Court : UK Supreme Court
LORD BROWN, delivering the judgment of the court The appellants await trial in the Crown Court at Southwark on three counts of an indictment. Count two charges them with "making funds available to Iraq, contrary to articles 3(a) and 11(4) of the Iraq (United Nations Sanctions) Order 2000 and section 1 of the United Nations Act 1946". The particulars of offence allege that the appellants "being directors of Mabey and Johnson Ltd, between 1 May 2001 and 1 November 2002, consented to, or connived in, the making of ‚422,264 available to the government of the Republic of Iraq, or a person resident in the Republic of Iraq, by Mabey and Johnson, without the authority of a licence granted by the Treasury." Mabey and Johnson Ltd were in the business of exporting pre-fabricated bridges to developing countries and the essential allegation against the appellants is that they consented to the company's entering into an arrangement which facilitated the Iraqi Government's avoidance of intern...
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LORD MANCE Introduction This appeal concerns the liability of employers in the knitting industry of Derbyshire and Nottingham for hearing loss shown by employees to have been suffered during the years prior to 1 January 1990, the date when the Noise at Work Regulations 1989 (SI 1989/1790) came into force. The central issue is whether liability exists at common law and/or under section 29(1) of the Factories Act 1961, towards an employee who can establish noise-induced hearing loss resulting from exposure to noise levels between 85 and 90dB(A)lepd. Noise is generated by pressure levels in the air. The loudness of a noise depends on the sound pressure level of the energy producing it, measured in decibels (dB). The decibel scale is logarithmic, so that each 3dB increase involves a doubling of the sound energy, even though a hearer will not actually perceive a doubled sound pressure as involving much, if any, increase in sound. Noise is rarely pure, it usually consists of a "broadband" ...
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LORD SAVILLE 1. This case is concerned with a marine insurance policy on cargo dated 5 July 2005, which incorporated the Institute Cargo Clauses (A) of 1 January 1982. The policy covered "all risks of loss or damage to the subject-matter insured except as provided in Clauses 4, 5, 6 and 7" Clause 4.4 excluded "loss, damage or expense caused by inherent vice or nature of the subject matter insured" from the cover provided by the policy. 2. The subject matter of the insurance was the oil rig "Cendor MOPU." This oil rig had been laid up in Galveston, Texas. In May 2005 it was purchased by the respondents (the assured under the policy) for conversion into a mobile offshore production unit ("MOPU") for use in the Cendor Field off the coast of East Malaysia. The insurance covered the loading, carriage and discharge of the oil rig on the towed barge "Boabarge 8" from Galveston in the United States to Lumut in Malaysia. The total sum covered was Malaysian Ringgits 38m (US$10m) with a deducti...
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LORD DYSON (WITH WHOM LORD HOPE, LORD WALKER, LORD CLARKE AND LORD WILSON AGREE) 1.Section 3(2) of the Immigration Act 1971 ("the 1971 Act") provides that: "The Secretary of State shall from time to time (and as soon as may be) lay before Parliament statements of the rules, or of any changes in the rules, laid down by him as to the practice to be followed in the administration of this Act for regulating the entry into and stay in the United Kingdom of persons required by this Act to have leave to enter...." 2. The central question that arises in these two appeals is whether statements by the Secretary of State of her policy as regards the granting of concessions outside the immigration rules and of their subsequent withdrawal amount to statements as to "the practice to be followed" within the meaning of section 3(2) of the 1971 Act which she must, therefore, lay before Parliament. The statutory framework 3. The 1971 Act lies at the heart of these appeals. Section 1(4) provides: "(4) Th...
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LORD PHILLIPS Introduction 1. On 2 December 2010 the Swedish Prosecution Authority ("the Prosecutor"), who is the respondent to this appeal, issued a European Arrest Warrant ("EAW") signed by Marianne Ny, a prosecutor, requesting the arrest and surrender of Mr Assange, the appellant. Mr Assange was, at the time, in England, as he still is. The offences of which he is accused and in respect of which his surrender is sought are alleged to have been committed in Stockholm against two women in August 2010. They include "sexual molestation" and, in one case, rape. At the extradition hearing before the Senior District Judge, and subsequently on appeal to the Divisional Court, he unsuccessfully challenged the validity of the EAW on a number of grounds. This appeal relates to only one of these. Section 2(2) in Part 1 of the Extradition Act 2003 ("the 2003 Act") requires an EAW to be issued by a "judicial authority". Mr Assange contends that the Prosecutor does not fall within the meaning of t...
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LORD PHILLIPS Introduction The three appellants in these two appeals were each convicted of murder. Each had his conviction quashed pursuant to a reference to the Court of Appeal by the Criminal Cases Review Commission ("CCRC") in the exercise of its powers under Part II of the Criminal Appeal Act 1995 ("the 1995 Act"). In each case no order was made for a retrial. Each claimed compensation from the Secretary of State pursuant to section 133 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 ("section 133"). That section applies to England and Wales, to Northern Ireland and to Scotland. I shall not refer to provisions which cater for differences of procedure in Scotland. The most material part of that section provides: "(1)when a person has been convicted of a criminal offence and when subsequently his conviction has been reversed or he has been pardoned on the ground that a new or newly discovered fact shows beyond reasonable doubt that there has been a miscarriage of justice, the Secretary of State ...
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LORD PHILLIPS Introduction Mesothelioma is a hideous disease that is inevitably fatal. In most cases, indeed possibly in all cases, it is caused by the inhalation of asbestos fibres. Unusual features of the disease led the House of Lords to create a special rule governing the attribution of causation to those responsible for exposing victims to asbestos dust. This was advanced for the first time in Fairchild v Glenhaven Funeral Services Ltd [2002] UKHL 22; [2003] 1 AC 32 and developed in Barker v Corus UK Ltd [2006] UKHL 20; [2006] 2 AC 572. Parliament then intervened by section 3 of the Compensation Act 2006 further to vary this rule. The rule in its current form can be stated as follows: when a victim contracts mesothelioma each person who has, in breach of duty, been responsible for exposing the victim to a significant quantity of asbestos dust and thus creating a "material increase in risk" of the victim contracting the disease will be held to be jointly and severally liable for c...
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Note: The five judgements which uphold the judgment of the Court of Appeal on the issue of direct discrimination appear first. The most detailed description of the background facts and the relevant statutory provisions is set out in the judgment of Lord Hope. LORD PHILLIPS, PRESIDENT Introduction The seventh chapter of Deuteronomy records the following instructions given by Moses to the people of Israel, after delivering the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai: "1. When the Lord thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou;" "2 And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them:" "3. Neither shalt thou make marriages with them...
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LORD HOPE 1. This case raises important issues about the meaning and application in practice of section 115(7) of the Police Act 1997 as to the information that is to be provided by the chief officer of a police force to the Secretary of State for inclusion in an enhanced criminal record certificate ("ECRC"). The section in which this subsection appears provides for enhanced criminal record checks to be carried out in various specified circumstances, such as where people are applying to work with children or vulnerable adults, for various gaming and lotteries licences, for registration for child minding and day care or to act as foster parents or carers. The check is enhanced in the sense that it will involve a check with local police records as well as the centralised computer records held by the Criminal Records Bureau. As well as information about minor convictions and cautions, it will reveal allegations held on local police records about the applicant's criminal or other behaviour...
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1. The facts of this case can fairly be described as exotic, but very few of them are relevant to the present appeal. Dr Williams claims to be the victim of a fraud instigated by the Nigerian State Security Services which occurred in 1986. His case is that he was induced to serve as guarantor of a bogus transaction for the importation of foodstuffs into Nigeria. In connection with that transaction, he paid $6,520,190 to an English solicitor, Mr Reuben Gale, to be held on trust for him on terms that it should not be released until certain funds had been made available to him in Nigeria. Dr Williams says that in fraudulent breach of that trust, Mr Gale, knowing that those funds were not available to him in Nigeria, paid out $6,020,190 of the money to an account of the Central Bank of Nigeria with Midland Bank in London, and that he pocketed the remaining $500,000. The Central Bank is said to have been party to Mr Gale's fraud. The Bank applied for an order setting aside the permission gi...
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