On 27th or 28th August 2019 the Prime Minister had advised Her Majesty that Parliament should be prorogued from a date between 9th and 12th September until 14th October. An Order in Council was made giving effect to that advice. Two cases were launched challenging the legality of that advice and of the prorogation, one in the Court of Session in Scotland and one in the High Court in England and Wales. The Inner House of the Court of Session held that the advice given to Her Majesty was justiciable, that it was motivated by the improper purpose of stymying parliamentary scrutiny of the executive, and that it and the prorogation which followed it were unlawful and thus null and of no effect. The Divisional Court dismissed the claim on the ground that the issue was not justiciable. The appeals in both cases were heard together.

The Supreme Court upheld the decision of the Inner House and overturned the decision of the Divisional Court. The court held that the principles of parliamentary sovereignty and parliamentary accountability are fundamental constitutional principles with which an unlimited power to prorogue Parliament would be incompatible ([41], [44], [46] and [48]). A decision to prorogue Parliament (or to advise the monarch to prorogue Parliament) will be unlawful if the prorogation has the effect of frustrating or preventing, without reasonable justification, the ability of Parliament to carry out its constitutional functions as a legislature and as the body responsible for the supervision of the executive. In such a case the court will intervene if the effect is sufficiently serious to justify such an exceptional course ([50]). The Prime Minister’s wish to end one session of Parliament and to begin another will normally be enough to justify a short period of prorogation. It will only be in exceptional circumstances further justification is necessary, and the court must bear in mind that this decision is one within the Prime Minister’s area of responsibility ([51]). It is well established that the courts can rule on the extent of prerogative powers and so the Divisional Court was wrong to rule that this matter was not justiciable ([52]).

In the instant case, the prorogation of Parliament from the 9^th of September 2019 until the 14^th of October 2019 prevented Parliament from carrying out its constitutional role for five out of a possible eight weeks between the end of the summer recess and “exit day” (as defined in the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018) on the 31^st of October 2019. There were exceptional circumstances in which a fundamental change was due to take place in the constitution of the United Kingdom on the 31^st of October 2019. The prorogation prevented Parliament from fulfilling its role of ensuring government accountability and having a voice in how that change would come about. On the evidence put before the court it was impossible to conclude there was any reason – let alone a good reason – to advise Her Majesty to prorogue Parliament for this five week period, and it followed that the decision was unlawful ([55] to [61]).

The court was not prevented by article 9 of the Bill of Rights of 1688 or by any wider Parliamentary privilege from considering the validity of the prorogation itself ([69]). Prorogation cannot be described as a “proceeding in Parliament”. Although it takes place in the House of Lords it is not a decision of either House of Parliament. It is imposed from outside it and brings the core or essential business of Parliament to an end ([68]). The advice leading to the prorogation was unlawful, and the result was that the prorogation itself had been unlawful and was null and void; Parliament had not been prorogued ([69]).

D, who had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, Asperger’s syndrome, Tourette’s syndrome and mild learning difficulties had been living in a secure mental health hospital. The High Court (Family Division) had approved this deprivation of liberty until his 16^th birthday. He was subsequently moved to a secure residential placement and, when he turned 16, Birmingham City Council applied to the Court of Protection for a declaration that D would not be deprived of his liberty at that placement because his parents consented to the deprivation. The Court of Protection held that the parents could no longer consent to what would otherwise be a deprivation of liberty now that D had reached 16. This finding was overturned by the Court of Appeal who held that the exercise of parental responsibility comes to an end, not on the child’s attaining a fixed age, but on his attaining “Gillick capacity”, and so parental responsibility was exercisable to authorise the confinement of a 16 or 17-year-old child who lacked capacity.

The majority of the Supreme Court (Lady Hale, Lady Black and Lady Arden) held that the conditions of D’s residential placement amounted to a deprivation of liberty under Article 5 of the ECHR, that he had not validly consented to that detention, and that the consent of his parents could not be substituted for his ([42], [44]). Parental responsibility did not allow D’s parents to consent to a placement which deprived him of his liberty ([49]). Obiter: Lady Hale observed that logically this conclusion would also apply to a younger child whose liberty was restricted to an extent which was not normal for a child of his age but declined to offer a view on that question ([50]).

Dissenting, Lord Carnwarth (with whom Lord Lloyd-Jones agreed) would have held that the parents did have the capacity to consent to D’s residential placement, arguing that applying Nielsen v Denmark (1988) 11 EHRR 175  and other decisions of the European Court of Human Rights, such detention would not have fallen within the scope of Article 5 either by virtue of being valid substituted consent, or by being an exception, justifiable in its own terms by reference to the scope of family life under article 8 ([152] to [156]).

The appellant had attended a party with seven others in order to find and harm a man who had flirted with the appellant’s girlfriend. Three of the group were carrying knives and seven wore balaclavas, masks or scarves. They broke into the property and began harassing the remaining partygoers in an effort to find the male they were searching for. They began punching and kicking one of the hosts, and when he was knocked to the ground, the appellant and another pulled out knives and stabbed him in the shoulder, the legs and the buttock leaving seven stab wounds. Other partygoers were also punched, kicked and robbed. The appellant (17 at the time of the offence, 18 at sentence, with one previous conviction for assault occasioning actual bodily harm) was convicted of violent disorder and sentenced to four years’ detention in a young offender institution.

The appeal was allowed. Had the appellant in this case been sentenced at the date of the offence, when he was aged 17 and two months, the maximum sentence available to the court would have been a detention and training order of 24 months ([17]). When sentencing, the judge had failed to refer to the Sentencing Council’s guideline on sentencing children and young persons, or to R v Ghafoor [2002] EWCA Crim 1857 and R v Bowker [2007] EWCA Crim 1608, which establish that where an offender crosses a significant age threshold between the commission of the offence and their sentencing, regard should be had to the sentence that would have been appropriate had they been sentenced at the time of the offence, and that it would be a powerful factor, albeit not the sole determining one, in deciding what their sentence should be ([18]). In the instant case, despite the appellant’s role as leader of the group, it would not be appropriate to impose a more severe sentence than that which could have been imposed at the time of the original offence. A sentence of 24 months detention in a young offender institution would be substituted ([19], [20]).

The applicant had been convicted of theft after trial. The alleged theft related to the pocketing of a purse that had been mistakenly left by a till in a retail store. The principal evidence against the applicant at trial had been CCTV evidence which the Crown argued showed her removing her coat, draping it over her arm, and then picking up the purse using her coat to hide the action. The applicant denied having taken the purse and gave evidence at trial claiming that due to a whiplash incident her arm had felt very heavy, that she had been taking sleeping pills that left her feeling “muzzy”, and that she had had to remove her coat due to temperature spikes relating to a separate infection she had developed. The applicant applied for an extension of time (approximately six months), following refusal by the single judge, in which to renew her original application for an extension of time of 384 days in order to call a witness and to apply for leave against her conviction on three grounds: (1) her solicitors acted without any instructions from her; (2) her solicitors failed to call good character evidence on her behalf; and (3) her solicitors failed to instruct a medical expert to deal with the issue of mens rea and/or call such evidence at trial.

The applications seeking an extension of time were refused as the merits of the case did not justify granting them. The applicant had previously met with counsel at court and given instructions which formed the basis of instructions which were sent to trial counsel. A letter advising her to meet with the solicitor, which included the offer of the solicitor’s representative travelling to her home was not responded to by her. If her solicitors did not have any instructions from her, that situation was wholly of her making ([15]). The judge had given a full good character direction, and personal and professional good character evidence had been before the jury. The absence of character witnesses did not begin to undermine the safety of the applicant’s conviction ([16]). The applicant had been given a significant degree of latitude in giving evidence as to medication which she was taking and the effect which it had upon her. She had not wished to call medical evidence at trial. Further, the evidence she now sought to adduce from a psychiatrist was irrelevant to the issue at trial. Not only could the report reasonably have been obtained prior to the original trial but the issue of intent raised in that report was not one relied upon by the applicant as part of her defence at trial (which had been based on her not having taken the purse) and thus would not provide a ground for allowing this appeal ([17], [18]).

During the EU referendum campaign, Vote Leave was the “designated organisation” recognised by the Electoral Commission as representing those campaigning for a “leave” vote. Vote Leave made payments worth £620,000 to AIQ (a Canadian online advertising company) to pay for advertising services purchased from AIQ by Darren Grimes (another “permitted participant” in the referendum). Vote Leave did not record these payments as referendum expenses. Darren Grimes reported these payments both as donations received by him and as payments made in respect of referendum expenses incurred by him or on his behalf. Having reviewed the payments the Electoral Commission concluded that there were no reasonable grounds to suspect that there had been any incorrect reporting of campaign spending or donations, and it decided not to open an investigation into this spending.

The Divisional Court held that in doing so the Electoral Commission had misinterpreted the definition of “referendum expenses” in section 111(2) of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 and that the money paid by Vote Leave to discharge Mr Grimes’ contractual obligations for advertising should be considered as referendum expenses of Vote Leave as well as donations to Mr Grimes. The court drew a distinction towards “general” donations (to be used in whichever way the donee pleases), which it said do not count towards the donor’s referendum expenses, and “specific” ones (to be used to discharge a liability of the donee to pay for goods or services), which it considered do count. The Electoral Commission appealed against that judgment.

The Court of Appeal overturned the decision of the Divisional Court. The concept of “general donations” and “specific donations” does not appear anywhere in the 2000 Act and their creation constituted the creation of a separate scheme outside of the Act ([75]). The legislation can result in criminal liability and needs to be read and given effect in a way which can be applied in a practical way by all those concerned and these new concepts are not capable of ready application ([78], [79]). When Parliament wished to enact specific provisions for circumstances in which it might otherwise be said that limits on expenditure could be circumvented, it expressly said so ([80]). The Divisional Court fell into the error of assuming that the phrase “expenses incurred” meant the same thing as “spent”. “Expenses” are not necessarily the same as “expenditure” or spending. Furthermore, the word “incurred” in the phrase “expenses incurred” introduces a flavour of some responsibility, even if not strictly speaking legal liability, to pay the expense in question ([87]). The correct interpretation of the legislation read as a whole is that a donation to a permitted participant cannot also be an expense incurred by the donor ([97]).

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