Jonathan Mitchell QC

At the talk I gave on this subject to the conference on environmental justice organised by the Environmental Law Centre last Monday, I promised to post a synopsis of the issues discussed, and the handouts on ambit and on appeal routes, here.

The background

There has since 2005 been a general right to freedom of information held by or on behalf of public authorities in the United Kingdom. The right to access to environmental information, however, long predates this, going back to Directive 90/313/EEC and its implementing regulations; although the scheme now in force, Directive 2003/4/EC and its implementing regulations, the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 and the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 is tighter¹, the basic scheme has been in place since 1992. Nevertheless, this scheme has attracted far less attention than the general scheme of the two Freedom of Information Acts, the UK Freedom of Information Act 2000 and the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002, which only came into force thirteen years later. Continue Reading »

1. Following the Aarhus Convention of 1998. See this paper for a survey from an Irish perspective. [back]

On Monday 2nd November the Centre for the Study of Human Rights Law and the Environmental Law Centre Scotland are co-hosting this conference at the Royal Concert Hall, 2 Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow. I’m speaking on rights to environmental information. The Environmental Information Regulations (there are two sets, UK and Scottish) don’t receive a lot of attention in comparison to the general scheme of the two Freedom of Information Acts, but they have a wider ambit, covering some private-sector organisations and companies who aren’t covered by general FOI legislation, and in some ways give those seeking information a better process than the Acts. Here’s an algorithm of the relationship between the different schemes I did before; Continue Reading »

Invitations to the publication of the Civil Justice Review have just been issued for Wednesday 30 September at 11am in the Signet Library. I’m told the Review will be published electronically at that time; address unknown but perhaps here.

I will be speaking on issues relative to the new Upper Tribunal at this conference, organised by the Legal Services Agency, on 14 September.

Changes to the Tribunal System: The New Two-Tier System and Its Implications

On 3 November 2008 the UK Tribunals Service experienced its most radical change in 50 years when key aspects of the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007 were implemented. Continue Reading »

Professor James Hathaway of Melbourne University, author of “The Law of Refugee Status”, “The Rights of Refugees under International Law”, and many other leading texts on asylum law; editor of the Refugee Caselaw website; and a world renowned authority on the law of international protection, will be addressing an all-day seminar in Glasgow on Monday 5 October on issues as to refuge status and internal relocation. His work is constantly cited in, and by, courts throughout the common law world; a quick search on BAILII throws up no less than 180 cases in which he is cited as an authority. Continue Reading »

Albie Sachs, Justice of the South African Constitutional Court, is one of the great judges (and in one of the great courts) of our time. On 24 June he was in Edinburgh, first speaking to the first joint meeting of the four UK and Ireland Human Rights Commissions (I wasn’t there) and then at a meeting organised by the Scottish Commissioner for Children and Young Persons (I was). The topic at the second talk was how the landmark decision in the case of S v M, 2007 ZACC 18, in which the South African Constitutional Court held that the rights of children had to be taken into account in criminal proceedings against their mother (in their own right and not merely as an aspect of the mother’s rights), came to be made, and its resonance for Scotland. Jackie Kemp’s already written a good account of the event as a whole, and I intend here to pick up some miscellaneous issues rather than duplicate that. Continue Reading »

The increasingly important issue of Unaccompanied Asylum Seeker Children (UASCs), children under 18 who are not cared for by any adult in this country, is the topic of a seminar on Friday 5th June 2009 organised jointly by the Glasgow Immigration Practitioners’ Group, the Murray Stable, and the Scottish Refugee Council. Continue Reading »

The nascent Scottish Human Rights Law Group is intended to bring together Scots lawyers and those working in and around the law in Scotland with an interest in human rights issues. Its website, in the course of development, is ambitiously intended to provide a database of law reports, articles, textbook updates, and other items, categorised by area of law and by Convention article; there will be ‘contributing editors’ for particular sections, each responsible for updating his or her assigned area of the law and in a position to receive comments, submissions, and suggestions for updating from other parties/members of the group. The proposed categorisations, which are flexible, can be seen by browsing its sidebar. Continue Reading »

The Advocates Family Law Association is hosting a Family Law Conference on Monday 2 March. The keynote speaker is the Honourable Lord Malcolm.

Other speakers are: Continue Reading »

There are still a few places left at the Murray Stable Employment Law Group’s evening seminar at the Royal Faculty of Procurators Library, Nelson Mandela Place, Glasgow, 5.30 pm on 27th January 2009. This is a a free evening seminar which will consist of three short updates on current issues in employment law. Continue Reading »