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The Times’ Lawyer of the Week this morning discusses an Upper Tribunal FOIA appeal brought by Rights Watch UK (for whom Daniel Carey, the Lawyer of the Week, acted pro bono), seeking disclosure of the Attorney General’s advice on drone strikes in Syria. The case was Corderoy & Ahmed v IC, AGO, Cabinet Office [2017] UKUT 495 (AAC). Whether you consider it a win, a loss or a draw (and if so for whom) will depend on which side you’re on here and, as counsel on all sides were colleagues at 11KBW, I will attempt a studied neutrality. I confess I have not found all aspects of the judgment easy to follow, but here you go. Continue reading →

Readers of this blog will recall an important DPA judgment, particularly on the legal professional privilege exemption, which came out in January 2017 called Holyoake v Candy & CPC [2017] EWHC 52 (QB) (see the blogpost here). That case has, however, involved various pieces of satellite litigation including a 193 page judgment of Nugee J handed down just before Christmas in Holyoake & Hotblack v Candy & Candy & others [2017] EWHC 3397 (Ch). Continue reading →

Just in time to be printed and put in your stocking came everyone’s favourite Christmas tradition: a special helping of Brussels. In this case, a judgment of the CJEU in Case C-434/16 Nowak v Data Protection Commissioner (ECLI:EU:C:2017:994) about the application of the Data Protection Directive to examination scripts and examiner comments. Continue reading →

Continuing its consistent run of FOIA judgments which add very little to the jurisprudence is the Court of Appeal’s effort in Willow v Information Commissioner & Ministry of Justice [2017] EWCA Civ 1876. The information requested was a prisoner restraint techniques manual used in youth offender institutions, and the Commissioner and FTT had upheld the application of the section 31(1)(f) exemption, i.e. information prejudicial to the maintenance of security and good order in prisons or other institutions in which people are detained. The Court of Appeal had to consider the public interest balance and the extent to which that was or was not affected by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (“UNCRC”) (an unincorporated treaty). Continue reading →

On 6 December a firm of loss adjustors, its director and a senior employee were convicted, alongside private investigators, of a series of offences under s.55 of the Data Protection Act 1998. Continue reading →