23 July 2015
Exceptional Case Funding: safety net or fig leaf?
Last week, in the High Court case of IS v The Director of Legal Aid Casework & Anor [2015] EWHC 1965 (Admin) (15 July 2015) (IS) Mr Justice Collins declared the current operation of the Exceptional Case Funding (ECF) Scheme to be unlawful and described the system as “wholly deficient”. The Public Law Project, who represented the claimant, has said the judgment will have profound implications for access to justice.
7 July 2015
Judicial review and suitable alternative remedies
It is commonplace to say judicial review is a remedy of last resort and in particular that if there is an adequate alternative remedy that is or was available to a claimant, permission to bring proceedings will normally be refused.
6 July 2015
The end of the duty of candour double standard?
When things go wrong in healthcare, should the duty of candour owed by providers to patients differ depending on whether the care was provided within a primary or secondary setting? Or whether the patient received care from the public or private sector? A single duty of candour should apply consistently across the healthcare service. Unfortunately, the duty of candour is currently triggered by two different thresholds depending upon who provides care to the patient.
1 July 2015
Information security breaches: A near certainty
Businesses are under attack on a daily basis and the problem is getting worse. That, in essence, is the conclusion of PWC’s annual Information Security Breaches Survey. The average cost of the most severe online security breaches for large businesses now starts at £1.46 million – up from £600,000 in 2014. For SMEs, the most severe breaches can now cost as high as £310,800, up from £115,000 in 2014. Yet, despite this, most organisations do not plan on spending more on information security over the coming year.
23 January 2015
European Parliament demands legal communications are protected from surveillance
Following the frank admission by the Dutch Minister of Security that a law firm, Prakken d’Oliveira, had been under surveillance for years by the Dutch secret service, a question was raised in the European Parliament last week concerning the apparent tolerance by the EU of secret surveillance of legal communications and the steps which would be taken to ensure that Member States respected lawyer-client confidentiality.