In a previous paper in this journal I responded to Professor John Keown’s criticisms of the British Medical Association guidance on withholding and withdrawing life-prolonging treatment, arguing that the sanctity of life principle he endorses is indefensible as a juridical and moral guide. Professor Keown replied recently, also in this journal, alleging that I wrongly caricatured the sanctity of life position he supports, which continues to illuminate the proper decision-making path in relation to the withdrawal or withholding of life-sustaining medical treatment. In this present paper it is submitted that Keown’s riposte is misconceived and disguises the true nature of the sanctity of life stance, which both rests upon unconvincing premisses and tends towards unacceptable repercussions, thus leading to its inevitable and rightful rejection.

This paper examines the processes whereby students may bring complaints against higher education institutions. It stresses that a right to redress of grievance is fundamental to the relationship between students and universities. It focuses on internal complaints procedures and discusses the findings from a survey of a representative sample of institutions of which nearly two thirds (25 in total) responded with statistical and other data on the grounds of complaint, the ethnicity and other characteristics of complainants, and the outcome of adjudications. It reveals areas of commonality and divergence in practice and raises concerns about the fairness and accessibility of the procedures. The paper also includes discussion of the process for the external adjudication of student complaints established under the Higher Education Act 2004 and the way that complaints progress to it. The paper discusses the case for reform of higher education institutions’ student complaints procedures, which are surprisingly unregulated, including the introduction of a more independent element such as ‘campus ombudsmen’.

The Anti-Social Behaviour Order (ASBO) is one of the best known measures used to tackle anti-social behaviour. In keeping with the popular conception, the order is frequently used against young people. Of all ASBOs issued in England and Wales up to the end of 2005, roughly 40% were imposed on under-18s. This paper begins with a brief outline of the three principles at the heart of the celebrated Scottish children’s hearings system. With reference to these principles, and to the provisions which govern the use of the order against 12–15 year olds north of the border, the paper then discusses five areas of concern about the use of ASBOs against young people in England and Wales: the readiness to resort to ASBOs; the forum for ASBO applications; the terms of ASBOs; publicising the details of ASBOs; and custodial net-widening. The paper ends by suggesting reforms to the ASBO regime in England and Wales insofar as it is used against young people.

This paper examines the government’s reform of the current system of clinical negligence litigation in England, focusing on an analysis of the redress scheme for low value claims to be established under the NHS Redress Act 2006. The Act establishes a scheme to provide a package of redress to patients in circumstances where they have suffered harm as a result of negligence during the course of medical treatment provided by the NHS. One of the British Government’s central aims in embarking upon reform in this area was to provide a low cost, quick and genuine alternative to the current clinical negligence litigation system. This paper critically analyses this reform of the current system by reference to an examination of what constitutes a just redress scheme in the circumstances. Such analysis shows that the government has missed a golden opportunity to establish a scheme which truly ‘makes amends’ to patients who have suffered harm through medical treatment in the NHS. Instead, the scheme is likely to operate in practice as an administrative scheme for low value claims that serves the institutional and financial interests of the NHS, and therefore fails to address longstanding patient concerns over the provision of redress arising out of harm suffered through medical treatment. As a result, patient confidence in the scheme is likely to be undermined in the long term.

This paper attempts to contribute to the increasing body of research on the working practices of legal academics and what has been called the ‘private life’ of the law school. It seeks to subject to further empirical investigation the analysis made by Collier, Cownie, McGlynn, Morley, Wells and others that the new corporate managerialism in universities has created a gendered regime of control and target setting. It examines one under-researched aspect of academic practice, namely the award of sabbaticals. The study draws on an examination of the practice of sabbatical leave by academic staff in both pre- and post-1992 university law schools. Although sabbaticals are widely assumed to be necessary for the effective development of research and scholarship, there has been little recent investigation of their operation in English universities. This is in contrast to the USA where a number of studies have been conducted. Sabbaticals are thus an aspect of the ‘donnish dominion’ which, although well covered in campus novels, is missing from researched surveys of university life. The paper reviews the relevant literature on sabbaticals, reports on the results of a study of the published criteria law schools have for awarding sabbaticals and analyses responses to a questionnaire sent to law school heads on the operation of their policies. Particular areas of interest are differing practices between universities, possible gender bias and the relevance of sabbaticals both to the teaching versus research debate and to an understanding of academics’ working lives more generally. The survey results suggest that the practical application of sabbatical policies demonstrates the ambivalent way managerialism operates in universities. Although performance targets are stipulated, the mechanism for enforcement in relation to sabbatical awards is surprisingly light or non-existent. It is argued that the use of sabbatical leave plays a part in defining both the status of university law schools and also the organisation of academic research. It thus impacts on the formation of the professional identities of legal academics. Those who are excluded from this benefit may be marginalised and areas of academic labour considered inappropriate for sabbaticals consequently regarded as secondary. This may entrench already existing areas of inequality.

Statistics from HM Revenue & Customs predict that receipts from inheritance tax will amount to some £3.56 billion in the tax year 2006/07. This compares to £1.68 billion in 1997/98. This paper explores the reason for the large increase in inheritance tax revenues and, in the light of those findings, together with a consideration of the recent public reaction to the changes to the inheritance taxation of trusts announced in the Budget 2006 and incorporated in the Finance Act 2006, argues that, whereas the justification for a tax on the value of property in a person’s estate on death (or within a certain number of years before death) was rooted in equity, equity now forms the argument for its abolition or, at least, its substantial reform.

Regulatory interest in ‘hedge funds’ has intensified in the wake of the collapse of the Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM) hedge fund, and the growing retailisation of the sector through vehicles such as ‘fund of funds’ hedge funds. Though recognised by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) as playing an important role in the financial system, the hedge fund sector continues to pose formidable regulatory challenges. In particular, there is a real possibility that hedge funds and ‘prime brokers’ will increase their risk profiles, thus threatening not only their own solvency but, more importantly, the stability of the financial system more generally. Similarly, there exist problems surrounding issues such as asset valuations and side letters which raise heightened fears about conflict of interest abuse and investor protection. While any attempt by the FSA to subject the sector to closer regulatory scrutiny needs to be sufficiently robust to ensure that the above regulatory concerns are adequately addressed, any measures adopted must not be so heavy handed as to drive lucrative hedge fund business further offshore to less heavily regulated centres. In striking the right balance, a further complication is that of ‘moral hazard’– to the extent that the FSA seeks to tighten its grip on the hedge fund sector through more exacting regulation and oversight, there is the worry that such moves will encourage investors and financial market operators to take less care over their investment decisions. Although it is clear that prime brokers and other market counterparties have very real incentives to engage in private supervision of the hedge funds with which they deal, given the presence of significant market failures there is a danger that the private interests of these entities will not always be fully aligned with the public good. I argue that the FSA’s reliance on private interests and incentives to regulate an industry, the collapse of which could have serious public consequences, is an understandable yet ultimately deficient form of regulatory strategy. It is understandable because of the obvious limitations of the FSA’s scope for unilateral action. Yet it is deficient because the FSA must do more to challenge the complacency of the current international regulatory consensus – one that the FSA has helped shape, and one that its recent reform measures are part. This challenge would, at the very least, require minimum standardised disclosure requirements to be imposed on hedge funds, and for the full risks that these funds take to be fairly reflected in the cushion of capital that they are required to maintain, as well as the ‘margin requirements’ and ‘risk management’ systems they are required to adopt. These reforms would, if instituted at the international level, represent an important first step in helping to ‘bring to heel’ an industry which has assumed for far too long that it is a law unto itself.