header-logo header-logo

Home Login E-newsletter About us
07 November 2025
Issue: 8138 / Categories: Legal News , National security , Criminal , Data protection , Privacy , International , Media
printer mail-detail

NLJ this week: The expanding remit of national security law

© Copyright LexisNexis 2026. All Rights Reserved.
235046
In NLJ this week, Sailesh Mehta and Theo Burges of Red Lion Chambers examine the government’s first-ever 'Afghan leak' super-injunction—used to block reporting of data exposing Afghans who aided UK forces and over 100 British officials. Unlike celebrity privacy cases, this injunction centred on national security. Its use, the authors argue, signals the rise of a vast new body of national security law spanning civil, criminal, and media domains

The 2023 National Security Act broadened offences, but geopolitical volatility from Russia, China and Iran has driven even more cases. Mehta and Burges warn that practitioners now need multidisciplinary expertise—from espionage to press law—to navigate this expanding field.

The Afghan case, they conclude, epitomises a legal 'hydra' growing new heads with every global crisis.

Issue: 8138 / Categories: Legal News , National security , Criminal , Data protection , Privacy , International , Media
printer mail-details
RELATED ARTICLES
 

MOVERS & SHAKERS

Read All
Sponsored by
Keystone Law—Milena Szuniewicz-Wenzel & Ian Hopkinson

Keystone Law—Milena Szuniewicz-Wenzel & Ian Hopkinson

International arbitration team strengthened by double partner hire

Coodes Solicitors—Pam Johns, Rachel Pearce & Bradley Kaine

Coodes Solicitors—Pam Johns, Rachel Pearce & Bradley Kaine

Firm celebrates trio holding senior regional law society and junior lawyers division roles

Michelman Robinson—Sukhi Kaler

Michelman Robinson—Sukhi Kaler

Partner joins commercial and business litigation team in London

NEWS
Read All
Legal Action Group set out 2026 events calendar
The Legal Action Group (LAG)—the UK charity dedicated to advancing access to justice—has unveiled its calendar of training courses, seminars and conferences designed to support lawyers, advisers and other legal professionals in tackling key areas of public interest law
NLJ this week: 40 years on, has PACE lost its edge?
The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 transformed criminal justice. Writing in NLJ this week, Ed Cape of UWE and Matthew Hardcastle and Sandra Paul of Kingsley Napley trace its ‘seismic impact’
NLJ this week: Stress-testing the City
Operational resilience is no longer optional. Writing in NLJ this week, Emma Radmore and Michael Lewis of Womble Bond Dickinson explain how UK regulators expect firms to identify ‘important business services’ that could cause ‘intolerable levels of harm’ if disrupted
NLJ this week: Mandelson, Epstein & the court of popular opinion
As the drip-feed of Epstein disclosures fuels ‘collateral damage’, the rush to cry misconduct in public office may be premature. Writing in NLJ this week, David Locke of Hill Dickinson warns that the offence is no catch-all for political embarrassment. It demands a ‘grave departure’ from proper standards, an ‘abuse of the public’s trust’ and conduct ‘sufficiently serious to warrant criminal punishment’
NLJ this week: Volunteers, promotions & perilous appeals
Employment law is shifting at the margins. In his latest Employment Law Brief for NLJ this week, Ian Smith of Norwich Law School examines a Court of Appeal ruling confirming that volunteers are not a special legal species and may qualify as ‘workers’
Copyright © 2026 LexisNexis
back-to-top-scroll