SECURITY SERVICES, LEAKS AND THE PUBLIC INTEREST

2002 ◽  
Vol 61 (3) ◽  
pp. 499-544
Author(s):  
A.T.H. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Public Interest ◽  
The Public ◽  
Security Services ◽  
Security Service ◽  
Intelligence Services ◽  
House Of Lords ◽  
The Face ◽  
Human Rights Act ◽  
Human Rights Act 1998 ◽  
The Government

Once upon a time, the Crown faced almost no difficulties in securing convictions for breaches of the Official Secrets Act 1911, particularly section 2. After the somewhat embarrassing decision to proceed had been taken, it was like shooting fish in a barrel. Occasionally, the jury revolted, as they did in Ponting [1985] Crim. L.R. 315, producing something like a perverse verdict in the face of the judicial direction that it was no defence that the defendant believed himself to be acting in the public interest. That decision, and the ruling of the House of Lords in the Spycatcher litigation [1990] 1 A.C. 109 to the effect that the former security service agent Peter Wright did not commit an actionable breach of confidence by making his allegations of improper practices within the services, prompted the government of the day to promote legislation that purported to impose life-long obligations of confidence upon members and former members of the security intelligence services. “Purported” because, with the enactment of the Human Rights Act 1998, it is now open to the courts inter alia to declare that Parliament has acted incompatibly with one of the rights protected by that Act.

7 The Human Rights Act 1998: Bringing Rights Home

1998 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 125-146
Author(s):  
Stephanie Palmer
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
European Convention ◽  
Bill Of Rights ◽  
Labour Government ◽  
House Of Lords ◽  
Human Rights Act ◽  
Human Rights Act 1998 ◽  
The Government ◽  
Domestic Law

The Labour government has quickly acted on its election promise to introduce a bill of rights into domestic law. The Human Rights Act 1998 partially incorporates the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) into United Kingdom law. This legislation is part of a wider constitutional package including devolved government for Scotland and Wales and reform of the House of Lords. The government’s programme is intended to modernise and indeed transform the British constitutional structure. According to the government, the Human Rights Act will bring rights home. Individuals will be able to argue for their Convention rights in the United Kingdom’s own courts and tribunals and judges will be able to adjudicate directly on Convention issues. All new laws will be carefully scrutinised to ensure compatibility with Convention rights.

6. Trade secrets, confidential information, and the protection of private information

2019 ◽  
pp. 75-94
Author(s):  
Tim Press
Keyword(s):  
Public Interest ◽  
Private Information ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Trade Secrets ◽  
The Public ◽  
Separate Branch ◽  
Human Rights Act ◽  
Human Rights Act 1998 ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Right

This chapter focuses on the law of breach of confidence, which protects trade secrets and privacy. It is judge-made law, with its origins in equity. The action for breach of confidence now resembles a common law cause of action, but its equitable basis is still evident in the flexibility and discretion the judges adopt in deciding cases. The Human Rights Act 1998 required the courts to implement the right to private and family life. The courts have done this, in cases concerning private information, by extending the law to protect privacy where the information concerned was not secret. This is now regarded as a separate branch of the law. Special considerations also apply in relation to the duties employees owe to their employer both during and after their employment. There is a defence to an action for breach of confidence where publication is in the public interest.

10. The House of Lords

2019 ◽  
pp. 207-228
Author(s):  
Anne Dennett
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Constitutional Change ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
The Public ◽  
House Of Lords ◽  
The Commons ◽  
The Government

This chapter studies the House of Lords. The membership of the House of Lords largely relies on patronage. Members of the Lords come from a variety of backgrounds with wide-ranging expertise, and are appointed by the Queen on the Prime Minister's advice. They can be nominated by political parties, by the public, or by themselves. The House of Lords is an important revising and scrutinising chamber, but it is also subordinate to the democratically elected House of Commons. The Lords' main functions are scrutinising and challenging the government, investigating and debating issues of public interest, and scrutinising and revising legislation. While it respects the primacy of the Commons, the House of Lords is also a check on constitutional change by the Commons. The chapter then looks at the Parliament Act 1911, which established the Commons' primacy over the House of Lords.

scholarly journals Charter Injunctions, Public Interest Presumption, and the Tyranny of the Majority

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-28
Author(s):  
Colin Feasby
Keyword(s):  
Public Service ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Attorney General ◽  
Minority Rights ◽  
Fundamental Rights ◽  
Short Article ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Government ◽  
Court Of Appeal

Quebec’s Bill 21, which seeks to restrict employees in its public service from displaying religious symbols at work, has attracted a number of constitutional challenges. In one of those challenges, Hak v Quebec (Attorney General), the plaintiffs sought an injunction suspending the operation of parts of Bill 21 pending a decision on the merits.1 Both the Quebec Superior Court and the Quebec Court of Appeal declined to issue an injunction. The majority of the Quebec Court of Appeal found that in enacting Bill 21 the legislature must be presumed to have acted in the public interest and, as such, the third part of the injunction test — balance of convenience — could not be satisfied. The idea that Parliament and provincial legislatures must be presumed to be acting in the public interest — what I will call the public interest presumption — is problematic in Charter cases concerning constraints of fundamental rights and the treatment of minorities. Parliament and provincial legislatures are majoritarian institutions; they are the product of elections where the candidates and parties with the most votes win. A core objective of the Charter is to protect minorities from being oppressed by the majority. Giving too much weight to a majoritarian conception of the public interest in interlocutory injunction applications concerning minority rights undermines the Charter and negates injunctions and stays as elective remedies, particularly where an applicant establishes real harm. To fulfill the Charter’s mandate to protect minority rights it must be recognized that the government does not have a monopoly on representing the public interest and that a majoritarian conception of the public interest cannot control the outcome of the balance of convenience test in the face of evidence that other aspects of the public interest are harmed by the impugned legislation. This short article argues for a much weaker public interest presumption: one that may be rebutted by an applicant adducing evidence of harm to an identifiable group. 1  Hak c Procureure Générale du Québec, 2019 QCCA 2145 [Hak].

PUBLIC, PRIVATE AND THE HUMAN RIGHTS ACT 1998: AN IDEOLOGICAL DIVIDE

2007 ◽  
Vol 66 (3) ◽  
pp. 559-573 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie Palmer
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
City Council ◽  
Public Authority ◽  
Public Authorities ◽  
Private Finance Initiative ◽  
The Public ◽  
House Of Lords ◽  
Public Nature ◽  
Human Rights Act ◽  
Human Rights Act 1998

The House of Lords decision in YL v. Birmingham City Council considers the issue of what is a public authority under the Human Rights Act 1998. The question is a critical one as the Convention rights, contained in the Human Rights Act, are directly enforceable only against public authorities. The issue of whether a body is a public authority has proved highly controversial. The hiving-off of many traditional governmental functions through policies such as privatisation, outsourcing and projects under the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) has led to a blurring of the traditionally understood public-private distinction. The changed nature in the way that public services are delivered has led to sharply divergent views among the judiciary about which functions are those of a public nature for the purposes of the Human Rights Act. This is evident in the YL judgment itself: a split decision, with two dissenting judgements. The division in the House reflects different understandings of the operation of the Human Rights Act, the public-private distinction and, perhaps more fundamentally, competing ideological stances.

The Human Rights Act 1998: Bringing Rights Home

1998 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 125-146
Author(s):  
Stephanie Palmer
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
European Convention ◽  
Bill Of Rights ◽  
Labour Government ◽  
House Of Lords ◽  
Human Rights Act ◽  
Human Rights Act 1998 ◽  
The Government ◽  
Domestic Law

The Labour government has quickly acted on its election promise to introduce a bill of rights into domestic law. The Human Rights Act 1998 partially incorporates the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) into United Kingdom law. This legislation is part of a wider constitutional package including devolved government for Scotland and Wales and reform of the House of Lords. The government’s programme is intended to modernise and indeed transform the British constitutional structure. According to the government, the Human Rights Act will bring rights home. Individuals will be able to argue for their Convention rights in the United Kingdom’s own courts and tribunals and judges will be able to adjudicate directly on Convention issues. All new laws will be carefully scrutinised to ensure compatibility with Convention rights.

Verán ustedes las chozas más humildes. El discurso de pobreza en la diplomacia pública cardenista dirigida a Estados Unidos

2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-281
Author(s):  
Sylvia Dümmer Scheel
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New Deal ◽  
Public Diplomacy ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Government ◽  
Lazaro Cardenas ◽  
The New Deal

El artículo analiza la diplomacia pública del gobierno de Lázaro Cárdenas centrándose en su opción por publicitar la pobreza nacional en el extranjero, especialmente en Estados Unidos. Se plantea que se trató de una estrategia inédita, que accedió a poner en riesgo el “prestigio nacional” con el fin de justificar ante la opinión pública estadounidense la necesidad de implementar las reformas contenidas en el Plan Sexenal. Aprovechando la inusual empatía hacia los pobres en tiempos del New Deal, se construyó una imagen específica de pobreza que fuera higiénica y redimible. Ésta, sin embargo, no generó consenso entre los mexicanos. This article analyzes the public diplomacy of the government of Lázaro Cárdenas, focusing on the administration’s decision to publicize the nation’s poverty internationally, especially in the United States. This study suggests that this was an unprecedented strategy, putting “national prestige” at risk in order to explain the importance of implementing the reforms contained in the Six Year Plan, in the face of public opinion in the United States. Taking advantage of the increased empathy felt towards the poor during the New Deal, a specific image of hygienic and redeemable poverty was constructed. However, this strategy did not generate agreement among Mexicans.

Tanggung Jawab Hukum Penilai Publik terhadap Laporan Penilaian Kegiatan Pengadaan Tanah bagi Pembangunan untuk Kepentingan Umum (Studi Atas Kantor Jasa Penilai Publik Toto Suharto)

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gagah Yaumiyya Riyoprakoso ◽  
AM Hasan Ali ◽  
Fitriyani Zein
Keyword(s):  
Future Development ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Legal Responsibility ◽  
Legal Research ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Government ◽  
Conducting Research ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Systematic Explanation

This study is based on the legal responsibility of the assessment of public appraisal reports they make in land procurement activities for development in the public interest. Public assessment is obliged to always be accountable for their assessment. The type of research found in this thesis is a type of normative legal research with the right-hand of the statue approach and case approach. Normative legal research is a study that provides systematic explanation of rules governing a certain legal category, analyzing the relationship between regulations explaining areas of difficulty and possibly predicting future development. . After conducting research, researchers found that one of the causes that made the dispute was a lack of communication conducted between the Government and the landlord. In deliberation which should be the place where the parties find the meeting point between the parties on the magnitude of the damages that will be given, in the field is often used only for the delivery of the assessment of the compensation that has been done.

Normative Juridical Review Comparison of Land Acquisition Regulations for Railway Infrastructure between Indonesia and Malaysia

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dhina Setyo Oktaria ◽  
Agustinus Prasetyo Edi Wibowo
Keyword(s):  
Public Interest ◽  
Influencing Factor ◽  
Land Acquisition ◽  
Infrastructure Development ◽  
The Public ◽  
Indonesian Government ◽  
The People ◽  
Railway Infrastructure ◽  
The World ◽  
The Government

Land acquisition for public purposes, including for the construction of railroad infrastructure, is a matter that is proposed by all countries in the world. The Indonesian government or the Malaysian royal government needs land for railroad infrastructure development. To realize this, a regulation was made that became the legal umbrella for the government or royal government. The people must agree to regulations that require it. Land acquisition for public use in Malaysia can be completed quickly in Indonesia. The influencing factor is the different perceptions of the understanding of what are in the public interest, history and legal systems of the two countries as well as the people's reaction from the two countries

Cohabitants, Choice, and the Public Interest

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Leckey
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Intimate Relationships ◽  
Family Law ◽  
Regulatory System ◽  
Law Reform ◽  
Private Law ◽  
The Public ◽  
System P ◽  
The Face

Through the narrow entry of property disputes between former cohabitants, this chapter aims to clarify thinking on issues crucial to philosophical examination of family law. It refracts big questions—such as what cohabitants should owe one another and the balance between choice and protection—through a legal lens of attention to institutional matters such as the roles of judges and legislatures. Canadian cases on unjust enrichment and English cases quantifying beneficial interests in a jointly owned home are examples. The chapter highlights limits on judicial law reform in the face of social change, both in substance and in the capacity to acknowledge the state's interest in intimate relationships. The chapter relativizes the focus on choice prominent in academic and policy discussions of cohabitation and highlights the character of family law, entwined with the general private law of property and obligations, as a regulatory system.

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