Constitutional and administrative law

Environmental law comprises the body of rules intended to protect the environment. It affects a local authority ( LA) through the LA’s own compliance responsibilities and because LAs hold statutory roles for consenting, enforcement and remediation across diverse environmental law regimes. This Practice Note assists practitioners working in or with LAs by describing scenarios in which environmental law issues might arise, and by offering guidance and links to the relevant environmental law content. Waste What is the LA’s duty in relation to the collection of waste? Subject to certain limited exceptions, waste collection authorities ( WCAs) in England and Wales have a statutory legal obligation to arrange for the collection of household waste and, where requested, commercial waste and industrial waste. Local authorities in England and Wales must also collect specified categories of waste, ensuring those types are collected separately as distinct streams. The...

This Practice Note compiles a consolidated set of key United Kingdom General Data Protection Regulation, Assimilated Regulation ( EU) 2016/679 ( UK GDPR)-compliant precedent terms, clauses, provisions, schedules and agreements, which can be tailored for commercial dealings and personal data sharing contexts. It also contains certain schedules intended for matters where both the UK GDPR and the General Data Protection Regulation, Regulation ( EU) 2016/679 ( EU GDPR) apply, tackling both regimes within one contract by adopting the highest common denominator of the two compliance frameworks. It is structured as follows: controller to processor data processing arrangements controller to controller data sharing arrangements clauses for international transfers Consult the relevant document for details on when each is intended to be used. For a broad primer on data protection law that gathers key practical guidance, see: UK data protection law...

On receiving a request for information, the usual starting point is to decide whether the material sought is environmental information and, in turn, whether the request should be handled under the Environmental Information Regulations 2004, SI 2004/3391 ( EIR 2004) or the Freedom of Information Act 2000 ( FIA 2000). For more help on this first step, see Practice Note: Environmental Information Regulations 2004—what is environmental information? This Practice Note concentrates on the next actions a public authority ought to take once a request for environmental information arrives. The role of information officers and teams in public authorities Public authorities should make sure that their employees and contractors are informed about the duties imposed by the EIR 2004, so that they recognise the importance of information requests. For additional guidance, refer to paragraph 1 of the Code of Practice on the Discharge of the...

IP rights must be actively safeguarded and enforced to preserve their value. This Practice Note explores the enforcement of your IP rights. It outlines why prevention, surveillance and the gathering of infringement evidence matter, before setting out practical options for responding to an infringement. For guidance on protecting IP, see Practice Note: How to protect your IP. For fuller guidance on disputes, see Practice Note: How to run an IP dispute. What is IP infringement? When IP rights are breached, this is commonly called IP infringement. It arises where protected products, works or inventions are exploited, copied or otherwise used without the right holder’s permission or consent. Most infringements are civil matters; however, some conduct can amount to a criminal offence. Criminal IP offences usually involve dealing in fake branded (ie counterfeit) or pirated products. For more detail, see Practice Notes: Trade mark offences and...

[ State name of public authority ] [ Give public authority address, with postcode ] [ Supply the public authority’s email address, or the email of the specific employee/officer ] For the attention of: [ if you possess the name of a specific employee/officer at the public authority ]......

Source of the doctrine of the separation of powers The roots of the doctrine of the separation of powers are commonly linked to John Locke’s Second Treatise of Government (1689), where he argued that the executive and legislative functions ought to remain distinct. This set out a clear insistence on their proper institutional separation. He warned that human frailty, ever prone to clutch at authority, makes it unsafe for those who draft the laws to hold in their hands the power to enforce them, since they might exempt themselves from obeying the measures they create. The doctrine’s most influential formulation, however, is that of Baron de Montesquieu, reflecting on the English constitution in L’Esprit des Lois (1748), where he identified judicial authority as a third branch of government. He contended that when legislative and executive powers are concentrated in a single person, or within one body of magistrates, liberty cannot survive; fears will arise that the same monarch or senate could enact oppressive laws and carry them out oppressively. Likewise, there is no freedom if the judiciary is not separated from the legislative and executive, undermining genuine liberty. If it were combined with the legislative, the life and liberty of...

Introduction to statutory interpretation The aim of statutory interpretation is to determine the legal meaning of a statute, that is, the sense that expresses the legislator’s intention. The clearest guide to that intention is the statutory wording itself, read in its context and with its overall purpose in mind, and its broader legislative setting. Courts should seek to fulfil the purpose of legislation by construing its language, so far as they can, in the manner that most effectively serves that purpose. Put differently, the courts’ default method is purposive, and every enactment is to be construed with that end in view. There is a starting presumption that the grammatical and ordinary sense of an enactment reflects the meaning intended by the legislator. Where an enactment reasonably bears only a single meaning, and no other interpretative tools or considerations cast real doubt upon it, the provision is to be applied according to its plain meaning. In such a situation, the plain meaning will correspond with the legislative purpose...

In brief The British constitution is uncodified, meaning it does not spring from a single constitutional document or code. It draws on a wide range of written and unwritten sources. Alongside the principal written sources of law in England and Wales—legislation (which has also introduced international and human rights principles into our constitution) and the common law—the constitution also rests on two further unwritten bases within this system: the prerogative, and non-legal constitutional conventions. In addition, on one view the basic or prevailing principle of our constitution, Parliamentary sovereignty, is ultimately grounded in political fact rather than in law. Legislation Legislation is the foremost source of constitutional law. Acts of Parliament may set out detailed constitutional rules, or even pass authority to create them to ministers or to others. Under the doctrine of Parliamentary sovereignty, legislation is traditionally regarded as taking precedence over any other form or kind of constitutional rule. For example, statutes providing for constitutional matters include the Bill of Rights 1688, the Act of Settlement (1700), the Union with Scotland Act 1706, the Parliament Act 1911 and the Parliament Act 1949, the Scotland Act 1998, the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA 1998), the House of Lords Act 1999 and...

When evaluating a general damages claim, the practitioner ought initially to refer to the Judicial College Guidelines (JCG)...