scholarly journals United Kingdom Patent Decisions 2020

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robyn Trigg
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
High Court ◽  
The Public ◽  
Court Of Appeal ◽  
Selection Of

AbstractThis report highlights a selection of the most important UK patent decisions from 2020, including: two Supreme Court judgments (one concerning insufficiency and one concerning FRAND); two Court of Appeal judgments (considering SPC fees and Arrow declarations); and four High Court judgments (regarding the Crown use exception, injunctions and the public interest, the treatment of experts in patents trials and technical primers, and interim injunctions).

scholarly journals Disclosure in Centre for Child Law v the Governing Body of Hoërskool Fochville

2017 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Michael Tsele
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
High Court ◽  
Governing Body ◽  
Foreign Law ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Children's Interests ◽  
Court Of Appeal ◽  
Do So

When a party refers to evidentiary material in the course of litigation, ordinarily this party is under an obligation to make this evidence available to his opponent, particularly when called upon to do so. However, over the years various principles have developed which make this obligation subject to certain limitations. The Fochville cases dealt with a situation where a party to litigation sought to withhold certain information from its adversary, notwithstanding the fact that the material had been relied upon as a ground for the institution of the litigation. This note critiques the judgments of the High Court and in particular the Supreme Court of Appeal in this dispute. In so doing, it draws on useful foreign law to argue that the Supreme Court of Appeal's judgment was an unfortunate one in that the court failed to clarify with reasonable precision the circumstances in which a party to litigation involving children's interests may legitimately resist disclosing evidence to his adversary, in which the party resisting disclosure invokes the principle of public interest immunity. In this regard, the note concludes that the High Court's overall approach to the issue is to be preferred.       

Procedure for Disclosing Witness Statements to the Defence in Namibia

1998 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 139-139
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
The State ◽  
Legal Representative ◽  
High Court ◽  
The Public ◽  
Witness Statements

In this case the Namibian Supreme Court made a declaratory order to provide guidance in prosecutions in which an accused might seek to obtain the contents of police dockets. Amongst other things, it stated that in prosecutions before the High Court, an accused (or legal representative) is ordinarily entitled to the information contained in the police docket relating to the case prepared by the prosecution against him/her, including all witness statements. The state is entitled to withhold any information contained in the docket if it satisfied the court on a balance of probabilities that it had reasonable grounds for believing that the disclosure of such information might reasonably impede the ends of justice or otherwise be against the public interest.

A Civil Law Perespective on the Supreme Court and its Functions

2019 ◽  
Vol 81 ◽  
pp. 44-86
Author(s):  
Aleš Galič
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Civil Law ◽  
Important Criterion ◽  
Private Interest ◽  
Supreme Courts ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Times ◽  
Selection Of

The text presents the issue of the Supreme Court’s functions from the perspective of civil law countries. The author argues that the division into cassation, revision and appeal is not an adequate point of reference enabling to define those functions. The author asserts that the most important criterion is whether the Supreme Court acts overwhelmingly in public or private interest. The assessment of that criterion should be made on the basis of the methods of selection of cases by the Supreme Court. What is essential is whether the selection is based on public aims or whether it simply aims at solving a given case accurately. It may be argued that as a result of reforms introduced in the last few years, the majorityof civil law countries have focusedon the implementation of the public rather than private functions. The author concludes that the public function of supreme courts is of a completely different significance than in the times of socialism. The public interest is combined with private interest as it refers to the situation of parties – not parties to the specific proceedings, but all parties which are going to engage in litigation in the future.

A Note on Mandela v Executors, Estate Nelson Mandela 2018 (4) SA 86 (SCA) and the Conundrum around the Customary Marriage between Nelson and Winnie Mandela

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sipho Stephen Nkosi
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Customary Law ◽  
Eastern Cape ◽  
High Court ◽  
Nelson Mandela ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Court Of Appeal

The note is about the appeal lodged by the late Mrs Winnie Madikizela-Mandela to the SCA against the decision of the Eastern Cape High Court, Mthatha, dismissing her application for review in 2014. In that application, she sought to have reviewed the decision of the Minister of Land Affairs, to transfer the now extended and renovated Qunu property to Mr Mandela and to register it in his name. Because her application was out of time, she also applied for condonation of her delay in making the application. The court a quo dismissed both applications with costs, holding that there had been an undue delay on her part. Mrs Mandela then approached the Supreme Court of Appeal, for special leave to appeal the decision of the court a quo. Two questions fell for decision by the SCA: whether there was an unreasonable and undue delay on Mrs Mandela’s part in instituting review proceedings; and whether the order for costs was appropriate in the circumstances of the case. The SCA held that there was indeed an unreasonable delay (of seventeen years). Shongwe AP (with Swain, Mathopo JJA, Mokgothloa and Rodgers AJJA concurring) held that the fact that there had been an undue delay does not necessarily mean that an order for costs should, of necessity, particularly where, as in this case, the other litigant is the state. It is the writer’s view that two other ancillary points needed to be raised by counsel and pronounced on by the Court: (a) the lawfulness and regularity of the transfer of the Qunu property to Mr Mandela; and (b) Mrs Mandela’s status as a customary-law widow—in relation to Mr Mandela.

Equity and certainty in contract law

Acta Juridica ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 141-176
Author(s):  
F Brand
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Contract Law ◽  
Constitutional Court ◽  
High Court ◽  
Contractual Relationships ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Court Of Appeal ◽  
Do So

The role of abstract values such as equity and fairness in our law of contract has been the subject of controversy for a number of years. In 2002 the Supreme Court of Appeal took the position that these values do not constitute self-standing grounds for interfering with contractual relationships. Despite this being consistently maintained by the SCA in a number of cases, some High Court judges deviated from this position on the basis that they were permitted to do so by some minority judgments and obiter dicta in the Constitutional Court. The uncertainty thus created has fortunately now been removed by the judgment of the Constitutional Court in Beadica v The Trustees for the Time being of the Oregon Trust.

scholarly journals The Law Regarding Pension Interest in South Africa has been settled! Or has it? With Reference to Ndaba v Ndaba (600/2015) [2016] ZASCA 162

2017 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Motseotsile Clement Marumoagae
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
High Court ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Golden Opportunity ◽  
The Law ◽  
Court Of Appeal

This article reflects on the law relating to pension interest in South Africa. In particular, it assesses whether the Supreme Court of Appeal in Ndaba v Ndaba had adequately clarified how this area of law should be understood. In light of the inconsistent approaches from various divisions of the High Court, it has not always been clear how the courts should interpret the law relating to pension interest in South Africa. In this paper, aspects of this area of law which have been clarified by the Supreme Court of Appeal are highlighted. This paper further demonstrates aspects of this area of law which the Supreme Court of Appeal did not settle and would potentially be subject to future litigation. This paper is based on the premise that while Ndaba v Ndaba is welcomed, the Supreme Court of Appeal nonetheless, missed a golden opportunity to authoritatively provide a basis upon which the law relating to pension interest in South Africa should be understood. 

Psychiatrists and Their Patients — Confidential Information in the Wake of Spycatcher

1992 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 618-623
Author(s):  
Stephen Smith
Keyword(s):  
Public Interest ◽  
Right To Privacy ◽  
Confidential Information ◽  
English Court ◽  
The Public ◽  
Court Of Appeal

This article examines a recent decision of the English Court of Appeal. It concerned a psychiatrist who examined and reported on a convicted murderer in a secure hospital. The report was commissioned by the patient's solicitors as evidence in support of his release. The report was emphatically unfavourable and the doctor insisted that it be revealed to the hospital authorities. The solicitors refused and litigation ensued. The courts were forced to rule on the conflict between the patient's right to privacy and the public interest in revealing the report.

Minou Drouet

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann Jefferson
Keyword(s):  
Public Interest ◽  
Public Perception ◽  
Full Scale ◽  
The Public ◽  
Selection Of ◽  
Book Publication

This chapter examines the controversies surrounding the Minou Drouet affair, with Minou being a previously unknown eight-year-old child poet who had captured public interest. The publisher René Julliard had distributed a selection of her letters and poems in the form of a little pamphlet sent to critics, writers, and friends “to put down a marker” and provide advance publicity for the first commercial edition of Minou's poetry, Arbre, mon ami (Tree, my friend), which was scheduled to appear in January 1956, whereafter it sold forty-five thousand copies. In the meantime, and in the absence of any book publication, the affair took off and developed into a full-scale controversy as the authenticity of Minou's talent was called into question. This chapter considers Minou's story in light of the public perception on child prodigies—initially as objects of collective curiosity, and hereafter as the target of suspicion.

Pandemic and PILs: A Study on the Approach of the High Courts in India

2021 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-77
Author(s):  
Uday Shankar ◽  
Sourya Bandyopadhyay
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Regional Level ◽  
Public Interest Litigation ◽  
High Court ◽  
Human Rights Protection ◽  
Rights Protection ◽  
High Courts ◽  
The Supreme Court

Studies in Public interest Litigation (PIL) in India are predominantly about the Supreme Court's approach in meeting the ends of justice through indigenously evolved jurisdiction. The High Courts as important constitutional bodies are more often than not remain out of detailed discussion. As the High Courts enjoy concurrent jurisdiction with the Supreme Court with regard to PILs, this paper aims to study the pattern of invocation of the jurisdiction at the regional level. It surveys the variety of pleas and consequent action under PIL jurisdiction (or inaction, as the case may be) of different High Courts in India relating to covid crisis and consequential matters. To that end, it undertakes a survey of High Court orders or judgments from April to July, 2020. It seeks to lay bare the extent of demands that are made before the Courts through PIL. What kinds of action were expected from the High Courts during the pandemic? How did different Courts respond to such pleas? Were the directions and level of response homogenous or varied? The paper pursues these questions, and describes the pandemic though the lens of PIL in Indian High Courts. It goes on to argue that the High Courts in India need to take greater cognizance of their orders inter-se especially in PIL matters, as human rights protection through PIL cannot have contradictory voices.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document