Naomi Finch, Simon Halliday, Joe Tomlinson, Jed Meers, Mark Wilberforce
This article substantially extends the existing constitutional and legal critiques of the use of soft law public health guidance in the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing upon the findings of a national survey undertaken during the first wave of the pandemic in June 2020, it shows how the perceived legal status of lockdown rules made a significant difference as to whether the UK public complied with them and that this effect is a product of the legitimacy that law itself enjoys within UK society. Based on this analysis, it argues that the problems with the Government's approach to guidance, that have been subjected to criticism in constitutional and legal terms, may also be open to critique on the basis that they risk undermining the public's loyalty to the law itself.
{"title":"Undermining loyalty to legality? An empirical analysis of perceptions of 'lockdown' law and guidance during COVID-19.","authors":"Naomi Finch, Simon Halliday, Joe Tomlinson, Jed Meers, Mark Wilberforce","doi":"10.1111/1468-2230.12755","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1468-2230.12755","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This article substantially extends the existing constitutional and legal critiques of the use of soft law public health guidance in the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing upon the findings of a national survey undertaken during the first wave of the pandemic in June 2020, it shows how the perceived legal status of lockdown rules made a significant difference as to whether the UK public complied with them and that this effect is a product of the legitimacy that law itself enjoys within UK society. Based on this analysis, it argues that the problems with the Government's approach to guidance, that have been subjected to criticism in constitutional and legal terms, may also be open to critique on the basis that they risk undermining the public's loyalty to the law itself.</p>","PeriodicalId":47530,"journal":{"name":"Modern Law Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-07-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9350091/pdf/MLR-9999-0.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"40594252","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-11-01Epub Date: 2021-06-28DOI: 10.1111/1468-2230.12650
Elizabeth Howell
The EU project is at an inflection point. Intra-EU alliances are altering following the UK's departure, the EU's financial markets remain segmented, and there is limited appetite for completing the Banking Union. The second stage of Brexit negotiations also collided with the Covid-19 pandemic, which has strained economies around the world. These issues amount to a 'polycrisis' for the EU, raising existential questions about its future. This article focuses on one strand of the debates generated within this polycrisis: future UK/EU policy cooperation with respect to financial governance. The article discusses the importance of the financial services sector to the UK and the EU, and examines potential institutional options for future cooperation. In particular, it advocates harnessing dexterous aspects evident within precedents, including existing EU/third country association agreements, to develop a functional arrangement for future financial governance cooperation, which could also lead to closer UK/EU cooperation than currently appears likely.
{"title":"Brexit, Covid-19, and Possible Frameworks for Future UK/EU Financial Governance Cooperation.","authors":"Elizabeth Howell","doi":"10.1111/1468-2230.12650","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2230.12650","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The EU project is at an inflection point. Intra-EU alliances are altering following the UK's departure, the EU's financial markets remain segmented, and there is limited appetite for completing the Banking Union. The second stage of Brexit negotiations also collided with the Covid-19 pandemic, which has strained economies around the world. These issues amount to a 'polycrisis' for the EU, raising existential questions about its future. This article focuses on one strand of the debates generated within this polycrisis: future UK/EU policy cooperation with respect to financial governance. The article discusses the importance of the financial services sector to the UK and the EU, and examines potential institutional options for future cooperation. In particular, it advocates harnessing dexterous aspects evident within precedents, including existing EU/third country association agreements, to develop a functional arrangement for future financial governance cooperation, which could also lead to closer UK/EU cooperation than currently appears likely.</p>","PeriodicalId":47530,"journal":{"name":"Modern Law Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2021-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1111/1468-2230.12650","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"39429357","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In the final days of 2020,the European Union and the United Kingdom concluded a Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) covering a broad range of policy areas, including cooperation of law enforcement authorities and social security systems. The EU-UK TCA is unique as concerns the circumstances of its negotiation and adoption, as well as its substance. However, contrary to the argument of the EU institutions,the agreement will have broad implications for the understanding of the EU’s external competence and Member States’ ability to act in areas that are national competence and rely on national budgets. We are critical of the legitimacy of the TCA’s conclusion process, consider that the lack of a deep constitutional analysis of the consequences of EU-only conclusion of the TCA, and of the TCA itself, are problematic, and believe that the choices made are likely to create difficulties for the implementation and enforcement of the agreement.
{"title":"The EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement – Exceptional Circumstances or a new Paradigm for EU External Relations?","authors":"C. Eckes, Päivi Leino-Sandberg","doi":"10.1111/1468-2230.12698","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2230.12698","url":null,"abstract":"In the final days of 2020,the European Union and the United Kingdom concluded a Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) covering a broad range of policy areas, including cooperation of law enforcement authorities and social security systems. The EU-UK TCA is unique as concerns the circumstances of its negotiation and adoption, as well as its substance. However, contrary to the argument of the EU institutions,the agreement will have broad implications for the understanding of the EU’s external competence and Member States’ ability to act in areas that are national competence and rely on national budgets. We are critical of the legitimacy of the TCA’s conclusion process, consider that the lack of a deep constitutional analysis of the consequences of EU-only conclusion of the TCA, and of the TCA itself, are problematic, and believe that the choices made are likely to create difficulties for the implementation and enforcement of the agreement.","PeriodicalId":47530,"journal":{"name":"Modern Law Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2021-10-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49099941","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article presents the results of an empirical study designed to assess the degree of convergence and divergence between public opinion and the fictional Fair Minded Observer (‘FMO’) used to determine whether a judge ought to be disqualified on the grounds of possible bias. As part of the test for apparent bias, judges have to imagine whether an FMO would see a risk of bias on the part of the judge. Although the courts have never definitively stated whether the FMO is meant to represent an ideal or average member of the public, to the extent that the FMO is partly meant to reflect public perception, the obvious weakness in the test is that no one has tested public attitudes to the risk of judicial bias specifically. In our study, we conducted nationally representative public surveys in both the UK and Australia, asking respondents what they think about different situations of possible bias (N=2064). Our results, in the form of descriptive statistics, indicate that a gap exists between the FMO created by the courts and public opinion in both the UK and Australia. This gap extends across a number of areas thought to give rise to possible bias, including financial interests and relationships and the risk of prejudgement, as well as fact patterns based on leading cases. There are methodological limitations in nationally representative opinion surveys, which make it difficult to measure informed and reasonable public opinion. While further research would be desirable, if the law of bias continues to be partly framed around the need to maintain public confidence in the legal system, law and policy makers will need to take some account of the results of studies such as this one.
{"title":"What the Fair Minded Observer Really Thinks About Judicial Impartiality","authors":"Andrew Higgins, Inbar Levy","doi":"10.1111/1468-2230.12631","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2230.12631","url":null,"abstract":"This article presents the results of an empirical study designed to assess the degree of convergence and divergence between public opinion and the fictional Fair Minded Observer (‘FMO’) used to determine whether a judge ought to be disqualified on the grounds of possible bias. As part of the test for apparent bias, judges have to imagine whether an FMO would see a risk of bias on the part of the judge. Although the courts have never definitively stated whether the FMO is meant to represent an ideal or average member of the public, to the extent that the FMO is partly meant to reflect public perception, the obvious weakness in the test is that no one has tested public attitudes to the risk of judicial bias specifically. In our study, we conducted nationally representative public surveys in both the UK and Australia, asking respondents what they think about different situations of possible bias (N=2064). Our results, in the form of descriptive statistics, indicate that a gap exists between the FMO created by the courts and public opinion in both the UK and Australia. This gap extends across a number of areas thought to give rise to possible bias, including financial interests and relationships and the risk of prejudgement, as well as fact patterns based on leading cases. There are methodological limitations in nationally representative opinion surveys, which make it difficult to measure informed and reasonable public opinion. While further research would be desirable, if the law of bias continues to be partly framed around the need to maintain public confidence in the legal system, law and policy makers will need to take some account of the results of studies such as this one.","PeriodicalId":47530,"journal":{"name":"Modern Law Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2021-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1111/1468-2230.12631","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46820682","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Citizen Led Policing in the Digital Realm: Paedophile Hunters and Article 8 in the case of\u0000 Sutherland\u0000 v\u0000 Her Majesty's Advocate","authors":"Allison M. Holmes","doi":"10.1111/1468-2230.12653","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2230.12653","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47530,"journal":{"name":"Modern Law Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2021-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1111/1468-2230.12653","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41401730","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}