Law

Copyright often seems like a joke. Most of us infringe it constantly, and publicly, without a second’s thought. With the advent of the internet, the public uploads countless videos, music, photographs, art, and a whole host of other things without the permission of the creators. Even large organisations get away with it. A few years ago, for example, the National Trust posted a picture of an unusual, heart-shaped honeycomb to social media, claiming it had been made by bees at one of their properties. It went viral, but it wasn’t actually theirs. Luckily for them, the beekeeper who took the photograph didn’t press the issue. Even creators, whom the system was created to benefit, are often blissfully unaware of the rules.

We're closing 2020 by republishing our ten most-read articles of the year. Here's No. 8: Steven Barrett on Germany and international law Boris Johnson's proposal to break international law 'in a specific and limited way' has sparked uproar. But do you remember when the UK broke the Geneva Convention? Oh. Well we did. The government-ratified Geneva Convention on the Sea came into effect in Britain on 10 September 1964. From then the UK was bound forever by the treaty and bound by international law. On 25 September 1964, we were not. No explanation was given. No explanation was asked.

‘Terms and conditions will apply.’ That, or something near it, was Dan Rosenfield's initial response when Boris Johnson invited him to become Chief of Staff in No.10. Naturally, Mr Rosenfield was tempted. But he wanted assurances that he would have the authority to run a serious political outfit. He was not interested in becoming a zoo-keeper. That was not a problem. The zoo has been closed down. The Dominic Cummings era is over. Boris's willingness to hire a completely different character, following the appointment of Simon Case as Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Civil Service, suggests that the PM can recognise and value seriousness in others, even if he himself has problems in displaying it. Yet there are bigger issues in play.

Could British residents be forced to have a Covid-19 vaccine? Yesterday Health Secretary Matt Hancock refused to rule out mandatory inoculation, telling TalkRadio that the government would ‘have to watch what happens and… make judgments accordingly’. His comments have sparked questions about how realistic the prospect of mandatory vaccination is in the UK, or what restrictions people could face – with MP Tom Tugendhat suggesting that the unvaccinated could be banned from workplaces – if they refuse to get inoculated. If a policy of mandatory vaccination were to be carried out in the UK, what might it look like?

Robert Buckland - 'I will resign' if government breaks law in 'unacceptable' way The Justice Secretary Robert Buckland was put on the spot this morning over the government's proposed Internal Market Bill, which is due to be introduced to the House of Commons tomorrow. The bill intends to override aspects of the Northern Ireland Protocol – a part of the official Withdrawal Agreement – to give ministers the right to modify rules on customs, if there is no final trade deal agreed by December. Andrew Marr quizzed Buckland about whether using these powers would breach international law: https://twitter.com/BBCPolitics/status/1305068709183131648?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw AM: Is that the moment that [you] resign from the government – if we break international law?

For the Scottish National party, the phrase ‘nanny state’ is not so much a criticism as an aspiration. This is the party that wanted to assign a state guardian to every child born in Scotland through its ‘named person’ scheme, only to be thwarted by the Supreme Court. Under Nicola Sturgeon’s leadership, there have been repeated attempts to regulate the eating and drinking habits of people, including proposed bans on two-for-one pizza deals and minimum pricing on cheaper alcoholic drinks. It makes sense, then, that the party’s paternalism should extend to the question of free speech.

There has been an emotional response to the case of Shamima Begum, quite rightly. It is not clear to me that lawyers are better equipped than politicians to navigate such emotions, but sadly we live in an age which is increasingly demanding legal answers to political questions. What is perhaps surprising is that, with uncharacteristic vigour, our Court of Appeal have jumped headfirst into the maelstrom. The Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) – created to consider cases like these – found against Ms Begum in February, which seemed largely uncontroversial at the time.

It is the law that makes us 'the best of animals.' So saying, Aristotle had a very specific conception of justice in mind: 'The law is reason free from passion.' Committed to live under it, mankind is 'perfected.' There is, however, a flip side. 'When separated from law and justice,' as happens when passion overwhelms reason, mankind 'is the worst of all.' Which would make this the worst of times. The streets of America’s greatest cities are aflame. Some of it is anarchic. Most of it is methodical mayhem. Cultural Marxists are not merely desecrating statuary, they are erasing history. Naturally, this is done under the guise of ideals such as ‘anti-racism’, ‘anti-fascism’, and ‘equality’.

As a lawyer, I am firmly against the politicisation of law. It is important to remember that we who serve justice do so for everyone - not merely for people we like or to advance political causes. ‘Lockdown’ has so far been three different legal regimes, and for ease, I’ll restrict myself here to the first one. Under that, we all had the power in reg. 6(1) to leave the house whenever we had a “reasonable excuse”. What it said was “During the emergency period, no person may leave the place where they are living without reasonable excuse”. What that means is: provided we had a reasonable excuse, we could leave the house. It was not then for parliament to tell us what a reasonable excuse is. It is for the courts.

Boris Johnson's pledge to fund an extra 20,000 police officers was a serious sign of intent, a game-changing moment for policing and a huge boost for law and order on Britain’s streets. But how can these new officers quickly reverse the spike in knife and violent crime that has plagued Britain? There are six pressing challenges that the new Home Secretary Priti Patel needs to address if she is to succeed in her strategy to crack down on crime: increasing crime levels, greater demands and reduced budgets for police; decline in neighbourhood officers; new national security threats; a disempowered police workforce and a policing model outpaced by technology. It is clear that neighbourhood policing is where the vast bulk of the new resources need to be focused.