflects on potential future developments in this area of intersection of several strands of EU economic law. The book includes four contributions by Bristol scholars, including Prof Phil Syrpis‘ perspective from an EU constitutional law standpoint, Prof Tonia Novitz‘s reflections on collective bargaining and social dumping in posting and procurement, Ms Nina Boeger‘s thoughts on public procurement and business for value, and my own views on the competition and State aid implications of the use of procurement to enforce labour standards.

The collection of essays includes additional insights by colleagues at Oxford, Cambridge, Turin, Birmingham, Leicester, Warsaw, and the UNCITRAL, and is the result of a conference held at the University of Bristol Law School in May 2016. The papers have been constantly updated and include an assessment of the agreed revision of the Posted Workers Directive in the fall of 2017.

Full details of the book are as follows: A Sanchez-Graells (ed), Smart Public Procurement and Labour Standards–Pushing the Discussion after RegioPost (Hart, 2018).

Sex and the City Culture

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By Ms Roseanne Russell, Lecturer in Law (University of Bristol Law School).

Last week’s reports of the Presidents Club charity dinner once again revealed the troubling culture of the City: ‘that weird mix of cutting-edge high finance and caveman misogyny’ (Patrick Jenkins, Financial Times, 24 January 2018). Journalist Madison Marriage’s exposé recounted how 130 ‘hostesses’ were recruited for a fundraising dinner to be attended by 360 men from the worlds of politics, business and finance (Financial Times, 23 January 2018). Although it is not clear who attended, press reports have stated that the guest-list included senior executives from well-known corporate groups, bankers and hedge fund managers.

The well-intentioned aim of the evening’s auction was to raise money for charity. According to the Club’s website, ‘over the years, esteemed members of the investment, real estate, sports, entertainment, motor industry and fashion world have come together to support and raise millions of pounds for the trust in its work to help as many worthy children’s causes.’ Marriage’s report, however, painted a picture of the highly sexualised City culture that Linda McDowell so vividly captured in her 1997 book Capital Culture and by the Fawcett Society in its 2009 report on Sexism and the City. While ‘hostesses’ were apparently groped, subjected to lewd comments, and, in one instance, asked to join an attendee in his bedroom, the men attempted to outdo each other’s bids for lots including ‘an exclusive private night’ at a strip club, plastic surgery to ‘take years off your life or add spice to your wife’, and a combined lot of lunch with the Foreign Secretary and tea with the Governor of the Bank of England. The winning bid for this last lot was reportedly £130,000. The hostesses were asked to dress as though attending a ‘smart, sexy place’ and asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement (“NDA”) relating to the evening. (more…)

Will Judicial Deference to Medical Opinion Undermine the Patient-Focused Standard of Informed Consent to Medical Treatment?

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By Mrs Louise Austin, Associate Teacher in Medical Law and PhD Candidate in Law (1+3 ESRC) (University of Bristol Law School).

© Rookuzz..

Following the UK Supreme Court’s 2015 decision in Montgomery v Lanarkshire Health Board, which moved away from a model of medical paternalism and established a model of patient autonomy for informed consent to medical treatment, the High Court has recently had the opportunity to apply the new test in Grimstone v Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust. This blog post provides a summary of my case commentary in the Medical Law Review exploring this decision and its implications, which is now available as ‘Grimstone v Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust: (It’s Not) Hip To Be Square’. (more…)

Why the current DPP must be replaced with immediate effect and a royal commission on disclosure is urgently needed [with postscript]

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By Dr Michael Naughton, Reader in Sociology and Law (University of Bristol Law School and  School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies (SPAIS)).

Last Thursday (18 January 2018), the Director of Public Prosecutors (DDP), Alison Saunders, made the remarkable statement on BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme that ‘no innocent people are in prison because of failures to disclose vital evidence, despite admitting there is a “systemic issue”.’

Whatever her precise intentions, there is little doubt that the most senior prosecutor in England and Wales’s wilful refusal to acknowledge the reality of miscarriages of justice and that innocent people can be and are wrongly convicted and imprisoned only stoked the burgeoning crisis in the existing disclosure regime that governs alleged criminal investigations and prosecutions.

Variously described as ‘ill informed’, ‘complacent’ and ‘part of the current problem’, in this blog I critically evaluate the DPP’s statement in the context of her duties under the terms of the Code for Crown Prosecutors and the perennial problem of miscarriages of justice and wrongful imprisonment in England and Wales.

Moreover, in the context of a growing lack of confidence in the DPP and the disclosure regime in alleged criminal investigations and prosecutions, I will make the case that the DPP should be immediately replaced and for governmental intervention in the form of a royal commission to get to the heart of the apparent problems and devise solutions to fix a system that is clearly broken and in urgent need of repair. (more…)

Six myths about the ‘Prevent duty’ in universities

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By Prof Steven Greer, Professor of Human Rights, and Dr Lindsey Bell, Lecturer in Law (University of Bristol Law School).

The Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 (CTSA) has aroused great controversy by imposing a legal duty upon schools, universities, the NHS and other institutions to ‘have due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism’ (the ‘Prevent duty’). However, in an article published in the current issue of the academic journal Public Law, ‘Counter-Terrorist Law in British Universities: A Review of the “Prevent” Debate’, we argue that the campaign against the Act and the duty in higher education rests largely upon myths, six of which are particularly prevalent. In this blog, we provide a summary of those myths (you can also watch a short video outlining the main arguments). (more…)

Contractual interpretation: from the Tudors to Lord Hoffmann

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By Ms Joanna McCunn, Lecturer in Law (University of Bristol Law School).

© Folger Shakespeare Library

Contractual interpretation continues to be a controversial topic. In a recent speech, Lord Sumption attacked Lord Hoffmann’s judgment in Investors Compensation Scheme [1998] 1 WLR 896, still the leading case in the area. For Lord Hoffmann, the key question was what a reasonable person would understand the parties to have intended by their contract, even if this was something different to the ordinary meaning of the words they had used. Lord Sumption, however, argued that the courts must give primacy to the meaning of the words.

It is sometimes suggested that Lord Hoffmann’s approach is an aberration in the common law of contract, which has consistently prioritised the meaning of the words over the parties’ apparent intentions. In fact, however, it bears a striking resemblance to the approach taken by the courts in sixteenth century England, where a very similar debate about interpretation was playing out. In a recently-published book chapter*, I explore this history and what it means for contract lawyers today. (more…)

Do arbitral errors on the law governing the merits of a dispute referred to arbitration justify setting aside or non-enforcement of the award?

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By Prof Jonathan Hill, Professor of Law (University of Bristol Law School).

© Pedro Ribeiro Simões

Assume that contracting parties (C and R) agree that their contract is governed by English law and that any dispute arising in connection with the contract should be referred to arbitration. A dispute arises which C refers to arbitration. An arbitral tribunal is appointed and, in due course, the tribunal renders an award ordering R to pay damages for breach of contract. R seeks either to have the award set aside (by the courts at the seat of arbitration under the lex arbitri) or to resist enforcement of the award (in another country under the New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (‘NYC’)) on the basis either that the tribunal applied French law to the dispute, instead of English law, or that the tribunal decided the dispute ex aequo et bono (ie, by the application of an equitable standard), rather than through the application of legal rules and principles. In such circumstances, does R have a legitimate ground for having the award set aside or for resisting enforcement?

If the seat of arbitration is in a country which has implemented the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration (‘Model Law’ or ‘ML’), such as Singapore, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Australia or Canada, this question should receive the same answer whether the context is setting aside or enforcement under the NYC: this is because the grounds for setting aside under article 34 ML are almost identical to the grounds on which recognition and enforcement may be refused under article V NYC. This blog post discusses this issue in depth. (more…)