Category: United Kingdom Law and Policy

How the power of the home secretary to deprive a person of their United Kingdom citizenship is creating a second class of United Kingdom citizens from immigrant families

3rd March 2021

Despite modern political discourse being dominated by demands of what the ‘state’ should and should not do, there is often little in practice that ministers can do towards their political objectives.

Laws may be passed that may or may not have wanted effects; revenues can be raised and resources allocated that may or may not have any desired impact; international agreements may be made – or broken – that may or may not have certain effects; speeches can be made, and lines spun.

But a good deal of this activity and inactivity is at least one step removed from ensuring any real social and economic change (or lack of change), for government and administration is not an exact science.

And for anything that actually affect the rights of individuals, there would then be the pesky courts with their activist judges and scoundrel lawyers.

Over the last decade, however, one government department realised there were things it could do.

The home office has hit upon the one area of policy where it can make decisions that have direct social and economic consequences, but in a largely law-free way.

The home office could take people’s citizenship and residency rights away.

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Certain manifestations of this general policy approach can be seen with the Windrush scandal and in the deportation of those with certain criminal convictions.

And so on.

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Just as important as these executive actions, of course, was the threat of such executive actions.

This was not an accident – it was the design of the policy.

That policy was the ‘hostile environment’.

As the former home secretary Theresa May said candidly in a 2012 interview:

“The aim is to create here in Britain a really hostile environment for illegal migration.”

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Billboards and signs on vans are one thing, but ready and easy use of executive powers are another.

And the home office – like any addict – began to use this legal power of international displacement more and more.

The home office could do things – and (more-or-less) get away with them.

The next step from stripping people of any residency rights they may have was to deprive them, when possible, of their citizenship rights.

From removing illegal immigrants, to removing those who were from immigrant families but were in the United Kingdom lawfully and indeed were citizens of the United Kingdom.

And so this is what they did.

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The outstanding Free Movement blog has compiled this table:

According to Colin Yeo, in this detailed and informative survey of the use of the power to deprive a United Kingdom citizen of their citizenship:

‘until quite recently, the power to deprive a person of their British citizenship on the grounds of behaviour was almost moribund, having been used against perhaps a handful of Russian spies…in practice, ‘deprivation powers were not used at all between 1973 and 2002’.

The cases mentioned by Yeo will show why many might not mind many of the deprivations – unpleasant individuals who have done highly unpleasant things.

Many would even clap and cheer and shout good riddance.

But each case is also an instance of simple executive power – a ministerial decision, rather than a prior judgment by a court or tribunal – that strips a person of their citizenship of the United Kingdom – even if that person was born a United Kingdom citizen.

Under section 40 of the British Nationality Act 1981 (as amended heavily over the years), the right of citizenship of a person is entirely at the satisfaction of the home secretary.

(See this blog’s post here.)

And once the home secretary is satisfied that you should lose your citizenship then the citizenship is lost, by instant operation of law.

The person affected may seek to appeal such a decision – but they do so from the position of no longer being a United Kingdom citizen.

The decision takes effect before – sometimes long before – it can be considered by any court or tribunal.

This is what raw executive power looks like.

And the home office likes it this way.

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Because of the international law in respect of ‘statelessness’ (which this blog set out here), this executive power is usually used (or should be used) only where the person affected already has the status at law of citizenship of another country.

This means it can be used against people with dual citizenship.

And this means it can be used most readily against those who are from first or second generation immigrant families.

So there are now two classes of United Kingdom citizen.

A first class of those who have no other nationality, and so against whom the home secretary cannot (or should not) use their power to deprive them of their citizenship of the United Kingdom.

And a second class of those who will also have another nationality and so can have their citizenship of the United Kingdom instantly removed at the satisfaction of the home secretary.

These second class citizens will primarily be comprised of those from first or second generation immigrant families.

This means, in turn, that many of those affected will tend to be those from black and minority ethnic backgrounds.

On this basis, the operation of this law and policy would be discriminatory against those from black and minority ethnic backgrounds.

The very structure of this law and policy would mean it cannot work any other way.

And so a citizen of the United Kingdom – born in the United Kingdom and with no personal relationship with any other country – can have their citizenship instantly removed by a government minister without any prior judicial step just because they are from an immigrant family.

And the home office likes it this way.

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This post is part of a series of posts on the Shamima Begum case.

There is something wrong – very wrong – about the legal situation of Shamima Begum.

That is, at least on the basis of information in the public domain – which is, of course, the only information on which the public can have confidence in the relevant law and policy.

The legal case is, however, complex – at least on the face of it, with sets of legal proceedings and appeals that have resulted so far in a number of lengthy judgments by variously constituted courts.

So to get to the wrongness of this situation, this blog will be doing a sequence of posts, each on a different element of the case.

Previous posts have included:

  • initial thoughts on the illiberal supreme court decision (here)
  • the parallel of the supreme court decision with the 1941 case of Liversidge v Anderson (here)
  • the legal power of the home secretary to deprive a person of United Kingdom citizenship (here)
  • statelessness and the law and the case of Shamima Begum (here)

Further posts will show how the home office and the courts dealt (and did not deal) with important issues in this case.

The purpose of this Begum series of posts is to promote the public understanding of law.

The posts in this Begum series on this blog will be every few days, alongside commentary on other law and policy matters.

*****

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Comments are welcome, but they are pre-moderated.

Comments will not be published if irksome.

The Real Citizens of Nowhere – statelessness and the law and the case of Shamima Begum – looking closely at the Begum case part 2

not 2nd March 2021

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‘…you’re a citizen of nowhere.’

Theresa May, then prime minister of the United Kingdom, Birmingham, 2016

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What is a stateless person – a person who is (literally) a citizen of nowhere?

The best starting point for answering this question – a question that is relevant in the topical case of Shamima Begum as well as important generally – is the declaration of human rights of the United Nations.

Article 15 of the declaration provides:

‘(1) Everyone has the right to a nationality.

‘(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his [or her] nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.’

A stateless person would thereby a person without nationality, either because they have never had one or because they have been deprived of any nationality that they did have.

That person would be an alien in every country on the planet, without a government obliged to offer protection or help, and without anywhere where they can reside as of right.

Such a predicament would be fundamentally inhumane.

And so that is why the rights to a nationality and against being deprived of any nationality arbitrarily are in the United Nations declaration.

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You will notice that article 15(2) of the declaration is not an absolute prohibition on a person being deprived of nationality, but a bar on such deprivation being done ‘arbitrarily’.

This would be most relevant when a person has more than one nationality, when one or more of those nationalities is being removed.

But the basic right under article 15(1) is not subject to exceptions: the ‘right to a nationality’ is a right for ‘everyone’. 

And that, for what it is worth, is the fundamental position under international law.

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The next step is a 1954 convention of the United Nations – the Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons – which took effect in 1960.

The key provision of the 1954 convention is article 1(1), which provides a legally significant definition of a ‘stateless person’ (and thereby ‘statelessness’):

‘For the purpose of this Convention, the term “stateless person” means a person who is not considered as a national by any State under the operation of its law.’

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This definition in article 1(1) of the 1954 convention repays careful consideration.

Indeed, as you will see later, this particular definition matters a lot.

Note what the definition does not say.

For example (omitting certain words and replacing ‘by’ with ‘of’) it does not say:

‘For the purpose of this Convention, the term “stateless person” means a person who is not […] a national [of] any State […].’

So what difference do the omitted words make?

The difference is the crucial phrase (perhaps known better in other contexts): ‘the operation of law.’

This phrase means that, regardless of the facts of a person’s predicament, their nationality is a matter of law.

Not a matter of fact, or of opinion – but a matter of law.

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So, for example, imagine person [Y].

If the law of country [X] provides that person [Y] is a national of that country, then the legal position is that person [x] has nationality and is not stateless.

It does not matter if person [Y] has never been to country [X].

It does not matter if person [Y] has no personal connection to country [X] and, for example, does not speak the language of country [X] and may even be persecuted or tortured if they were to go to country [X].

It also follows that the mere opinion of anybody involved does not matter.

Even if the government of country [X] opines that person [Y] is not a national, that opinion does not matter if, as a matter of law, person [Y] is a national of country [Y].

All that ultimately matters on the issue is what the law of country [X] provides on the issue, and nothing else.

And once it can be ascertained that person [Y] is, as a matter of law, a national of country [X] then that person is not stateless.

Person [Y]’s personal relationship with country [X] and the state opinion of the government of country [Y] are all irrelevant.

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This absolute priority for the legal position – above the practical facts of the situation – is, as you will see, a feature of this area of law.

Some lawyers will use the Latin phrases de jure and de facto as respective labels for the position as a matter of law and the situation as a matter of fact.

Adopting such terms, the law is that one’s nationality in respect of statelessness is de jure rather than de facto.

Even if the relevant country is far away and about which you know nothing.

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So, in practice: a government of a country (for example, Bangladesh) may well say a person is not a national (or not wanted as a national) – yet what makes that person stateless is not that mere statement by the government, but whether that person is stateless by operation of law of that country.

When the government of a country (for example, Bangladesh) says one thing about whether a person is a national, but the law of that country says another, then the law trumps the government.

The rejection by a government (for example, Bangladesh) may make a person (for example, Begum) stateless de facto but not de jure.

You will see the consequences of this (legalistic) approach in some of the relevant cases (for example, the case of Begum).

And this (legalistic) approach is hard-wired into the very wording of article 1(1) of the 1954 convention.

Let us look at it again (with emphasis added): 

‘For the purpose of this Convention, the term “stateless person” means a person who is not considered as a national by any State under the operation of its law.’

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Our next step is another United Nations convention – the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness – of 1961 and which took effect in 1975.

The 1961 convention provides at article 8(1):

‘A Contracting State shall not deprive a person of its nationality if such deprivation would render him [or her] stateless.’

This right looks robust and unequivocal, with no deft legalistic exceptions or qualifications.

This right is subject to exceptions under the article 8(2) of the 1961 convention (which relate to those who obtain nationality by naturalisation) and under the article 8(3) of the 1961 convention (certain disloyal activities).

You did not think that countries would make it that easy for a person to rely on the right under article 8(1) of the 1961 convention, did you?

Of course not.

Article 8(2) and article 8(3) envisage some situations where a person themselves fulfils a condition that allows a country to deprive a person of their nationality.

The notion is that they will only have themselves to blame.

(As for the position under the law of the United Kingdom at the time the 1961 convention took effect, see section 20 of the British Nationality Act 1948 – the predecessor of the current 1981 Act)

However, in the case of Begum, article 8(2) and article 8(3) are not (supposedly) directly relevant, as the position of the government of the United Kingdom in respect of the Begum case is, of course, that depriving her of her United Kingdom citizenship does not render her stateless.

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The position of the government is that Begum is de jure a citizen of Bangladesh.

This is, in part, because the government takes statelessness to mean as it is defined in the 1954 convention – that is as statelessness de jure not de facto.

And so, in his letter of 19th February 2019, the home secretary Sajid Javid said (emphases added):

‘As the Secretary of State, I hereby give notice in accordance with section 40(5) of the British Nationality Act 1981 that I intend to have an order made to deprive you, Shamima Begum of your British citizenship under section 40(2) of the Act. This is because it would be conducive to the public good to do so.

‘The reason for the decision is that you are a British/Bangladeshi dual national who it is assessed has previously travelled to Syria and aligned with ISIL. It is assessed that your return to the UK would present a risk to the national security of the United Kingdom. In accord with section 40(4) of the British Nationality Act 1981, I am satisfied that such an order will not make you stateless.’

The emphasised text is crucial.

Without that text, the home secretary may have be barred by section 40(4) of the British Nationality Act 1981:

‘The Secretary of State may not make an order under subsection (2) if he is satisfied that the order would make a person stateless.’

And so, if Begum – by operation of law – is indeed a citizen of Bangladesh then she can – in principle – be deprived of her United Kingdom citizenship without that deprivation being barred by section 40(4) of the 1981 Act (and thereby contrary to international law).

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But it is no longer just the view of the home secretary of the United Kingdom.

The question of whether the deprivation would be such as to render Begum stateless has also been considered by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission, in paragraphs 27 to 139 of its decision.

The commission heard expert evidence on both sides and decided that the law of Bangladesh would be that Begum would be a national of Bangladesh, regardless of the lack of any personal connection with that country.

This is paragraph 121 of the commission decision:

The commission has held that Begum was a citizen of Bangladesh by operation of the law of Bangladesh – regardless of what the government of Bangladesh has said and does say.

Begum has not, according to the commission decision, been rendered stateless.

The commission may be wrong: perhaps the expert evidence was wrong, or the wrong weight has been placed on the evidence, or the commission has applied the wrong legal tests, or the commission has applied legal tests incorrectly.

But, as it stands, the view of the home secretary that the deprivation decision has not made Begum stateless has also been endorsed by an independent body.

This issue of whether Begum would or would not be rendered stateless has, however, been decided only as one preliminary issue – there are several other issues – and there still has not been a final decision by the commission on Begum’s overall appeal of the deprivation.

The recent appeals up to and including the supreme court have been in respect of Begum’s ability to participate in this appeal and on a separate policy matter (which we will look at in another post).

The substantive appeal of the deprivation order is still incomplete (and at the moment it appears that it may be indefinitely stayed  – that is, in effect, adjourned).

The appeal before the commission is in limbo, as is – of course – Shamima Begum.

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This post is part of a series of posts on the Begum case.

There is something wrong – very wrong – about the legal situation of Shamima Begum.

That is, at least on the basis of information in the public domain – which is, of course, the only information on which the public can have confidence in the relevant law and policy.

The legal case is, however, complex – at least on the face of it, with sets of legal proceedings and appeals that have resulted so far in a number of lengthy judgments by variously constituted courts.

So to get to the wrongness of this situation, this blog will be doing a sequence of posts, each on a different element of the case.

Previous posts have included:

  • initial thoughts on the illiberal supreme court decision (here)
  • the parallel of the supreme court decision with the 1941 case of Liversidge v Anderson (here)
  • the legal power of the home secretary to deprive a person of United Kingdom citizenship (here)

Further posts will show how the home office and the courts dealt (and did not deal) with important issues in this case.

The purpose of this Begum series of posts is to promote the public understanding of law.

The posts in this Begum series on this blog will be every few days, alongside commentary on other law and policy matters.

*****

If you value this free-to-read explainer, and the independent legal and policy commentary this blog provides for both you and others – please do support through the Paypal box above, or become a Patreon subscriber.

Each post takes time, effort, and opportunity cost.

You can also subscribe for each post to be sent by email at the subscription box above (on an internet browser) or on a pulldown list (on mobile).

*****

Comments Policy

This blog enjoys a high standard of comments, many of which are better and more interesting than the posts.

Comments are welcome, but they are pre-moderated.

Comments will not be published if irksome.

The issue with vaccine certification – or ‘vaccine passports’ – is not that they are discriminatory – as all certification is discriminatory, if you think about it

1st March 2021

Over at the Financial Times I have a piece today on ‘vaccine passports’ – that is, a system of certification that a person has or has not had the coronavirus vaccine.

That article demonstrates my weakness as a commentator in the traditional media sense, as on this subject I do not happen to have strong views either way.

I do not have an ‘angle’ that will (conveniently) last from between 800 to 1100 words – no ultimate position that I am arguing for and articulating on your behalf for your claps and cheers.

Instead, on this policy (as on many others) I can only see difficulties – and difficult choices.

And these difficulties are, in turn, because of the very nature of certification.

All certification is discriminatory – that is its very point.

Certification enables (or should enable) a state of affairs to be asserted in a manner that then allows a decision-maker to make one decision instead of another.

That is: to discriminate.

The problem is not with discrimination in and of itself.

The problem is when that discrimination is unfair – either directly or indirectly.

Accordingly, it is not a complete answer to the proposal of any form of certification to dismiss it as discriminatory.

For all you are then saying is that a system of certification is acting, well, as a system of certification should.

The more important questions are whether that a policy of certificates would be reliable – and, if reliable, whether the benefits will outweigh the costs and whether it will not create unwanted inequalities, either directly or indirectly.

These are problematic things to consider – and for which there may not be an easy solutions – and in respect of which difficult choices will need to be made.

And to point such things out is a purpose of law and policy commentary.

Not all commentary is cheerleading for one position or the other.

*****

Thank you for reading this post.

Each post on this blog takes time, effort, and opportunity cost.

If you value this free-to-read post, and the independent legal and policy commentary this blog provides for both you and others – please do support through the Paypal box above, or become a Patreon subscriber.

*****

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Comments are welcome, but they are pre-moderated.

Comments will not be published if irksome.

The legal power of the Home Secretary to deprive a person of United Kingdom citizenship – looking closely at the Begum case part 1

28th February 2021

There is something wrong – very wrong – about the legal situation of Shamima Begum.

That is, at least on the basis of information in the public domain – which is, of course, the only information on which the public can have confidence in the relevant law and policy.

The legal case is, however, complex – at least on the face of it, with sets of legal proceedings and appeals that have resulted so far in a number of lengthy judgments by variously constituted courts.

So to get to the wrongness of this situation, this blog will be doing a sequence of posts, each on a different element of the case.

Is the fault with the substantive law and general government policy?  Or with the particular decisions made by home secretaries?  Or with the lower courts and tribunals?  Or with the higher appeal courts?

Of course, one easy answer is say ‘all of them’ – but even then: what is the allocation and distribution of wrongness in the system?

Previous posts on this blog on the case have put forward some initial impressions on the supreme court judgment of last week and, yesterday, compared the case in general terms with the 1941 decision of Liversidge v Anderson.

Today’s post is on the general subject of the power of the home secretary to deprive a person of British citizenship, subject to the (supposed) prohibition on rendering a person ‘stateless’.

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The power of a home secretary to deprive a person of British citizenship is set out in section 40 of the British Nationality Act 1981.

Note, however, that this is not about powers that actually date back to 1981 – as this provision and the act generally have been heavily amended by successive governments.

This legal power, like many other powers that can be used illiberally, is a legal work-in-progress – constantly being tuned (if not finely) by home office lawyers by legislative amendment so as to make it ever-more difficult for a home secretary’s decisions to be checked and balanced.

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The key power in the Begum case is at section 40(2):

‘The Secretary of State may by order deprive a person of a citizenship status if the Secretary of State is satisfied that deprivation is conducive to the public good.’

This is it – this is the deprivation power.

On the face of section 40(2) alone, any person can be deprived of citizenship not by a decision of an independent court or tribunal but at the simple discretion of a cabinet minister.

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But.

There is then section 40(4), which provides:

‘The Secretary of State may not make an order under subsection (2) if he is satisfied that the order would make a person stateless.’

(The ‘he’ here also means ‘she’ under section 6 of the Interpretation Act 1978.)

On the face of it, section 40(4) would thereby prevent the deprivation power being used so as to render a person stateless.

Yet note, the deft use of the words ‘he is satisfied’.

Read the provision again without those three words to see the difference those words make: ‘The Secretary of State may not make an order under subsection (2) if  […] that the order would make a person stateless.’

The direct legal test is thereby not whether a person is made stateless, but (again) the ‘satisfaction’ of the home secretary.

As we come to look more closely at the Begum case in particular, you will see what rides on words and phrases like this.

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Turning now to the Begum case, we can now see the legal basis of the decision by the then home secretary Sajid Javid of 19th February 2019 (emphases added):

‘As the Secretary of State, I hereby give notice in accordance with section 40(5) of the British Nationality Act 1981 that I intend to have an order made to deprive you, Shamima Begum of your British citizenship under section 40(2) of the Act. This is because it would be conducive to the public good to do so.

‘The reason for the decision is that you are a British/Bangladeshi dual national who it is assessed has previously travelled to Syria and aligned with ISIL. It is assessed that your return to the UK would present a risk to the national security of the United Kingdom. In accord with section 40(4) of the British Nationality Act 1981, I am satisfied that such an order will not make you stateless.’

As you can see, the notice of 19th February 2019 ticks the boxes for both (1) the basic deprivation power and (2) avoiding the statelessness exception.

This determination being made by the home secretary – and given the evidence on which the home secretary purports to rely – the only immediate avenue of appeal of Begum was to the special immigration appeals commission.

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The next post in this series of posts on the Begum case will set out the relevant law on ‘statelessness’.

Further posts will then show how the home office and the courts dealt (and did not deal) with important issues in this case.

The purpose of this Begum series of posts is to promote the public understanding of law.

The posts in this Begum series on this blog will be every few days, alongside commentary on other law and policy matters.

*****

Each post on this blog takes time, effort, and opportunity cost.

If you value this free-to-read post, and the independent legal and policy commentary this blog provides for both you and others – please do support through the Paypal box above, or become a Patreon subscriber.

*****

You can also subscribe for each post to be sent by email at the subscription box above (on an internet browser) or on a pulldown list (on mobile).

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Comments Policy

This blog enjoys a high standard of comments, many of which are better and more interesting than the posts.

Comments are welcome, but they are pre-moderated.

Comments will not be published if irksome.

“In this country, amid the clash of arms, the laws are not silent…judges are no respecters” – the story of when a law lord in 1941 stood up for the rights of an individual against a home secretary, and what then happened to that law lord

27th February 2021

The illiberal and unanimous decision yesterday of the supreme court of the United Kingdom in the Shamima Begum case is reminiscent of another illiberal decision of the highest court, previously known as the appellate committee of the house of lords.

That case – which most lawyers will know and most non-lawyers will not – is Liversidge v Anderson.

This case dealt with the rights of the individual in respect of regulation 18B of the Defence (General) Regulations 1939.

That regulation provided:

‘If the Secretary of State has reasonable cause to believe any person to be of hostile origin or associations or to have been recently concerned in acts prejudicial to the public safety or the defence of the realm or in the preparation or instigation of such acts and that by reason thereof it is necessary to exercise control over him, he may make an order against that person directing that he be detained.’

In other words: detention without trial at the discretion of the home secretary.

Of course, many would think such a dreadful thing would never happen in England, with our robust common law rights and so on.

For as even Winston Churchill said:

‘to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law is in the highest degree odious and forms the basis of all totalitarian regimes’.

(It is worth noting that ‘odious’ was quite the word for Churchill – see also his ‘fight them on the beaches’ speech: ‘Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail’.)

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But although detention without trial was (supposedly) ‘in the highest degree odious’, the United Kingdom did it anyway.

And one of those detained was Robert Liversidge.

The detention order from the home secretary was as follows:

‘DETENTION ORDER.

 ‘Whereas I have reasonable cause to believe Jack Perlzweig alias Robert Liversidge to be a person of hostile associations and that by reason thereof it is necessary to exercise control over him: Now, therefore, I, in pursuance of the power conferred on me by reg. 18B of the Defence (General) Regulations, 1939, hereby make the following order: I direct that the above-mentioned Jack Perlzweig alias Robert Liversidge be detained.
 
 ‘(Signed) John Anderson,
 
‘One of His Majesty’s Principal Secretaries of State’

 

No charge; no prosecution; no trial; no conviction; no sentence.

Just the opinion of the home secretary.

And so Liversidge brought a legal case against the then home secretary Sir John Anderson, and this was the case that reached the house of lords in 1941.

Liversidge, who averred he was falsely imprisoned, wanted to know the case against him.

But Viscount Maugham and the majority of the law lords were having none of Liversidge’s nonsense.

In a sequence of speeches that are rather quite remarkable the law lords – to use Lord Reed’s unfortunate phrase – accorded respect to the determination of the home secretary:

‘there is no appeal from the decision of the Secretary of State in these matters provided only that he acts in good faith’.

The appeal was dismissed, and Liversidge – sitting in Brixton prison – was ordered at the end of Maugham’s speech to pay the home secretary’s legal costs (though it is not clear whether this order was actually made).

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But not all the law lords nodded-along.

Lord Atkin sat through the very same submissions in September 1941, and he came to a very different conclusion.

He gave a dissenting speech which contained this passage (which I here break into smaller paragraphs for flow):

‘I view with apprehension the attitude of judges who on a mere question of construction when face to face with claims involving the liberty of the subject show themselves more executive minded than the executive.
 
‘Their function is to give words their natural meaning, not, perhaps, in war time leaning towards liberty, but following the dictum of Pollock C.B. in Bowditch v. Balchin (1850) 5 Ex 378 , cited with approval by my noble and learned friend Lord Wright in Barnard v. Gorman [1941] AC 378, 393 : “In a case in which the liberty of the subject is concerned, we cannot go beyond the natural construction of the statute.”
 
In this country, amid the clash of arms, the laws are not silent. They may be changed, but they speak the same language in war as in peace.
 
‘It has always been one of the pillars of freedom, one of the principles of liberty for which on recent authority we are now fighting, that the judges are no respecters of persons and stand between the subject and any attempted encroachments on his liberty by the executive, alert to see that any coercive action is justified in law.
 
‘In this case I have listened to arguments which might have been addressed acceptably to the Court of King’s Bench in the time of Charles I.
 
‘I protest, even if I do it alone, against a strained construction put on words with the effect of giving an uncontrolled power of imprisonment to the minister.
 
‘To recapitulate: The words have only one meaning. They are used with that meaning in statements of the common law and in statutes. They have never been used in the sense now imputed to them.
 
‘They are used in the Defence Regulations in the natural meaning, and, when it is intended to express the meaning now imputed to them, different and apt words are used in the regulations generally and in this regulation in particular.
 
Even if it were relevant, which it is not, there is no absurdity or no such degree of public mischief as would lead to a non-natural construction.
 
‘I know of only one authority which might justify the suggested method of construction: “‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.’ ‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’ ‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.’” (“Through the Looking Glass,” c. vi.)
 
‘After all this long discussion the question is whether the words “If a man has” can mean “If a man thinks he has.” I am of opinion that they cannot, and that the case should be decided accordingly.
 
‘If it be true, as, for the foregoing reasons, I am profoundly convinced it is, that the Home Secretary has not been given an unconditional authority to detain, the true decision in the [case] before us ought not to be difficult to make.’
 
 
*
Lord Atkin, 1941: ‘judges are no respecters of persons’
 
Lord Reed, 2021: ‘[the court of appeal] did not give the Home Secretary’s assessment the respect which it should have received’
 
*
 
 
Lord Atkin’s speech in 1941 did not go down well with his fellow judges.
 
Lord Atkin was cancelled.
 
As David Pannick details in his book Judges, the other law lords shunned Atkin.
 
Viscount Maugham, in an extraordinary step, even wrote a letter to the Times about the language used by his fellow law lord (the short house of lords debate on that letter is here.)
 
But Atkin was right.
 
As a later law lord, Lord Diplock said in a 1979 house of lords case:
 
‘For my part I think the time has come to acknowledge openly that the majority of this House in Liversidge v. Anderson were expediently and, at that time, perhaps, excusably, wrong and the dissenting speech of Lord Atkin was right.’
 
But that was no consolation to Liversidge detained in Brixton prison back in 1941.
 
Nor was it consolation to Atkin – for according to Pannick it was widely believed that Atkin never recovered from the hostility of his fellow judges before his death in 1944.
 
*
 
Perhaps in a few years a supreme court justice may suggest – perhaps cautiously in an extra-judicial lecture, or perhaps more confidently in an actual decision – that the court of appeal got the Begum case right, and the supreme court did not.
 
That will be no consolation to anyone either.
 
But as the 1941 case of Liversidge v Anderson shows, it is not the first time that the judges of the highest court – in the words of one of its greatest former members – ‘show themselves more executive minded than the executive’.
 
And it certainly will not be the last time they do this in respect of the rights of the individual in the face of the powers of a home secretary.
 
***
 
Sources – Judges by David Pannick and In the highest degree odious: detention without trial in wartime Britain by A W Brian Simpson – and both books are highly recommended
 

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‘Not giving the Home Secretary’s assessment the respect that it deserves’ – some initial thoughts on the Shamima Begum decision of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom

26th February 2021

This morning the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom handed down its decision in the appeal case of Shamima Begum.

The judgment is detailed and lengthy, dealing with three distinct appeals, and is 137 paragraphs long.

With a decision of this scope and complexity one can only form indicative impressions on the day it is made public.

The decision will take time to digest and to comprehend.

But.

That said, and with the proviso that immediate impressions can often be dispelled, here are some views from the perspective of a liberal commentator on law and policy.

*

The first impression comes from the decision being unanimous.

This is not a judgment where some justices with a more liberal perspective have their say and their more conservative counterparts say something else.

A basis for a judgment was found to which all supreme court justices who heard the case was content to put their names.

This is similar to what happened in the second Miller case – on the prorogation of parliament – and on the Heathrow expansion case.

Perhaps it is a mere coincidence – but the supreme court is at now at least in the habit of putting on a united front in cases that (can be said to) involve issues of high policy and the public interest – even if it is not a deliberate policy.

This is no doubt sensible – if the judicial element of the state is to check and balance another element of the state (or to not check or balance another element of the state) then it is better for it not to be seen as something on which senior judges disagree between themselves.

It also perhaps indicates that there is more going on behind the scenes in seeking to obtain unanimous judgments, rather than a laissez-faire attitude of just publishing what each judge thinks.

*

The second impression is that, as well as being unanimous, the judgment is executive minded.

For example, here is how the court of appeal described the background of Begum:

But in contrast, in the supreme court judgment these same personal details – such as where Begum was born – are expressly presented from the perspective of the home secretary’s desk:

What we know about Begum in the supreme court judgment is expressly framed as being the content of a submission before the home secretary.

We are not directly told Begum was born in the United Kingdom other than that this is an incidental detail in an assessment on national security.

For the details of the individual to be put in such terms in a judgment in respect of their rights is not wrong, but it is quite the tell.

The supreme court judgment also starts in a robust, no-nonsense way about the home secretary’s decisive action:

Nothing rides on it, of course, but note how we are told that the home secretary is both a privy councillor and a member of parliament (gosh, fancy that) and nothing at all about Begum.

That the court is seeing things from the home secretary’s perspective is also perhaps indicated by an unfortunate choice of words at paragraph 134:

The court of appeal has been told off by the unanimous supreme court for not giving ‘the Home Secretary’s assessment the respect which it should have received’.

It is not only an unfortunate choice of words, it is also somewhat chilling in a court which is in effect the final guarantor of our basic rights and freedoms either under the common law, human rights law, or otherwise.

The job of the courts is not to ‘give respect’ to assessments of the home secretary – but to approach such determinations with anxious scrutiny.

Perhaps the use of words here is a slip – but one fears instead it is again a tell.

*

The third immediate impression is that it is a defeatist judgment.

The court of appeal found a compromise which balanced the rights of Begum with those of the executive.

It was an impressive and elegant judgment, and I did a video for the Financial Times:

The supreme court was to have none of this.

For the supreme court justices it is not the job of a court to indulge in such elaborate balancing exercises between the executive and the individual.

Instead, in such a dilemma, there is no judicial compromise:

Not every legal problem, it seems, has a neat legal solution – and the supreme court is averring that courts should not affect otherwise.

*

The overall first impression is that the supreme court has made a firm turn away from liberalism – liberalism being the general notion that the rights of the individual are to be balanced against those of the state.

(As opposed to the notion that the rights of either side will always trump the other.)

If this first impression is affirmed on careful examination of the judgment then the considered reaction will have to be one of disappointment.

For if the supreme court is taking an illiberal turn, then they will be failing – to invoke a phrase – to accord individuals the respect they deserve.

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Why it was correct for an appeal court to allow a memorial entirely in Irish

25th February 2021

Not all law is secular.

And so one of the happy features of being a legal commentator in England is coming across cases involving church law – an entire parallel system of law and indeed jurisdiction.

It is like stepping from time to time through a portal into another world of courts and rules and judges, vaguely familiar but also radically different.

*

One such case was heard yesterday – a fascinating appeal that has significance beyond the boundaries of any church and churchyard.

For bringing this appeal to wider attention we can thank the tweets of CJ McKinney, who live-tweeted the hearing (that was broadcast on Zoom).

His thread is here:

https://twitter.com/mckinneytweets/status/1364522509278851080

*

The appeal was about what will be inscribed on the gravestone of the late Margaret Keane.

In particular, it is about the proposal of the daughter of the deceased that the gravestone should bear the words ‘In ár gcroíthe go deo’  – that is, in Irish.

This phrase can be translated into English as ‘in our hearts forever’.

For as the court at first instance described:

‘Margaret Keane and her husband were both born in the Irish Republic but had made their life in the United Kingdom. They remained proud of their Irish heritage and were active in the work of the Gaelic Athletic Association both in Coventry and nationally. This was important public service to the Irish community in the United Kingdom and formed a major part of Mrs. Keane’s life and of her work for others.’

However, the Coventry Churchyard Regulations said ‘no’:

‘It is to be remembered that the memorial will be read not just by those who knew the deceased in question but by those who did not. Indeed, the message conveyed to those who did not know the deceased is in many ways more important than the message being given to those who did know him or her. It is for this reason that inscriptions in a language other than English may not be authorised by an incumbent.’

But this is not an absolute prohibition.

The nature of these regulations appears to be to set out what an incumbent vicar can agree to without referring it to the chancellor of the diocese.

The regulations thereby also provide:

‘Any application for an inscription wholly or in part in a language other than English should be referred to the Chancellor through the Registry. The Chancellor will in such cases normally require an application to be made for a faculty.’

*

And so a faculty – or permission – was applied for, and a decision on the application was made by the chancellor of the diocese sitting in a consistory court.

The judgment of that chancellor is here.

And it is an extraordinary piece of legal reasoning.

The most relevant passage of the judgment for the appeal was as follows (which I have broken into smaller paragraphs for flow):

‘The proposal in this case is not just for the inclusion of a single word but for a short phrase which the reader will immediately realise is conveying a message.

‘However, it is a message which will be unintelligible to all but a small minority of readers.

‘In those circumstances it is not appropriate for it to stand alone without translation.

‘I make it clear that in saying this I am not in any sense adjudicating on the relative merits or standing of English and Irish Gaelic as languages.  The situation would be likely to be wholly different if I were having to make a decision as to a memorial in the Irish Republic. However, the situation which I have to address is of a memorial in English-speaking Coventry.

‘Should I permit an inscription which will be incomprehensible to almost all its readers?

‘Not only would the message of the inscription not be understood but there is a risk of it being misunderstood.

‘Given the passions and feelings connected with the use of Irish Gaelic there is a sad risk that the phrase would be regarded as some form of slogan or that its inclusion without translation would of itself be seen as a political statement.

‘That is not appropriate and it follows that the phrase “In ár gcroíthe go deo” must be accompanied by a translation which can be in a smaller font size.’

*

Wow.

What can one say?

Well, first that there is a substantial Irish population in Coventry – as in the rest of the west midlands.

Second that gravestones and memorials in Anglican churches and churchyards are often not in English: lector, si monumentum requiris, circumspice.

But most jarring is the assumption that anything written in a language other than English – especially Irish – risks being seen as a ‘slogan’.

The chancellor asserts ‘there is a sad risk that the phrase would be regarded as some form of slogan or that its inclusion without translation would of itself be seen as a political statement’ .

But in fact there is a sad certainty that such sloppy and prejudiced reasoning by somebody who should know better will be seen as some form of idiocy and would of itself be seen as a political statement.

It is a remarkable and discrediting passage, and it was right it was appealed.

However, it must be noted that the chancellor did not prohibit the use of the Irish phrase  – but ordered that it must be complemented on the memorial by a translation.

And so the case is not about whether Irish could be used on a memorial, but whether it was open to the deceased’s family to have an all-Irish memorial.

*

And now we go to the wonderfully named ‘Court of Arches‘ – like something out of a story by George R R Martin – which appears to have appellate jurisdiction in such a case.

Here kudos should be conferred on the solicitors Irwin Mitchell and the barristers Caoilfhionn Gallagher QC and (the former legal blogger) Mary-Rachel McCabe who acted pro bono publico.

(Pro bono publico means ‘for the public good’ – which I translate for the benefit of the chancellor of the diocese of Coventry.)

The hearing was not contested by the local church – nobody was sent from Coventry to the court of arches to defend or justify the chancellor’s judgment.

The hearing comprised representations from the daughter as the petitioner, and from the Irish language group Conradh na Gaeilge as an intervenor.

The court also appointed an independent lawyer as amicus curae (which I translate as a friend to the court, for the benefit of the chancellor of the Coventry diocese).

Delightfully the hearing had to finish in time for a church service to take place:

https://twitter.com/mckinneytweets/status/1364628328490164228

From McKinney’s tweets, it appears that the decision was attacked on a number of grounds including (as befitting a west midlands case) Wednesbury unreasonableness as well as on the basis of human rights law.

We do not yet know which of these submissions gained the most traction for the judges beneath the arches.

But we do know that the appeal was allowed – and so a memorial can be made out entirely in Irish.

https://twitter.com/mckinneytweets/status/1364631710802079745

I also understand that court costs of the amount of around £2,000 have been reimbursed to the daughter – and there must be a question about charging for such costs in these cases.

*

But, this being the church of England there seems an attempt was also made to humour the chancellor – and so a translation can be available on request:

https://twitter.com/mckinneytweets/status/1364632302085677069

The whole point of the church of England, of course, is to find – if possible – such a middle way.

Or via media – for those other than the chancellor of the dicocese of Coventry.

But nonetheless this was a sensible and welcome appeal judgment.

*

The wider import of this case is not about whether a church can control what is said on a memorial on church grounds.

Indeed, as it was a church court that decided the issue, this matter has been kept within the structure of church law, and thereby within the church.

This was not an example of the secular courts overturning a decision of the church – but a decision by the church itself, but at a higher level.

Nor is the significance of the case about what incumbent priests should be able to routinely allow – there is nothing inherently wrong with a general policy, as long as exceptions are considered appropriately.

The significance of this case is, for me, about the sort of reasoning and grounds that can be relied upon when denying outright the possibility of a memorial entirely in a language of the deceased and of the deceased’s family and community.

Such a decision should never be based on the prejudiced generalisations put forward by the chancellor in this particular case, and we must hope that in the awaited written judgment of the court of arches that the appeal judges says this – emphatically.

There must always be the possibility in principle of a memorial entirely in an appropriate language, subject to circumstances.

*

Thank you to the family of Margaret Keane and the lawyers who brought and won this appeal.

In ár gcroíthe go deo

And if you want to look a monument to their efforts, you will be able to go to Coventry for a look.

Lector, si monumentum requiris, circumspice

***

POSTSCRIPT

Since I wrote the post above, I have now seen this brilliant post by Caoilfhionn Gallagher the QC who led the appeal.

A superb piece of legal blogging.

 

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Brexit is already structured as a negotiation without end – but what happens if Brexit continues to be a political row without end?

24th February 2021

One of the wisest and most perceptive of political commentators is Rafael Behr – and at the end of a recent wise and perceptive column is this wise and perceptive observation:

‘For the true believers, a good Brexit is one that keeps the grievance alive; that makes foreigners the scapegoat for bad government; that continues to indulge the twin national myths of victimhood and heroic defiance. Measured for that purpose, Johnson’s pointless Brexit is perfect.’

Another commentator Mujtaba Rahman makes similar points in this depressingly plausible thread:

Is there anything in these pessimistic takes?

Are things likely to now get worse – or at least not get any better?

*

As I set out in this Financial Times video, the trade and cooperation agreement is structured deliberately as framework for ongoing negotiations between the European Union and the United Kingdom:

This requirement for ongoing engagement is a feature – and not a bug – of the departure arrangements.

There are institutions and processes in place for constant dialogue – and five-yearly cycles are expressly envisaged for more fundamental shifts in the relationship.

The formal relationship will be, and is intended to be dynamic, not static.

This was, of course, always likely to be the case with a Brexit which has been conducted at speed and with little or no planning or indeed thought.

Many things were left undone with the intention of dealing with them later.

But whatever the explanation, one thing that can be said with certainty is that the Brexit we have had is not a ‘once-and-for-all’ event where ‘with-one-bound-we-were-free’.

So regardless of the mood of politicians the law and policy process of Brexit has not gone away – and may well never do so, at least for a political generation or two (or three).

*

Law and policy is one thing – and politics is another.

One can perhaps envisage a future – even under the current arrangements – where the Brexit issue is de-intensified, and where everyone gets on in a post-Brexit context.

But.

If the observations of Behr and others are correct such an outlook is unduly optimistic.

Many Brexit arguments are instead now beginning – and will become all the more intense because now they have supposed facts of ‘EU v UK’ to feed off, as opposed to the definite fictions.

If this is the case, then there will be implications for the framework provided by the trade and cooperation agreement.

For that framework is intended implicitly as almost a technocratic device – a means by which two friendly entities merely and boringly manage a relationship, making adjustments as they go along.

Talking shops, not boxing rings.

Less clear is how the trade and cooperation agreement – and also the Ireland/Northern Ireland protocol of the prior withdrawal agreement – will take a never-ending storm of partisanship and hostility.

That is not what these agreements were designed for.

The clue is in the ‘cooperation’ part of the very name ‘trade and cooperation agreement’.

Cooperation it says, and not confrontation.

It is not a trade and confrontation agreement.

*

Yet.

Few things are inevitable in human affairs.

It is still only February – the month after the Brexit transition arrangements came to an end.

Nothing that has so far happened can demonstrate with certainty what the first few years of Brexit will be like.

Things may calm down, or things may get far worse, or something new may come along which changes everything.

All that said, however, this early volatility indicates that any easy and quick passage of the United Kingdom to full participation in the European Union single market and customs union is unlikely – and still less the prospect of rejoining.

Even if things do calm down, they are now unlikely to go back to how they were.

*

The key political question now is whether the government and its political and media supporters can themselves ‘move on’ from Brexit.

For if they cannot politically ‘move on’ then the Brexit withdrawal and cooperation arrangements (which this government itself negotiated, signed, won an electoral mandate for, and implemented into law) will be politicised and contested in the same way membership of the European Union was politicised and contested.

And it is not inevitable that the Brexit withdrawal and cooperation arrangements will be able to withstand such sustained political assaults.

The Brexit withdrawal and cooperation arrangements may have replaced full membership of the European Union, but that does not mean there is in turn an even-smaller Russian doll of a formal relationship available if those arrangements fail.

If the Brexit withdrawal and cooperation arrangements crash, there may be nothing to replace them.

Brace, brace.

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Why the high court was right to deny standing to members of parliament to bring public law claims – and why such ‘ornamental claimants’ are a bad thing

23rd February 2021

*

‘Now a cowboy needs a hat, needs a hat, needs a hat

‘And a pair of fancy boots, fancy boots, fancy boots’

– TikTok meme, circa 2020-21

*

Any legal case at its most basic needs two things.

First: it needs a question that a court can determine – a question of law or evidence that is capable of being determined one way or another by legal proceedings.

Say whether there had been a breach of a contract, or whether a theft had taken place, or whether a government department had acted within its legal duties.

And second: a legal case needs somebody to bring it to the court for that determination.

Sometimes – in criminal cases – that somebody can elsewhere in Europe be a magistrate themselves, or a prosecutor appointed by the state.

But in civil cases – where a party sues another party – that somebody has to be somebody willing and able to bring the case.

And – in England and Wales at least – whether a person can bring a case is described as whether that person has ‘standing’ to bring a claim.

*

Usually in civil cases it is obvious who can and should bring a claim.

The person who can bring a claim is the person who has been wronged.

A party to a contract can sue the other party to the contract if the latter is in breach, or a person who is victim of a tort can sue the tortfeasor (which must be one of the more glorious words in legal vocabulary), and so on.

In what is called ‘private law’ there is usually no problem identifying who can – and who cannot – bring a claim before a court.

*

But there is a gap – and that is in ‘public law’ cases.

(Public law is the area of law which deals with the special legal rules which apply to public bodies and others exercising similar powers.)

Who should be able to bring a claim that a public body is acting unlawfully?

The starting point is that a person directly and adversely affected should be able to bring the case before a court so that the lawfulness of what a public body has done or not done can be determined.

And so, for example, a person facing deportation or a person whose property is about to be blighted, and so on, can often bring a judicial review in respect of a relevant decision by a public body.

(A judicial review is when, literally, a thing is reviewed judicially to ascertain whether it within the powers of the relevant body.)

*

But.

And it is a huge but.

Not all unlawfulness by public bodies will be neatly accompanied by a person being directly and adversely affected.

Take, for example, the topical example of a contract awarded by the government to a supplier where there has been neither an advertisement nor a competitive procurement exercise.

In these circumstances there is not even a disappointed bidder who would have standing to bring a claim.

What should the law – more specifically, what should should a court  – do?

*

One answer, which appeals to those who delight in unchecked executive power, is that nobody should have standing.

That a public body should be allowed to act unlawfully generally unless a person can be found who has been directly and adversely affected.

But this cannot be in the public interest.

And so the courts – sensibly – have expanded the scope of who can bring public law claims in the public interest.

Accordingly, organisations with a sincere interest in an area of public policy, but with no direct financial interest in the outcome of a challenge, are often granted standing to bring a claim.

But how wide should this scope be?

And this is the question asked – and answered – in the procurement transparency case decided last week.

*

There were four claimants in that case:

(It is a pity they could not have added more parties with ever-shorter names so we could have had a pleasing upturned triangle of names.)

You will see that the second, third and fourth claimants are members of parliament.

Surely if anyone can claim to be able to be guardians of the public interest it would be elected representatives of the democratic chamber?

But the court held otherwise: that the three members of parliament did not have standing to bring this claim.

The court was right to do so.

*

The reason the court was right to do so goes to a fundamental principle in the constitution of the United Kingdom: the separation of powers.

This familiar phrase means, in practice, that different elements of the state have different remits, and that they should act as a check and balance on each other.

A person may well be elected to parliament –  but before the courts they are no different to any other person.

An elected representative has various privileges and rights – some of which can carry considerable weight and power.

For example, members of parliament have absolute privileges in what they say and do in parliament and can hold ministers to account.

But they do not also get any elevated right to bring legal proceedings against those same ministers.

(A member of parliament may have standing on other grounds, but not just because of the simple fact of their office.)

If members of parliament were accorded a special status to bring a public law claim, this would mean that there would be a significant overlap between parliament and the courts.

There would also be a tendency for the work of the courts to be further politicised and for proceedings to become openly partisan devices.

Of course: to a small extent there is already an overlap, and the courts will never be free of the general charge of politicisation.

(And the courts already recognise the attorney-general – an office held by a politician – as having a special status as custodian of the public interest in certain proceedings, though attorneys-general will not bring proceedings against their own government.)

As the judge correctly observed in the judgment last week:

“No doubt, the addition of politicians as parties may raise the profile of the litigation.

‘It may make it easier to raise funds.

‘But these are not proper reasons for adding parties.

‘In a case where there is already a claimant with standing, the addition of politicians as claimants may leave the public with the impression that the proceedings are an attempt to advance a political cause, when in fact their sole legitimate function is to determine an arguable allegation of unlawful conduct.’

One hopes that the fashion of adding (no doubt well-meaning) politicians as, in effect, ornamental claimants in public law claims will now come to an end.

If a non-partisan organisation has standing to bring a claim in the public interest then no politician is needed, and if there is no such organisation than a partisan politician is not a good substitute.

*

In the case last week, a large portion of the judgment was devoted to the issue of standing.

One can understand why the government wanted to object to the notion that anyone has standing to go to court to in respect of unlawful conduct by the government.

And more widely, the government and its political and media supporters are constantly seeking to narrow the practical availability of judicial review.

That organisations (such as the first claimant in last week’s case) are accorded standing in public interest cases is a boon for accountability and transparency.

But ‘add me as well’ lists of ornamental claimants savour of gesturing and gimmickry. 

A pleading is not – and should not be – a round-robin.

If members of parliament want to add their names to something then parliamentary motions and other Westminster devices are available.

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The real significance of the government’s defeat over transparency in public procurement – yes, the claimants overstated their case, but reaction of the government was extraordinary

22nd February 2021

 

Last week the high court held that the government of the United Kingdom had acted unlawfully in respect of certain contracts awarded during the pandemic.

The judgment is here.

In particular, the high court held that there had been a failure by the government to publish contract award notices within the appropriate time.

It is a significant case – even though the government sought to brush off the claim as ‘academic’.

And the significance of the case is also not quite what the claimants initially made it out to be when making the claim, and the claimants lost on their more eye-catching assertions.

In particular, the claimants failed to show there was a ‘systematic’ policy put in place of widespread non-compliance with the publication obligations, and nor did the claimants show that there was a deliberate policy to ‘de-prioritise’ compliance. 

They – and you – may believe that to be the case – but they could not show this to the court.

All the claimants could demonstrate to the court was that there was non-compliance by the government with the mandatory deadlines – which the government could not and did not deny.

(The government asserted that they were only ‘technical breaches’.)

In respect of this undeniable (and not denied) non-compliance, it was a difficult case for the claimants to lose in the event that it proceeded to a court hearing.

The legal equivalent of a good shot on goal.

And as the case did proceed to a court hearing, the claimants won on the issue of non-compliance – though they did not get the remedy they primarily wanted (and almost did not get a remedy at all).

The curious thing is not so much why the claimants won – there had been a breach that could not be denied – but why the government resisted the claim all the way to the high court (spending over two hundred thousand pound in legal fees).

Had the government simply admitted the breaches – but denied that the breaches were the result of any systemic and deliberate policy – and undertaken to publish the notices as soon as possible, then it would have been highly unlikely that the claim would have proceeded to a full hearing.

But the government did not, and so the claim did.

Something rather strange has gone on.

*

In this post I now set out the elements of the case, as can be identified from the content of the judgment.

I will then set out what the case was – and was not – about.

But before we get to the judgment, we need to first understand the purpose of the contract award notices and why it matters that they were not published in time.

*

‘Public procurement’ is the term used to describe the purchase by public authorities of goods and services from the private sector.

For various reasons, public procurement is subject to special legal rules that are in addition to (and sometimes qualify) the general law of contract.

In essence, the special laws of public procurement are about procedure: that is, what a public body has to do (and cannot do) when going about awarding a ‘public contract’.

And if that public body does not comply with those legal rules then a court can determine that it has acted unlawfully.

What then happens depends on the nature of the breach and the practical use of any remedy.

A court may compensate a wronged bidder for a contract, or it can issue a mandatory order that a public body do something (or not do something) in particular.

Or a court may just declare the correct legal position.

Or if there is nothing to be done, then a court may do nothing at all.

(For more on what it means, and what it does not mean, for a court to hold that a public body has acted unlawfully, see my post yesterday.)

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One of the reasons there is a special legal regime for public procurements is the need for transparency.

Transparency is a fundamental principle in the law of public procurement.

All sorts of things need to be published by public authorities (and some public utilities) when purchasing goods and services that would not need to be published by a private corporations making similar transactions.

In routine public procurement the principle of transparency is met by the publication, for example, of specifications and contract values, and of details of the procurement exercises to be followed and of the criteria to be applied.

Thousands and thousands of pages of this dry information are published every day: the dullest legal prose on the planet outside of a tax code or a trade agreement schedule.

Dull – but necessary and a public good.

And one of the things that should be published are contract award notices.

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A contract award notice is not, itself, legally that significant.

The parties to the tender exercise – the winners and (any) losers – will already have been notified of the contract award – and an aggrieved loser can bring a challenge if it acts promptly.

The purpose of the contact award notice is not for the benefit of the bidders and does not trigger or limit their rights.

The purpose of the contract award notice is for the benefit of the public

Contract award notices tell us which contracts have been awarded and for how much and so on.

Contract award notices also will alert investigatory bodies such as the National Audit Office to possible problems.

The alternative to a contract award notice is that nobody outside the government and any bidders would ever know what contracts had been awarded.

And so although contract award notices may not be legally that important – in that they do not trigger rights and so on – they are politically important.

Contract award notices are part of the tribute that public procurement pays to the principle of transparency.

And the need for transparency in the award of public contracts is a fundamental reason why we have special rules for public procurement in the first place.

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This need for the publication of contract award notices is all the more important when there has not been any advertisement or other publicity for the award of high-value contracts.

For in an emergency a public authority can dispense with a formal procurement process.

This is provided for in the United Kingdom by regulation 32 of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015:

The government has relied on this regulation 32(2)(c) exemption for a high number of pandemic-related contracts.

Few sensible people would object – as such emergency provisions exist for emergencies, and this was an emergency.

The flexibility is built into the system.

But.

Although the need for prior publications can be relaxed under regulation 32, this does not mean that the need for subsequent publication is relaxed too.

Indeed, such notices become crucial, so that the public may know what is (and is not) being done.

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Contract award notices are provided for under regulation 50 of the Public Contracts Regulations.

You will see that the regulation is one of a number of provisions dealing with transparency:

The relevant part of the regulation is regulation 50(1):There are some exceptions to this thirty day publication obligation (for example, national security) – but the government did not seek to rely on those exceptions in the coronavirus procurements.

So although regulation 32 allowed the government to dispense with prior publication about public contract the government still had to comply with the regulation 50 obligation once the contracts had been awarded.

And in a substantial number of instances, the government did not do so.

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The judgment sets out the extent of the government’s failure to publish contract award notices in accordance with regulation 50:Note that this was set out in the government’s own witness statement.

(The mentions to the ‘policy’ are to a formal government policy on publications that was also breached – but for the purposes of this post, the policy adds nothing.)

Given that there was a legal rule that applied, and given that the government did not comply with it, then the only result is to conclude that the government had acted unlawfully.

There was no other outcome available to a competent court.

The wider (wilder?) claims of the claimants were found wanting: no probative evidence was before the court on this non-compliance being directed and cynical.

Of course, one may have suspicions and may regard those taking the government’s version of events at face value as naive.

But suspicions are not evidence, let alone proof, and the claimants’ assertion that the policy of delayed publication was part of a deliberate system fell flat in the (virtual) court room.

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What also did not get traction was the claimants’ demand for a mandatory order – an order of the court to the government to comply with regulation 50 under pain of contempt of court.

And the reason why such an order was not made was because it was, by the time of the hearing, unnecessary.

The government had published the notices, although out of time.

Perhaps this late activity was because of this litigation.

Perhaps it was because, as the government’s evidence detailed, there were now more resources in place for such tasks.

But whatever the explanation: there was nothing left for a mandatory order to do – and so such an order was not made.

All that the court could do positively was to exercise its discretion to make a declaration that the law had been broken – and that is what the court did, though refusing to use words like ‘systemic’ as requested by the claimants.

But any declaration by a court is discretionary and it may well not have been made.

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So this is case about non-compliance with a statutory deadline, which the government did not deny, and that had been remedied by the time of the hearing of the court.

And once at court, not a difficult case for the claimants to win.

So – and this is the curious question – why did this case ever get to court?

Why?

Here paragraph 153 of the judgment is fascinating.

(It is too long to screengrab or quote here – so click and read it here.)

For although the claimants undoubtedly overstated their case, the government’s reaction was extraordinary.

The government sought to claim that there was a special species of ‘technical breaches’ that were not really legal breaches at all.

The government also resisted until the very last moment any admissions as to what had happened.

The claimants may have had a free run at goal – but the government managed to intervene and score an own goal anyway.

If Alan Hansen were a legal commentator, one could imagine him wincing at almost every sub-paragraph of paragraph 153 of the judgment.

What on Earth was happening?

One can be fairly sure the fault is not with the government lawyers – their internal advice would have been much as I have averred above – to acknowledge a problem and to undertake to put it right.

(And the judge himself in this case was an experienced barrister in such public law matters – that is how he can set out the details in paragraph 153 in such a – well – systemic way.)

Someone in government insisted that this case went all the way to court – at the cost of over two hundred thousand pounds.

There may not have been a deliberate policy of delaying contract award notices – but there seems there was a deliberate decision to delay admitting that there had been legal breaches.

The claimants deserve some criticism for overstating their case without direct evidence.

Yet that overstatement is as nothing to the remarkable decision by the government to defend the legally indefensible at every step up to a high court hearing.

Perhaps this was a strategic decision by the government, in view of the other cases brought to challenge particular public procurement decisions, as opposed to this general challenge.

The government may well have nothing to hide – but it is certainly conducting its litigation as if it has.

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The last word will be with the judge, who in paragraph 140 of the judgment summarises the fundamental problem presented by this case (which I have broken into smaller paragraphs for flow):

‘The obligations imposed by reg. 50 and by the Transparency Policy and Principles serve a vital public function and that function was no less important during a pandemic.

‘The Secretary of State spent vast quantities of public money on pandemic-related procurements during 2020.

‘The public were entitled see who this money was going to, what it was being spent on and how the relevant contracts were awarded.

‘This was important not only so that competitors of those awarded contracts could understand whether the obligations owed to them under the PCR 2015 had been breached, but also so that oversight bodies such as the NAO, as well as Parliament and the public, could scrutinise and ask questions about this expenditure. By answering such questions, the Government “builds public trust and public confidence in public services”: see §1 of the Transparency Principles.

‘One unfortunate consequence of non-compliance with the transparency obligations (both for the public and for the Government) is that people can start to harbour suspicions of improper conduct, which may turn out to be unfounded.’

Or they may not be.

And that is why transparency is important.

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