The High Court Chancery Division - Rahman v Hassan and others - Donationes Mortis Causa

This blog began on 14 January 2010. Back in September 2022 I posted that it was coming to an end but, as you can see, it did not! I continued to find the law too interesting to actually stop altogether and so I posted items albeit more occasionally. There is, and always will be, much of interest in our law and legal system and so, energy and time permitting, I hope to continue.  Anyway, enough of that !

A very interesting case has just been decided in the High Court's CHANCERY Division. The Division is the successor to the former Court of Chancery which, along with other courts (e.g. Queen's Bench), became part of the High Court under the reforms of 1873-75. 

At the present time, there are

Parliament Dissolved

HM The King has issued the Proclamation required to dissolve Parliament. 

In law, the King acts under the Royal Prerogative but, by convention , he is advised by the government which, in this case, has formally acted through the Privy Council.

Following the 4 July general election, the new Parliament will meet on 9 July 2024.

Privy Council 30 May 2024 - Proclamation

The Proclamation reads:

Infected Blood Inquiry ~ Report ~ Compensation Scheme

More than 30,000 NHS patients were given contaminated blood products in the 1970s and 80s in what has been called the worst treatment disaster in the history of the health service. It is thought around 3,000 later died, after contracting HIV or hepatitis C from a treatment made from blood plasma or a blood transfusion.

In July 2017 the Prime Minister (then Theresa May) announced an inquiry to examine 'the circumstances in which men, women and children treated by national Health Services in the United Kingdom (collectively, the “NHS”) were given infected blood and infected blood products, in particular since 1970.'

 Following consultation with interested parties, Terms of Reference were issued in September 2018. The Inquiry began its hearings in April 2019. The Inquiry operated under the Inquiries Act 2005.

Infected Blood Inquiry - Chair Sir Brian Langstaff. 

On Monday 20 May 2024, the Inquiry published

Parliament Prorogued to 31 May.

On 22 May 2024, the Prime Minister stood in Downing Street and announced that he had requested HM The King to dissolve Parliament so that a general election could be held on 4 July 2024 - Election 2024: Drenched Rishi Sunak calls for vote in July - YouTube

On 23 May 2024, the Privy Council met at Buckingham Palace and ordered a Prorogation of Parliament - see the order at List of Business - 23rd May 2024 (independent.gov.uk). Prorogation differs from Dissolution in that the prorogation is to last from 24 May to Friday 31 May and will "be then holden for the despatch of divers urgent and important affairs."

In the House of Lords Chamber on 24 May a Commission for Royal Assent and Prorogation was

The Public Order Act 1986 (Serious Disruption to the Life of the Community) Regulations 2023 - High Court judgment

 

An earlier post (9 May 2023) referred to The Public Order Act 1986 (Serious Disruption to the Life of the Community) Regulations 2023 - Law and Lawyers: Coronation Day arrests - Public Order law (obiterj.blogspot.com). 

The government (mainly Home Secretary Suella Braverman) chose to use secondary legislation to define the statutory meaning of 'serious disruption' even though, the same change had recently been explicitly rejected by Parliament during the passage of a public order bill;. The Regulations came to define "serious disruption" as "more than minor." 

There was contemporaneous criticism

ICC Prosecutor seeks arrest warrants

On 20 May the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (the ICC) announced that he is seeking warrants for the arrest of:

Yahya SINWAR (Head of the Islamic Resistance Movement (“Hamas”) in the Gaza Strip)

Mohammed Diab Ibrahim AL-MASRI, more commonly known as DEIF (Commander-in-Chief of the military wing of Hamas, known as the Al-Qassam Brigades), and 

Ismail HANIYEH ((Head of Hamas Political Bureau).

ALSO, warrants are sought for 

Benjamin NETANYAHU, the Prime Minister of Israel, and 

Yoav GALLANT, the Minister of Defence of Israel

The Prosecutor's (Mr Karim A. A. Khan KC)'s statement is available via the ICC website - Statement of ICC Prosecutor Karim A.A. Khan KC: Applications for arrest warrants in the situation in the State of Palestine | International Criminal Court (icc-cpi.int)

Khan explains that the applications are 'the outcome of

Rv Calocane ~ application by Solicitor General refused

In the early hours of the morning of 13 June 2023, Valdo Calocane went out on the streets of Nottingham, having armed himself with knives. He attacked and killed Barnaby Webber and Grace O'Malley-Kumar, two students walking home from a night out. Just over an hour later, he attacked a school caretaker, Ian Coates, who was on his way to work, killed him and stole his van. He then drove to the city centre, where he deliberately drove the van, at speed, into another man, Wayne Birkett, causing him a serious brain injury. Minutes later he deliberately drove into two other victims, Sharon Miller and Marcin Gawronski, also causing serious injury. These were random attacks: none of his six victims were known to the offender.

On 28th November 2023, in the Crown Court at Nottingham, the offender pleaded guilty to three counts of manslaughter, and three counts of attempted murder.

On 24 January 2024, again at Nottingham Crown Court, the offender was sentenced by Turner J. The unanimous opinion of the medical experts retained by the prosecution and the defence was that the offender was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia at the time when he committed these offences. 

The judge sentenced the offender to