House of Lords judgments, 2007

Conduct by national forces participating in a multinational operation is attributable to the United Nations only where the United Nations exercises effective…

Whether removal would breach the United Kingdom’s international obligations is a prospective question. The final decision should therefore use the most…

In ordinary contentious litigation, the Court of Session determines only live and practical legal questions. It will not grant a declarator upon an academic…

Where return proceedings begin more than one year after a wrongful removal and the child is settled in the new environment, article 12 of the Hague Convention…

An asylum claim was made “on arrival” for the purposes of regulation 70(3A) where it was made at the first reasonably available opportunity. The expression did…

An enactment of the Scottish Parliament is reviewable for incompatibility with Convention rights under section 29 of the Scotland Act 1998. Unincorporated…

A statutory prohibition on hunting wild mammals with dogs did not engage article 8 because the activity was a public sporting spectacle outside protected…

An unappealed determination by a competent tribunal that it has statutory jurisdiction creates an issue estoppel between the parties, even where the…

At a hearing to extend detention under Schedule 8 to the Terrorism Act 2000, the judicial authority may exclude the detained person and legal representative…

Internal relocation is available under the Refugee Convention where, after considering all relevant circumstances relating to the claimant and the country of…

Under section 75(1) of the Consumer Credit Act 1974, a creditor’s joint and several liability for a supplier’s misrepresentation or breach of contract extends…

A control order restricts, rather than deprives, a person of liberty where its core element of confinement is insufficiently stringent, even though ancillary…

Proceedings concerning a non-derogating control order determine civil rights, rather than a criminal charge, but article 6 requires procedural protection…

Article 5 protects physical liberty. The distinction between deprivation of liberty and restriction of movement is one of degree or intensity. A court must…

An act of the Scottish Ministers which is incompatible with a Convention right may be challenged both as unlawful under the Human Rights Act 1998 and as…

Patents Act 1977 section 7 provides an exhaustive code for entitlement to a patent. The starting point is to identify the actual deviser or devisers of the…

An express servitude of vehicular access may carry an ancillary right to park on the servient tenement where that right is reasonably necessary for the…

Biological or physico-chemical treatment of non-hazardous waste requires a permit where it forms part of a process whose product is eventually discarded by a…

An arbitration clause in a commercial contract should ordinarily be construed on the assumption that rational businesspeople intended every dispute arising…

In negligence, a physical change is actionable only when it causes material damage beyond the negligible. Symptomless pleural plaques which neither impair…

A supplier is not guilty of unlawful act manslaughter where a fully informed and responsible adult freely and voluntarily self-administers the supplied drug.…

The eligibility of police officers and Crown Prosecution Service lawyers for jury service does not remove the requirement that each jury be, and appear to be…

The positive operational duty under article 2 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms arises only from an objectively…

The settlements provisions may apply where one spouse acquires an interest in a company through which the other spouse’s services generate income. An…

A claimant may recover proved interest losses caused by late payment as damages, including compound interest, subject to the ordinary rules of remoteness…

During an arm’s-length commercial negotiation, silence does not ordinarily create liability for negligent misrepresentation. A failure to speak can attract…

Compensation payable to a commercial agent under article 17(3) of the Council Directive 86/653/EEC represents the value of the agency relationship lost on…

Section 139(2) of the Mental Health Act 1983 makes prior leave of the High Court a condition of valid civil proceedings concerning acts purporting to be done…

Under Part IIA of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, an “appropriate person” who caused or knowingly permitted contaminating substances to be present is…

Past consent to management charges within a group of associated companies does not authorise a controlling director to make future payments lacking commercial…

Under section 31(1) of the Highways Act 1980, a landowner can rebut deemed dedication of a public highway only by contemporaneously manifesting an intention…

A commercial care-home provider does not perform functions of a public nature under section 6(3)(b) of the Human Rights Act 1998 merely because a local…

The Human Rights Act 1998 applies to acts of a United Kingdom public authority outside national territory when the person affected is within United Kingdom…

A tax rule does not discriminate against a resident subsidiary on the ground of foreign control merely because a fiscal election is unavailable when its parent…

On a proposed leapfrog appeal under sections 12 and 13 of the Administration of Justice Act 1969, a conditional grant of leave does not immediately extinguish…

A carrier's condition that it does not offer carriage of packages exceeding a stated value does not prevent a contract of carriage arising when the carrier…

Under section 88(1) of the Housing Act 1985, the events making a secure tenant a statutory “successor” are confined to events occurring in relation to a secure…

Inducing breach of contract and causing loss by unlawful means are distinct economic torts. The former imposes accessory liability for intentional…

A residential tenancy permitting an annual rent increase from a specified date may, on its proper construction, allow the landlord to increase the rent once…

When a court decides whether administrative action is compatible with a qualified Convention right, the decisive question is whether the right was actually…

A construction contract may provide that an accrued interim payment ceases temporarily to be payable when the contractor’s employment is determined following…

Where a domestic home is conveyed into joint names without an express declaration of trust, equity follows the law. The starting point is joint and equal…

Victimisation provisions protect an employee’s effective right to pursue a discrimination or equal-pay claim. An employer may properly defend or seek to settle…

Trading profits are first computed under currently accepted accounting principles on a basis giving a true and fair view. Adjustments expressly required or…

At a Northern Irish inquest into a death predating the Human Rights Act 1998, the jury may not return a verdict of lawful or unlawful killing. It may, however…

The Convention-compatible interpretative duty in the Human Rights Act 1998, section 3, operates only where the Convention right is enforceable in domestic law.…

Damages for an accepted repudiation must compensate for the contractual benefit actually lost. The ordinary breach-date rule serves that principle but does not…

On a statutory human-rights appeal against refusal of leave to enter or remain, the appellate immigration authority must decide for itself whether the refusal…

Saving provisions for prisoners whose offences preceded a new statutory release regime preserve their existing substantive entitlement to unconditional release…

Compensation for a miscarriage of justice must reflect the claimant’s real loss. When calculating lost earnings, an assessor may deduct the cost of the bare…

A buyer does not accept materially defective goods merely by agreeing that the seller may investigate and, if possible, repair them. The effect of that…

For the purposes of section 28(4) of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, a racial group may be defined by exclusion as well as inclusion. Those who are not…

A ruling on an application for prosecution disclosure under section 8 of the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996 is not, without more, a…

Part 1 of the Extradition Act 2003 must, so far as its language permits, be construed in the light of the wording and purpose of the European arrest warrant…

Where the answer to a question of Community law is neither obvious nor unnecessary to the disposition of an appeal, a final national court must refer that…

A court which has found ministers in contempt may require a senior civil servant to attend when judgment is delivered as their representative. Before making…

A statutory management receiver appointed under the Criminal Justice Act 1988 remains subject to the ordinary law of receivership unless legislation expressly…

A freezing injunction is a supplementary remedy which protects the enforcement of a prospective judgment. It is neither a proprietary remedy nor a means of…