header-logo header-logo

War games

29 May 2015 / Richard Scorer
Issue: 7654 / Categories: Features , Personal injury
printer mail-detail

Members of the armed forces should have recourse to the courts, argues Richard Scorer

“None have [sic] succeeded in defeating the armed forces of the UK. Napoleon and Hitler could not. But where these enemies failed, our own legal institutions threaten to succeed.” This was the stark conclusion of The Fog of Law, a report originally published in 2013 by the think tank Policy Exchange. The report asserted that judicial decisions—involving the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA 1998) and negligence claims by injured soldiers against the Ministry of Defence—had “undermined the armed forces ability to operate effectively on the battlefield”. The report sparked a fierce debate, and led to last year’s report from the House of Commons Defence Select Committee UK Armed Forces Personnel and the Legal Framework for Future Operations. The Select Committee report reiterated some of the concerns expressed in the Fog of Law. But until now these arguments have had relatively little political traction—not least because one of the parties in the coalition government was firmly committed to upholding

If you are not a subscriber, subscribe now to read this content
If you are already a subscriber sign in
...or Register for two weeks' free access to subscriber content

MOVERS & SHAKERS

DWF—19 appointments

DWF—19 appointments

Belfast team bolstered by three senior hires and 16 further appointments

Cadwalader—Andro Atlaga

Cadwalader—Andro Atlaga

Firm strengthens leveraged finance team with London partner hire

Knights—Ella Dodgson & Rebecca Laffan

Knights—Ella Dodgson & Rebecca Laffan

Double hire marks launch of family team in Leeds

NEWS
Small law firms want to embrace technology but feel lost in a maze of jargon, costs and compliance fears, writes Aisling O’Connell of the Solicitors Regulation Authority in this week's NLJ
The Supreme Court issued a landmark judgment in July that overturned the convictions of Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo, once poster boys of the Libor and Euribor scandal. In NLJ this week, Neil Swift of Peters & Peters considers what the ruling means for financial law enforcement
Charlie Mercer and Astrid Gillam of Stewarts crunch the numbers on civil fraud claims in the English courts, in this week's NLJ. New data shows civil fraud claims rising steadily since 2014, with the King’s Bench Division overtaking the Commercial Court as the forum of choice for lower-value disputes
Bea Rossetto of the National Pro Bono Centre makes the case for ‘General Practice Pro Bono’—using core legal skills to deliver life-changing support, without the need for niche expertise—in this week's NLJ
Charles Pigott of Mills & Reeve reports on Haynes v Thomson, the first judicial application of the Supreme Court’s For Women Scotland ruling in a discrimination claim, in this week's NLJ
back-to-top-scroll