The epithet ‘quasi-judicial’ has become familiar, if not popular, in administrative law. It is commonly used to describe certain kinds of powers wielded by ministers or government departments but subject to a degree of judicial control in the manner of their exercise. Generally speaking, it is applied to powers which can be exercised only when certain facts have been found to exist, and it indicates that these facts must be found in conformity with a code of rules called ‘natural justice’. As a term ‘quasi-judicial’ has for some years been falling into disfavour. ‘I do not like it’, observed a learned judge to whom it had been a source of recurrent difficulty in the well-known series of cases under the Housing Acts. More recently the Master of the Rolls has spoken of ‘what is loosely called a quasi-judicial proceeding—an expression well adapted to mislead unless the context in which it is used is kept closely and accurately in mind’.

Amid the growing calls for the complete prohibition of the use by law enforcement authorities of live facial recognition (LFR) technology in public spaces, this article advocates for an incremental approach to regulating the use of the technology. By analysing legislative instruments, judicial decisions, deployment practices of UK law enforcement authorities, various procedural and policy documents, as well as available safeguards, the article suggests incremental adjustments to the existing legal framework instead of sweeping regulatory change. The proposed approach calls for adopting national legal rules governing watch lists and introducing spatial, temporal and contextual limitations on the deployment of technology based on the assessment of proportionality and necessity. To enhance the effectiveness of overt surveillance using LFR, the article recommends adopting a transparency procedure that promotes accountability without undermining the objectives of law enforcement. Alternatively, the overt use of the technology should be limited to deterring the commission of crimes and safeguarding public safety, where transparency does not undermine its effectiveness. Limiting the scope of overt use of LFR technology entails that law enforcement agencies primarily utilise covert surveillance, with prior judicial approval, except in urgent cases, as this would improve effective criminal investigation and public safety. The legal adjustments proposed in this article can be implemented through flexible secondary legislation or local policies, rather than rigid statutory rules.

In its judgment of 8 April 1976, Defrenne v. Sabena, the Court of Justice of the European Communities gave an interpretation to the provisions of Article 119 of the E.E.C. Treaty, on equal pay of male and female workers, which caused some stir. The Court held that the equal pay rule had direct effect, in the sense that any female worker could appeal to it in proceedings against her employer before courts or tribunals of any of the Member States. This ruling embodied a novel interpretation of Article 119: not only because the Court itself had not yet applied its doctrine of direct effect to this article, but also because most of the authors on the subject had come to a different conclusion. The Court seems to have been aware of the practical problems which might result from such a situation; it added some considerations on what it called the “temporal effect” of its judgment. Its decision “might,” it said, result in the introduction of claims by female workers dating back to the time when the direct effect of Article 119 came about (1963 for the “old” Member States!); therefore, it developed a certain number of reasons for deciding that “important considerations of legal certainty affecting all the interests involved” made it impossible to reopen the question as regards the past. Only workers who had already brought legal proceedings at the date of the judgment could benefit from the direct effect.

Two important themes in Ronald Dworkin's work have contributed much to an understanding of Anglo-American law. He has insisted on the inter-connection between law and morality, emphasising the role of the judge's political morality in his judgments about the law. He has also argued that individual rights should be understood as anti-utilitarian or anti-majoritarian in character: they operate as constraints on majority decisions about the public interest or general welfare. In combination, these theories have provided an explanation of the legitimacy, in a democracy, of leaving undeniably “political” questions to unelected judges. Judges determine legal rights by applying (legal and political) principle. Matters of policy—understood as raising questions of the general welfare or the public interest— are primarily the concern of the other branches of government. Though policy questions are of concern to judges in the context of statutory construction, where the courts must decide what the legislature has in its wisdom enacted, it is their creative and evaluative role in respect of principle—concerning the moral and legal rights of individuals—which is the hallmark of adjudication, properly understood.1

Students of the law of contract know that, because insurance contracts are contracts of “utmost good faith”, applicants for insurance must disclose “material facts” to the insurer concerned. Students may not know what the law says is material and might be surprised if they did. General contract law distinguishes a misrepresentation of fact from one of opinion. If facts are untrue, the contract may be rescinded, but unfounded opinions have no such effect. The prudent contractor must ignore mere gossip but not so, it seems, when contracting insurance.

Clearly, a medical opinion that an applicant for life or health insurance has cancer has to be disclosed: British Equitable Ins. Co. v. Great Western Ry. (1869) 20 L.T. 422. The opinion of Aunt Jane that the applicant looks peaky does not. Again, if the applicant has been charged with a criminal offence, he remains “innocent until proved guilty.

The dilemma facing the law when two innocent parties have suffered at the hands of a wrongdoer is well known and arises acutely in the context of the sale of goods. Typically, in the classic simple three party situation: the owner of goods either gives goods to or has goods stolen by a rogueseller who purports to sell them to an innocent third party buyer. Both the owner and buyer of the goods may well have a personal claim against the seller, but if the seller has either disappeared or has no money that personal claim may well be worthless. As a result, the question of who is entitled to the goods themselves is likely to determine which party will suffer as a result of the seller's actions. The crucial issue is who in this situation is entitled to the goods: this is a question of conflict of title or priority. Who has a better title to the goods, the owner or the buyer?

Contemporary liberal accounts of free expression are almost exclusively preoccupied with the permissible exercises of state power. Influenced by this framing, free expression guarantees under the ECHR, as well as the US and German Constitutions, focus on protecting a private sphere from state interference: what happens within that sphere is only of peripheral concern. This approach is deeply unsatisfactory, especially given the significant threats emanating from private social media platforms that shape the conditions under which individuals may express themselves online. The article argues that we should take private platforms seriously as a source of significant threats, without abandoning the distinction between private actors and the state. Private platforms that are generally open to the public should have obligations to uphold free speech in their contractual relationship to users under certain conditions: if they are structurally dominant, make arbitrary decisions or significantly impact a user's societal participation.

The defence of common employment has been abolished by the Law Reform (Personal Injuries) Act, 1948 (11 & 12 Geo. 6, c. 41; it came into effect, in general, on June 30, 1948), section 1 of which negatives it as a defence to an employer who is sued by his servant for personal injuries caused by the negligence of a fellow-servant; repeals the Employers' Liability Act, 1880; and makes void any provision in a contract of service or apprenticeship, or in an agreement collateral thereto, which excludes or limits the liability of the employer in respect of personal injuries to the person employed by the negligence of any person in common employment with him. Section 1 does not apply to causes of action accruing before the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act, 1946, came into effect.

Public Interest Immunity—previously known as Crown privilege—is an exclusionary rule of evidence. When it applies, it excludes relevant evidence (usually but not exclusively documents) from production in court. Thus when the rule applies the public interest in the due administration of justice has given way to a greater public interest that calls for the evidence in question to remain secret. It has been much discussed recently, not least in the Scott Report which made several suggestions for reform and, more significantly, revealed in detail how PII claims were used by the government in litigation. The government has responded by announcing important reforms. A review of developments is thus appropriate.

The law surrounding the doctrine of act of state is perhaps one of the most confusing parts of constitutional law, for both its meaning and application are susceptible of several different interpretations. In particular the rule that act of state can be no defence against an action by a British subject, or, to put it more precisely, that there can be no act of state between the Crown and a British subject is one whose limits are not entirely clear. The recent case of Naim Nissan v. Attorney-General has brought the matter to the fore in what is thought to be a novel situation, wherein the question arose whether act of state can be a defence to an action by a British subject if the act has been executed by the Crown outside the Crown's dominions. The case gave rise to a difference of opinion between the judge at first instance and the Court of Appeal, and now that leave to appeal has been granted to the House of Lords, there arises an opportunity to examine act of state in several of its aspects.

In this discussion it will be argued that the law as it appears now to stand is not necessarily a correct interpretation of the precedents, and that if it is, occasion now presents itself for a fresh formulation of the rules upon a more logical and up-to-date basis.

It is first proposed to explain what is meant by the term “act of state” in this context, to try to establish its relationship with the prerogative, and to examine two aspects of it, that is (i) where a claimant is attempting to use an act of state as the foundation of his action, and (ii) where the Crown is attempting to defeat an action by an individual by the plea of act of state.

“The problem of ownership remains but it is not a legal problem; it is the concern of … any and every specialist who can contribute his grain to the common heap … The lawyer naturally has his contribution to make, but as the problem is not fundamentally a legal problem the final solution does not lie with him. He is concerned with ownership only so far as it produces consequences within the sphere of his own special technique.” This article is written to suggest that ownership as a topic of jurisprudence is best regarded not as an isolated concept but as a jurisprudential contribution to the wider problem of the use of things; and that it is an appropriate subject for general jurisprudence since it raises questions which are faced by all legal systems that preserve the notion of private property.