Protecting the Public Interest in a Free Press: The Role of Courts and Regulators in the United Kingdom

2014 ◽  
pp. 129-144
Author(s):  
Yolande Stolte ◽  
Rachael Craufurd Smith
Author(s):  
Laura Richards-Gray

Abstract This article argues that shared problematizations—shared political and public ways of thinking—legitimize policies and their outcomes. To support this argument, it examines the legitimation of gendered welfare reform in the recent U.K. context. Drawing on focus groups with the public, it provides evidence that the public’s problematization of welfare, specifically that reform was necessary to “make work pay” and “restore fairness”, aligned with that of politicians. It argues that the assumptions and silences underpinning this shared problematization, especially silences relating to the value and necessity of care, have allowed for welfare policies that have disadvantaged women.


2003 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. 205-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Carmichael ◽  
Robert Osborne

Although the United Kingdom is usually regarded as a unitary state in the mould of the Westminster model, in reality, complete political integration and administrative standardization have never existed. Recent political devolution consolidates an increasingly diverse and asymmetrical pattern of territorial governance. Frequently, however, notwithstanding some notable exceptions, this differentiation within the UK's governmental arrangements is overlooked in much of the literature. To help correct this oversight, this article reports on the longstanding differences in the public administration arrangements of one of the UK's smaller component countries, Northern Ireland. Specifically, the article focuses on the role of the Northern Ireland Civil Service and charts some of the key characteristics and trends that have emerged under both the period of Direct Rule from London (since the end of the Stormont devolution in 1972) and in the newly-restored devolved settlement that was introduced in 1999, following the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement.


Author(s):  
William Roche

Regulation of the medical profession has a long history in the United Kingdom but a number of high profile failures of National Health Service (NHS) organisations to deliver safe health care and the unlawful killing of more than 200 patients by one rogue doctor have led to a clamour for change. Many of these tragedies have been the subject of public inquiries and have created significant public disquiet about the role and effectiveness of the medical regulator. United Kingdom governments have responded to these inquiries by means of a combination of strengthening professional regulation and the introduction of new mechanisms of appeal against the sanctions imposed on doctors by tribunals. The historical development of medical regulation is reviewed and the more recent changes to address the public interest and crises in the confidence in the regulation of health care are described.


2003 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry Kew

AbstractMedia and nonhuman animal liberation is an under-researched area in the United Kingdom. If the most appropriate metaphor describing the media/social movement relationship is "dance," then largely the media and animal liberation are dancing in the dark of neglect. Drawing upon different approaches to media and offering some notes toward animal liberation media studies, this article explores how, by engaging with the "established terms of the problematic at play," animal liberationists and their claims are appropriated by speciesist ideology through exclusion and confusing and redefining maneuvers. A contextual analysis of its typical texts raises questions of the public interest role, due impartiality of media and, implicitly, of movement strategy.


2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-156
Author(s):  
Sam Middlemiss

A considerable amount of attention has been given to the general law of victimisation under the Equality Act 20101 but scant consideration has been given to the equality aspect of victimisation relating to whistle-blowing in the United Kingdom, and the present article will address this. The term whistle-blowing relates to workers making certain disclosures of information relating to their employer’s activities in the public interest. Most workers in the public, private and voluntary sectors are protected from victimisation by making a protected disclosure under the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998. However, only qualifying disclosures (defined below) are protected by the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998. The protection against victimisation covers unfair dismissal and an action for suffering a detriment. However, this article will concentrate on the latter. In the process of considering the legal rules in the United Kingdom, the human rights dimension of cases will be considered as will comparison with the law in the United States.


1999 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 763-800
Author(s):  
M.A. Stocker ◽  
S.D. Dudley ◽  
G.E. Finlay ◽  
H.J. Fisher ◽  
O. C. Harvey Wood ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTThis paper takes an overview of the potential roles and responsibilities of pension scheme actuaries in the United Kingdom in relation to defined contribution (DC) schemes.First it summarises briefly the background to UK retirement provision and in particular the move to DC arrangements. The paper then compares and contrasts the pension scheme actuary's current role in both defined benefit (DB) and DC schemes. This is then developed to consider what further statutory roles there may be for actuaries in DC schemes.The paper challenges the profession to champion the public interest by seeking clarity and simplification, and finally considers the impact on actuarial employment.


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