M v Home Office [1994] 1 AC 377

Facts:
  • M was a citizen of Zair (RotC) who arrived in the UK seeking asylum
  • His repeated applications were rejected, as were his applications for judicial review
  • Due to a misunderstanding, the judge mistakenly thought that counsel for the Secretary of State had given an undertaking that M's removal would be postponed pending consideration of his latest application
  • Learning of M's deportation, the judge ordered his return
  • M instituted committal proceedings against the Home Office and the Secretary of State for breaching the undertaking not to remove him

Issue:
  • Crown departments, ministers or officials acting in the courts of their duties could not be impleaded for contempt of court
  • The Court of Appeal allowed M's appeal, finding the Secretary of State guilty of contempt of court, and both sides appealed

Held:
  • Crown officials could be personally liable for a tort committed or authorised by them, despite the action being carried out in their official capacity
  • While the Crown itself cannot be found guilty of contempt of court, a minister in his official capacity can

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sion v Hampstead Health Authority [1994] EWCA Civ 26

Facts: S appealed against the High Court’s decision to strike out his statement of claim for personal injury damages on the grounds that no reasonable cause of action was disclosed. S brought an action against the hospital alleging their negligent treatment of his son caused him to suffer psychiatric injury. Ratio: Appeal dismissed. However, even where a statement of claim disclosed no cause of action, the court had discretion to permit the plaintiff to amend it out of time provided that the proposed amendment arose from the facts in the pleading. S was unable to recover for psychiatric harm sustained as a result of watching his son die over a period of 14 days while becoming increasingly aware that the hospital was negligent in its treatment of him.
Read more

Summarise and discuss Lord Bingham’s eight ‘sub-rules’ of the Rule of Law.

Lord Bingham based his view about the rule of law on three key assumptions: Everyone should be equally bound by and entitled to the benefit of the law. Laws must be publicly and prospectively published. Laws should be publicly administered in the courts. The law must be accessible, intelligible, clear and predictable. Bingham’s rule of law suggests that it cannot exist without democracy. The rule of law is a kind of implicit contract between the state and the individual.
Read more

3. ‘The defence of ‘Honest Opinion’ under s.3 of The Defamation Act 2013 is not robust enough to protect free speech and rights under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.’ Discuss.

Introduction: There is a narrow line between freedom of expression and the right of one’s reputation. To make this line more clear, the Defamation Act 2013 was created. One of the defences was one of ‘Honest Opinion’ which provided that a statement of opinion, based on facts, was one that could be held by an honest person. The connection to the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) was that Article 10 provides the right to freedom of expression and information, and the UK courts were then given the task of finding the balance between the two in relation to defamation cases. Although the Defamation Act 2013 has been found to encourage freedom of expression, it does not protect free speech and rights to the same extent that the ECHR does. P1: The aim of the Defamation Act is to provide better protection for free speech. The main legal case that underlies the honest opinion defence in this Act was Joseph v Spiller [2010]. The defendants, a management agency, had publis...
Read more