• CIVIL

ENGLAND AND WALES COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)

Ali v Birmingham City Council; Ibrahim v Birmingham City Council

Whether statutory scheme for review and appeal is compatible with homeless person's right to fair determination of civil rights where sole disputed issue is one of fact and not of law

The Court of Appeals ruled that a local housing authority's discharge of its statutory duty to rehouse a homeless person in priority need where that person had refused an offer of suitable accommodation could not be challenged other than by administrative review subject appeal to the county court, even where the sole issue was one of primary fact. This is so because on an appeal applying conventional judicial review principles, the court could not substitute its own findings of fact for those of the decision-making authority if there was evidence to support them.

• CRIMINAL

UNITED KINGDOM HOUSE OF LORDS

E v Chief Constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary and another (Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission intervening)

Positive obligation of State to protect its citizens from inhuman and degrading treatment is not unqualified and absolute.

The claimant filed suit against Defendant- State Authorities alleging that the Authorities had acted unlawfully in failing to secure the effective implementation of the criminal law in failing to secure the safety of the claimant and her child's safe access to school during sectarian riots and in failing to protect them from inhuman and degrading treatment. Court dismissed the appeal and held that the positive obligation imposed on the state and its emanations by Art 3 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, to prevent the infliction by third parties of inhuman or degrading treatment, was not unqualified and that the positive obligation was not absolute but was only an obligation to do all that was reasonably to be expected to avoid a real or immediate risk to an individual once the existence of that risk was known or ought to have been known.

• COMMERCIAL

UNITED KINGDOM QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION

R (Bassetlaw District Council) v Worksop Magistrates' Court

Whether licensing authority can suspend license in the interests of wider community where licensed premises used for criminal purposes?

Licensing Authority suspended license of Claimant's premises on ground of unlawful sales of alcohol to two 14-year-old girls. District judge overturned the decision of the licensing authority and substituted addition of six more conditions to the licence. Hence, present appeal. Held, on determination under s 52 Licensing Act 2003 of an application for review of a premises licence, in circumstances involving criminal conduct connected with the licensed premises, consideration must be given to what was necessary to promote the objective of crime prevention, and to the needs of the wider community, and not be limited to guidance and remedial action and to the needs of the licence-holders. Therefore, where premises had been used for criminal purposes, the licensing authority had a duty to take steps in the interests of the wider community to suspend the license.