Public Law

Amnesty international

By: Sanad Zumot

What does it involve?

What is public law?

What is the importance of public law?

Because of the unequal relationship between the government and the people, public law is critical. The government is the only body with the ability to decide on an individual's rights, and even they are constrained by the law. If a citizen disagrees with a decision made by an authority entity, he or she may seek judicial review.

Public law attorneys may specialize in a variety of legal fields, including constitutional/administrative law, tax law, and criminal law. These legal specialties are distinctive. If you worked in constitutional or administrative law, for example, you might have worked with the National Health Service, the city council, or other governmental organizations.

The connection between citizens and the government is referred to as public law. Constitutional/administrative law, tax law, and criminal law make up public law in the UK.

Public law controls public bodies
Individuals against the state
Unlawful, unreasonable, irrational or unfair decision-making process.
Judicial review, inquest, inquiry, human rights claim

organizations.

Public Law Cases in the UK

Pham v. secretary of state for home department (2015) UKSC 19

The current concern in Pham was whether the government would issue an order depriving Mr. Pham of his citizenship and rendering him stateless. The appropriate criterion for review was proportionality rather than Wednesbury reasonableness because the Supreme Court failed to rule on whether losing his UK citizenship also meant losing his EU membership and, if so, whether this brought the issue within the purview of EU law.

Lumsdon and others v. legal services board (2015) UKSC 41

The court had to consider whether the implementation of the QASA breached Regulation 14 of the Provisions of Services Regulations 2009, which implemented the Provisions of Services Directive 2006/123/EC. Regulation 14's specific proportionality requirements specify that "the necessity for an authorisation scheme" must be "supported by an overwhelming cause relevant to the public interest" when "the goal pursued cannot be attained by means of a less restrictive measure."

Inquests

When the reason of death is unclear, determining it is not always straightforward. If the cause of death is unknown in such cases, an inquest can be held to determine the cause of death. An inquest is a formal investigation that allows insight into the circumstances surrounding a death. The inquest is held to determine who the deceased person was, how, when, and where they died, and to provide the information required for their death to be documented.

A coroner's report and a jury's verdict are utilized throughout an inquest.
A coroner is a public official whose main responsibility is to hold an inquest to determine the cause of death when there is cause for concern that it may not have been caused by natural causes.
A jury’s job in both criminal and civil cases, the jury's job is to decide on factual issues and then use the judge's interpretation of the law to make a decision.

A jury is not usually engaged, but if it is, it will be under the following conditions:

If the death is due to murder, manslaughter, or infanticide.
When the death has taken place in prison.
When the death was caused by an accident, poisoning or a disease requiring notification to a government department.
A jury may also be involved if there were circumstances which would put members of the public in danger.
The coroner may also require a jury at their own discretion where they feel that it is necessary.

What is the purpose of an inquest?

An inquest is a public judicial probe that seeks answers to a few key questions:

Who was the deceased?

Details of the death; when, where, how

Medical background

Public Inquiry

What is a Public Inquiry

Public inquiries are thorough probes that can be given unique powers to compel testimony and information disclosure. A government minister frequently summons them. A public inquiry must be justified only if there is "public concern" over a particular occurrence or set of occurrences.

Questions to ask during a public inquiry

What happened?
Why did it happen and who is to blame?
What can be done to prevent it happening again

You can employ witnesses because they will know few but important information about the public inquiry that will help you answer the questions how, when, where, and why. Evidence that may be utilized to help the investigation during a public inquiry includes material evidence, documentation, reports, and recommendations.

Recent Public Inquiries

Scottish Covid-19 inquiry 24/8/2021

The COVID-19 epidemic in Scotland is the focus of the investigation. The investigation will gather information on the devolved response to the COVID-19 epidemic in order to determine any lessons that may be learned for the future.

“We want to draw lessons from how the COVID-19 outbreak was handled. The COVID-19 outbreak has hurt people in Scotland. What was done to meet the challenge of the epidemic will be looked into by the inquiry. The investigation will outline what went well, where improvements may have been made, and offer suggestions.”

Infected blood inquiry in the UK 3/11/2017

To investigate the circumstances behind the provision of tainted blood and contaminated blood products to patients being treated by national health systems in the United Kingdom, notably after 1970.

Judicial Review

What is a Judicial Review?

Does judicial review require reform?

Judicial review is a sort of judicial process in which a judge examines the legality of a public body's decision or action. In other words, judicial reviews attack the process by which a judgment was made rather than the rights and wrongs of the result reached.

A judge reviews the lawfulness of a decision or action made by a public body on ground of:

Unlawful
Unreasonable
Irrational
Unfair decision making.

In July 2020 the government, launched an independent panel to look at judicial review. The review was to consider

Whether the terms of judicial review should be written into law
Whether certain executive decisions should be decided on by judges
Which ground and remedies should be available in claims brought against the government
Any further procedural reforms to judicial review such as timing and appeal process