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Of busybodies & equalities

18 March 2022 / Nicholas Dobson
Issue: 7971 / Categories: Features , Public , Covid-19
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Nicholas Dobson reviews the recent challenge to the appointment of Dido Harding as chair of Test & Trace
  • Since Good Law Project had no standing to bring Equality Act 2010 and apparent bias claims against the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (SoS), its claim entirely failed.
  • The Runnymede Trust was granted a declaration that the SoS failed to comply with the public sector equality duty in making certain critical government appointments concerning COVID-19.

Lewis Carrol’s Duchess observed (in a hoarse growl): ‘If everybody minded their own business… the world would go round a good deal faster than it does.’ But while the Duchess was not a paragon of rationality (and her child-care skills somewhat below par), she did echo an engrained feeling from across the ages. So, as Robert Whittington’s 1532 translation of Erasmus’s De civilitate morum puerilium (A Lytell Bok of Good Maners for Chyldren) advised: ‘Be nat ouer besy in other mennes causes.’ The Bible (Peter 4.15) also counsels ‘let none

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

Carey Olsen—Kim Paiva

Carey Olsen—Kim Paiva

Group partner joins Guernsey banking and finance practice

Morgan Lewis—Kat Gibson

Morgan Lewis—Kat Gibson

London labour and employment team announces partner hire

Foot Anstey McKees—Chris Milligan & Michael Kelly

Foot Anstey McKees—Chris Milligan & Michael Kelly

Double partner appointment marks Belfast expansion

NEWS
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has not done enough to protect the future sustainability of the legal aid market, MPs have warned
Writing in NLJ this week, NLJ columnist Dominic Regan surveys a landscape marked by leapfrog appeals, costs skirmishes and notable retirements. With an appeal in Mazur due to be heard next month, Regan notes that uncertainties remain over who will intervene, and hopes for the involvement of the Lady Chief Justice and the Master of the Rolls in deciding the all-important outcome
After the Southport murders and the misinformation that followed, contempt of court law has come under intense scrutiny. In this week's NLJ, Lawrence McNamara and Lauren Schaefer of the Law Commission unpack proposals aimed at restoring clarity without sacrificing fair trial rights
The latest Home Office figures confirm that stop and search remains both controversial and diminished. Writing in NLJ this week, Neil Parpworth of De Montfort University analyses data showing historically low use of s 1 PACE powers, with drugs searches dominating what remains
Boris Johnson’s 2019 attempt to shut down Parliament remains a constitutional cautionary tale. The move, framed as a routine exercise of the royal prerogative, was in truth an extraordinary effort to sideline Parliament at the height of the Brexit crisis. Writing in NLJ this week, Professor Graham Zellick KC dissects how prorogation was wrongly assumed to be beyond judicial scrutiny, only for the Supreme Court to intervene unanimously
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