Court : House of Lords
..... /00, admissibility decision 29 june 2006), para 95 the court summarised the case law on the minimum safeguards that should be set out in statute law in order to avoid abuses of power involving interception of communications: the nature of the offences which may give rise to an interception order; a definition of the categories of people liable to have their telephones tapped; a limit on the duration of telephone tapping; the procedure to be followed for examining, using and storing the data ..... the last-mentioned point is relevant in the present case, because mce pleaded guilty to a number of charges before the judicial review proceedings were commenced, c and a pleaded guilty to explosives offences very soon after leave to appeal to the house of lords was given, and m was released from police custody before the application for judicial review was decided. 78. ..... thus section 8 of pace gives a justice of the peace the power to issue a search warrant for material likely to be of substantial value to the investigation of a serious arrestable offence provided that there are reasonable grounds for believing that the material in question does not consist of or include items subject to legal privilege". ..... the rule preventing that remains absolute, even if that evidence would exculpate another person accused of a criminal offence (the position in r v derby magistrates court, ex parte b). .....
Tag this Judgment!Court : House of Lords
..... error or reason for regarding the verdict as unsafe or unsatisfactory, but he went on to state (by way of obiter): "what is required in any particular case, where the judge fails to leave an alternative offence to the jury, is that the court, before interfering with the verdict, must be satisfied that the jury may have convicted out of a reluctance to see the defendant get clean away with what, on any ..... himself about it or calling some evidence to cover or guard against the possibility of conviction of that lesser offence - and in such a case, where there might well be prejudice to an accused, it seems to this court there must be a discretion in the trial judge whether or not to leave the lesser ..... v mccormack [1969] 2 qb 442,446 b the court of appeal said: "cases vary so infinitely that one can well envisage a case where the possibility of conviction of some lesser offence has been completely ignored by both prosecution and defence - it may be that the accused has never had occasion to deal with the matter, has lost a chance of giving some evidence ..... to deal with the matter, has lost a chance of giving some evidence himself about it or calling some evidence to cover or guard against the possibility of conviction of that lesser offence and in such a case, where there might well be prejudice to an accused, it seems to this court there must be a discretion in the trial judge whether or not to leave the lesser .....
Tag this Judgment!Court : House of Lords
lord buckmaster(read by lord tomlin) my lords, the facts of this case are simple. on august 26th, 1928, the appellant drank a bottle of ginger beer, manufactured by the respondent, which a friend had bought from a retailer and given to her. the bottle contained the decomposed remains of a snail which were not and could not be detected until the greater part of the contents of the bottle had been consumed. as a result she alleged and, at this stage her allegations must be accepted as true, that she suffered from shock and severe gastro enteritis. she accordingly instituted the proceedings against the manufacturers which have given rise to this appeal. the foundation of her case is that the respondent, as the manufacturers of an article intended for consumption and contained in a receptacle which prevented inspection owed a duty to her as consumer of the article to take care that there was no noxious element in the goods, that they neglected such duty and are consequently liable for any damage caused by such neglect. after certain amendments which are now immaterial, the case came before the lord ordinary who rejected the plea in law of the respondent and allowed a proof. his interlocutor was revoked by the second division of the court of session from whose judgment this appeal has been brought. before examining the merits two comments are desirable (1) that the appellant's case rests solely on the ground of a tort based not on fraud but on negligence; and (2) that throughout .....
Tag this Judgment!Court : House of Lords
..... this raises the question whether a person who by legal tests and standards is sane and who is charged with a criminal offence could be held to be non-accountable for his actions so as to be not guilty of the offence charged against him on the basis that his actions had been unconscious ones and in that sense involuntary. ..... there is an absolute prohibition against that offence, whether he had a guilty mind or not. ..... nevertheless, one must not lose sight of the overriding principle, laid down by this house in woolmington's case (supra), that it is for the prosecution to prove every element of the offence charged. .....
Tag this Judgment!Court : House of Lords
lord bingham of cornhill my lords, 1. this appeal raises two questions on the law of libel. the first concerns the entitlement of a trading corporation such as the second respondent to sue and recover damages without pleading or proving special damage. the second concerns the scope and application of what has come to be called reynolds privilege, an important form of qualified privilege. 2. the appellant is the publisher of the wall street journal europe, a respected, influential and unsensational newspaper ("the newspaper") carrying serious news about international business, finance and politics. it is edited, published and printed in brussels for distribution throughout europe and the middle east. it shares some editorial and journalistic personnel and facilities with its elder sister in new york, the wall street journal, which has a large circulation in the united states. 3. the respondents, claimants in the proceedings, are saudi arabian. the first respondent is a prominent businessman and president of the abdul latif jameel group, an international trading conglomerate based in the kingdom of saudi arabia comprising numerous companies and with interests in cars, shipping, property and distribution of electronic goods. the second respondent is a company incorporated in saudi arabia and is part of the group. the first respondent is the general manager and president of the company, which does not itself own property or conduct any trade or business here, but which has a .....
Tag this Judgment!Court : House of Lords
lord hoffmann my lords, summary 1. the question is whether someone who has been negligently exposed to asbestos in the course of his employment can sue his employer for damages on the ground that he has developed pleural plaques. these are areas of fibrous thickening of the pleural membrane which surrounds the lungs. save in very exceptional cases, they cause no symptoms. nor do they cause other asbestos-related diseases. but they signal the presence in the lungs and pleura of asbestos fibres which may independently cause life-threatening or fatal diseases such as asbestosis or mesothelioma. in consequence, a diagnosis of pleural plaques may cause the patient to contemplate his future with anxiety or even suffer clinical depression. 2. proof of damage is an essential element in a claim in negligence and in my opinion the symptomless plaques are not compensatable damage. neither do the risk of future illness or anxiety about the possibility of that risk materialising amount to damage for the purpose of creating a cause of action, although the law allows both to be taken into account in computing the loss suffered by someone who has actually suffered some compensatable physical injury and therefore has a cause of action. in the absence of such compensatable injury, however, there is no cause of action under which damages may be claimed and therefore no computation of loss in which the risk and anxiety may be taken into account. it follows that in my opinion the development of .....
Tag this Judgment!Court : House of Lords
lord hoffmann my lords, 1. on 8 march 2001 the court of justice for the european communities decided that that united kingdom revenue law, which had since 1973 allowed companies whose parents were resident in the united kingdom to elect to pay dividends free of advanced corporation tax ("act"), discriminated unlawfully against companies with parents resident in other member states: metallgesellschaft ltd v inland revenue commissioners (joined cases c-397 and c-410/98) [2001] ch. 620. the exaction of the tax from such companies had been contrary to the ec treaty and they were entitled to compensation. 2. the forensic fall-out from this decision has been very considerable. large numbers of subsidiaries of companies resident in other member states have lodged claims for compensation or restitution, some raising difficult ancillary points of law. the high court has made a group litigation order to enable these points to be resolved in an orderly fashion. the main point in this appeal concerns the period of limitation applicable to such claims. but that in turn raises some fundamental questions about the cause of action upon which the claimants rely. 3. before coming to these questions, i must briefly enlarge upon the provisions relating to advance corporation tax which the ecj held to be contrary to community law. the tax, which was abolished in 1999, was in theory corporation tax payable in advance of the date on which it would otherwise have been payable. a company resident in .....
Tag this Judgment!Court : House of Lords
..... legislation, the ceylon parliament could not have been granted greater powers than those of the queen in council, and that, as a result, legislation altering ex post facto the definition and procedures relating to certain criminal offences could be disregarded as contrary to fundamental principle and void. .....
Tag this Judgment!Court : House of Lords
..... " that sequence can be seen in our domestic law: the main steps being the sexual offences act 1967, the beginning of specific anti-discrimination legislation in the 1970s (though with some back-sliding over clause 28), and now sweeping changes in family law. ..... case, dudgeon v united kingdom (1981) 4 ehrr 149 was concerned with the position of a male homosexual in northern ireland at a time when private sexual activity which would have been lawful in england (under the sexual offences act 1967) was in theory a serious criminal offence, but did not in practice lead to prosecution, in northern ireland. ..... in this country homosexual offences, some carrying a maximum punishment of imprisonment for life, were re-enacted as recently as 1956. ..... the state no longer prevents or punishes their relationship, as it did the relationships of gay men in the days before the sexual offences act 1967. .....
Tag this Judgment!Court : House of Lords
lord hope of craighead my lords, 1. i am grateful to my noble and learned friend, lord walker of gestingthorpe, for his comprehensive description of the legislative and factual background to these appeals and his analysis of the competing arguments, and to my noble and learned friend, lord neuberger of abbotsbury, for his further examination of the issues that are before us in this case. i agree with both of them that the commissioners appeal should be dismissed in relation to mr flemings claim. i agree with lord neuberger, for the reasons he gives, that the commissioners appeal in relation to cond nasts claim should also be dismissed. 2. as lord walker has explained, claims for overpayment of output tax and previously unclaimed deduction of input tax are provided for by section 80 of the value added tax act 1994 and regulation 29 of the value added tax regulations 1995 (si 1995/2518). as originally enacted, section 80 provided that no amount paid by way of vat which was not due to the commissioners could be claimed after the expiry of six years from the date on which it was paid unless an amount had been paid by reason of a mistake, in which event a claim could be made at any time within six years from the date on which the claimant discovered the mistake or could with reasonable diligence have discovered it: subsections (4) and (5). in the ordinary course input tax should be claimed as a deduction on the return for the accounting period to which it relates. as .....
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