According to the Mental Capacity Act 2005, P’s family are to be afforded a consultee role in a best interests decision. That is, they are to be involved in decisions but are not empowered to act as a substitute decision maker. However, in practice, healthcare professionals can struggle to set clear boundaries where families are insistent on more active treatment. The Best Interests in Renal Dialysis Study explored the making of best interests decisions in the context of adult kidney care in England. Interviewing healthcare professionals – both doctors and nurses – we found that it is not uncommon for the ‘path of least resistance’ to be pursued in best interests decisions where the family takes a strong position. Out of a fear of legal action and a desire to maintain a working relationship, healthcare professionals will sometimes compromise in providing care that they do not consider to be in P’s best interests to appease the family. This is seemingly at odds with the requirements of the Mental Capacity Act 2005, particularly where it goes as far as to prove harmful to P. Drawing on Margalit’s conception of rotten compromise, we argue that this form of rotten medical compromise undermines the law’s recognised P-centricity.

In 1964, in Rookes v Barnard, the House of Lords restated the law concerning aggravation of damages. Its effect was to dispel what had been described as its ‘Janus-like attitude’. This attitude was borne out by the historical common law’s tendency to allow two theoretically distinct elements – punishment and compensation – to intermingle in awards of what had hitherto been loosely labelled ‘exemplary’ damages. And yet the House’s restatement has proved controversial. This paper presents the first historical examination of the Janus-like attitude in which the pre-1964 law concerning aggravation of damages persisted in England. By shedding new light on the period from which this area of the law of civil damages immediately broke some six decades ago, it helps modern scholars and law reformers better understand the controversy in which it remains embroiled.

Hate crime legislation was introduced in Ireland for the first time in 2024 through the Criminal Justice (Hate Offences) Act 2024. The Irish legislation draws heavily on the Scottish Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 and uses both the ‘motivation test’ and ‘demonstration test’ for establishing liability. We explore how the demonstration test might be interpreted in Ireland given the absence of a stated mens rea in the legislation to accompany the actus reus of demonstrating hatred. We explore whether a mens rea is necessary in the operative part of legislation through the lens of recent Irish case law on the issue, examine analagous case law from Britain, and ask whether the 2024 Act can withstand judicial scrutiny.

Little has been written about the rights of children in delict (a functional equivalent of tort), the legal field concerned with compensating those who have suffered injury or loss due to wrongful actions of others. Yet in many legal systems children can, and do, raise legal proceedings seeking damages for injuries caused by another’s negligence. Negligent wrongdoers (normally adults) often attempt to reduce any damages awarded by arguing that the injured child was contributorily negligent. This paper analyses and compares how Scotland and South Africa approach such claims. Both have mixed, uncodified legal systems and have embedded children’s rights in domestic law. In South Africa the provisions of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child are incorporated in the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa 1996 and in various statutes, notably the Children’s Act 38 of 2005. The recent UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act 2024 directly incorporates the child’s Convention rights in Scottish law. We examine how each jurisdiction assesses childhood capacity for contributory fault, exploring what a rights-based approach might involve. Finally, we consider the (potentially) transformative role of courts. Drawing on the South African experience, we propose a way Scottish courts could integrate children’s rights in contributory negligence decisions concerning children.

Seema Elizabeth Isoy wrote in a condominium owner Whatsapp group that developer David Chiu had been arrested for fraud several years earlier. She knew but left out that he had later been acquitted. In holding her liable for defamation, the Malaysian Federal Court in Seema Elizabeth Isoy v Tan Sri David Chiu Tat-Cheong relied on the concept of a half-truth – a statement that is literally true but omits key information that would change the statement’s meaning – raised by Lord Shaw in Sutherland v Stopes. This note suggests that, while the Federal Court’s conclusion ultimately may have been justified, it should have more carefully considered whether a report of a preliminary act such as an arrest or charge necessarily implies guilt and whether an acquittal actually lessens the sting of an arrest and charge. Judgments cited by the Federal Court – from India, the US, Malaysia, Canada and South Africa – did not adequately address these issues, making this note of potential interest to readers across the common law world.

The UK Supreme Court has recently clarified the principle of bad faith in UK trade mark law in the case of SkyKick UK Ltd v Sky Ltd.1 This commentary examines the UK Supreme Court’s approach and provides a brief analysis of its implications on UK trade mark applications made for defensive purposes.

The powers relating to social security devolved to the Scottish Parliament by the Scotland Act 2016 have been utilised at scale, with Social Security Scotland now responsible for delivering more than a dozen different benefits in Scotland.1 Though the governing law remains the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018, the regime of devolved social security has recently been tweaked. In the Social Security (Amendment) (Scotland) Act 2025, the Scottish Parliament created a regulation-making power which will be used in time to modify the legal basis of the Scottish Child Payment (SCP), the most prominent of the new devolved benefits. This note considers that change in the context of a discussion of how social security was devolved (in part) to the Scottish Parliament and the manner in which the devolved competence has been deployed in the intervening years. Against that background, it comments on the operation of the so-called ‘shared powers’ model of devolution which applies to social security.

In what was his last decision as a Justice of the Supreme Court, Lord Walker delivered the judgment of Pitt v Holt.1 Amongst other issues, the judgment re-examined the ‘rule in Hastings-Bass’.2 Twelve years on, the Privy Council in Ashley Dawson-Damer v Grampian Company Trust Ltd3 was called upon to further clarify Lord Walker’s analysis of the reformed rule. While the Privy Council offered welcome guidance, it left certain aspects of the rule uncertain. This comment critically analyses the decision, and offers further points of reflection.

Where private football rules govern a player’s access to employment with a new club, EU law is engaged.1 In 1995, Bosman removed the most visible barriers to post-contract movement.2 However, it did not redesign the transfer system as a whole. The 2001 settlement between FIFA/UEFA and the Commission preserved a regulatory architecture in which compensation exposure, ITC-based clearance (through the International Transfer Certificate procedure) and fixed registration windows continued to shape mobility in practice.3 The immediate trigger for Diarra was BZ’s failed move to Charleroi, after uncertainty over registration and potential joint liability under FIFA’s transfer rules carried the dispute through the Belgian courts to the Mons reference.4 Diarra therefore tests whether that post-Bosman architecture, taken as a connected design of compensation exposure, clearance control and registration-period timing, restricts free movement and competition contrary to Articles 45 and 101 TFEU.5

The Irish Supreme Court’s decision in Kelly v UCD1 is a significant ruling on judicial bias and disqualification. It is the first case to consider the implications of familial connections between judges and law firms representing parties since the Judicial Conduct Committee published its Guidelines on Judicial Conduct and Ethics in 2022.2 The case clarifies the legal test for objective bias, delineates its boundaries, and addresses the role of judicial conduct guidelines in disqualification decisions. It also has broader implications for other common law jurisdictions, particularly England & Wales, where similar issues of judicial propriety and public confidence in impartial adjudication arise.

The puzzle underlying the law of public interest immunity (PII) is well known. In ordinary proceedings all relevant evidence should be placed before the court and the parties, including when the government is one of those parties.1 But what if some of the relevant evidence – due to reasons in the public interest – cannot be disclosed to the other parties involved?2 The traditional way in which English law tackles this puzzle is by invoking the law of PII. Ever since the landmark decision in Conway, it has been settled that ‘the courts should balance the public interest in the proper administration of justice against the public interest in withholding any evidence which a Minister considers ought to be withheld’.3 If the public interest favours disclosure of the evidence, the evidence is admitted and made ‘available to both parties and to the court’; but if the contrary is true the evidence will be excluded altogether from the proceedings and made ‘available neither to the other parties nor to the court’.4