Of course, forcing NI in any capacity has worked out tremendously well for Westminster over the last century.
PhD candidate at Queen's University Belfast. Looking at legislative drafting. Interested in devolution, public law, politics and climate change. Mostly unserious takes (anything on Stormont) + a few slightly serious ones (N. Tayto > S. Tayto). He/him
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Of course, forcing NI in any capacity has worked out tremendously well for Westminster over the last century.
Let's also be clear, that wasn't a "damning" report on Rayner, it was a breach of the ministerial code for not taking due care and attention over personal tax matters in a complex situation. Would be amazed if any of the last government would survive this standard.
In Netflix's Hostage, the cautionary tale about progressive politics aligning with the far right so hard that it leads to brutal consequences for leaders is presented through the lens of French politics, thereby presenting a stark question to the UK: What if you turned into the French? 😶
Ryanair has been emailing me exclusively in French for a while now (I have no idea why). These emails and Duolingo are why I continue to believe that one day, a Parisian server will not immediately and disdainfully switch to English after I try to say hello 🫠
#ECJ: A national court must consider the judgment of a higher court that does not constitute an independent and impartial tribunal previously established by law to be null and void #RuleOfLaw 👉 curia.europa.eu/jcms/jcms/Jo...
Here's an updated link to the report, in case you can't access it: www.ox.ac.uk/news/2025-09...
When reading some of the comments & quotes, the ethnonationalist lens with which some commentators (not @evanbernick.bsky.social) are attempting to define Irishness is completely at odds with the arc of our island's history. Read the GFA please. And refrain from ahistorical stupidity 😊
And that's even before you get to the text of the Withdrawal Agreement which tells you that provisions which satisfy direct effect under EU law have it. But sure, let's keep speculating on what words mean because some of us are so clearly bereft of meaningful work.
The "no direct effect" position is so puzzling. The NIHRC and ECNI are specifically empowered under the NI Act to intervene in Art 2 proceedings taken by "persons". What sort of challenge can a person take in the domestic courts in the absence of direct effect?
And Dillon isn't the only case which presents a problem for the report. In NIHRC & JR295, Humphreys J arrives at the same conclusion as Dillon (note, JR295 predated the Court of Appeal in Dillon, meaning Humphreys J came to this conclusion without being bound by Dillon):
Delighted that identity-labelling discourse specific to Ireland and Irish history is now going mainstream across the pond. When can we expect a theme park please.
I'm sorry but if carrying out arrests using unarmed officers is the "British tradition", Northern Ireland would like its current policing practices and policing history (and that of Irish policing before it) rewritten.
Congratulations!
With Rahul Sambaraju, I argue denial of racism and its coding in nationalism abets acts of racist violence. Thank you to @deirdre for running this piece. And thanks to Philomena Mullen for discussions on this, and @swethaa.bsky.social Ballakrishnen for injecting the word blasé into my head:
Prisoner rehabilitation and liberty deprivations administrativecourtblog.wordpress.com/2025/09/02/p...
The ECHR is deeply embedded within the 1998 Belfast/Good Friday Agreement. This commitment does not allow the UK Government to formulate some version of what it regards as ECHR-equivalent protections. Read our joint statement 👇 @ppr-org.bsky.social & Human Rights Consortium NI
The only thing more fascinating than a Main Character is a Main Character Martyr. What must the void be that can only be thus filled.
Wouldn't it be inconsistent to interpret the Strand heading one way and one of its paragraphs another way? 5(c) for example mentions "legislation" without mentioning which body that legislation belongs to. 5 says "all sections of the community are protected" without distinguishing against what.
I was responding to the idea that the ECHR as incorporated bound/should bind only the devolved institutions and that is the extent of the incorporation obligations under the GFA. A claim which was made some years ago in another report.
If you're referring to the Rights, Safeguards and Equality of Opportunity section, then that particular incorporation obligation makes no distinction between devolved and non-devolved institutions in so far as NI is concerned.
I suggest, respectfully, that the rest of us are looking at the words in context. The important part (again, with all due respect) is to actually understand that context. None of us are imagining or speculating. We are referencing the facts which surrounded a decade long negotiation.
I think Sister Michael is an appropriate reaction to that.
Which was legally responsible for it until the devolution of policing and justice in 2010. And the police is just one example of a context where ECHR violations in the context of NI history aren't *explicitly* a part of Strand One. 3/3.
If not, then we have a problem: because the police were never (from 1972) envisioned to be under devolved institutional control. And if the ECHR was contemplated as a safeguard in a policing context, it would necessarily draw the UKG 2/
Far be it for me to wade into this discussion on an otherwise totally quiet day for legal opinions, but if we're reading the ECHR to apply only to the devolved institutions at Stormont, is it plausible that the GFA parties ignored the police? 1/
There's an older variant with mutton and lentils which I haven't really seen anywhere but is very rich and coma-inducing.
I used to do that with mince. Barely brown it and then wonder why it tasted so bland.
Agreed. I'm obviously biased but my mother's cholar dahl with fresh coconut is truly last meal territory.
This is true. I can't imagine making khichdi without a pressure cooker. I know you can, but I don't want to wait that long. By contrast, I imagine pressure cooker kedgeree would be a deeply unappetising paste.
I learned to cook watching my mother cooking, though I haven't inherited any of her instinct or flair. But at least I use salt, which would vastly improve whatever my dad makes.
My dad cooks sometimes. Despite both my mother and I begging him not to.
I wonder how true it is that kedgeree emerged from khichdi. No lentils, fish and eggs? Though I think there was possibly a Mughal version that's similar to kedgeree.
One of the greatest breakfasts in the history of human civilisation (contradictions won't be accepted) is the South Indian idli, dosa and assorted condiments. Many similarities with Sri Lankan breakfasts I think.
Maybe (though I don't know why you'd give up on kippers). Nigella Lawson had a kedgeree recipe with salmon iirc. Or something less fishy than kippers or smoked haddock.
Kedgeree is such a great Sunday brunch option that it really should be a part of more menus.
One thing that imho has gone disappointingly out of fashion is Anglo-Indian cuisine. Not e.g. tikka masala and madras, but kedgeree and mulligatawny. You still see it in a handful of old brasseries and gymkhanas in India and some posh places in the UK but I'd like to see it become more accessible.
Chicken ticket masala, to be fair, shouldn't be claimed by any culture.
Putting the finishing touches to the manuscript. Almost there.
The point? You can choose to read the GFA-ECHR relationship as narrowly as your ideological slant permits. History will broaden that reading by necessity. 😊 6/6
The 90s led the way in identifying the contours of investigative duties under the right to life in Art 2. Cases like McCann are the reason why we have expanded inquests (sometimes called Middleton inquests) looking at the circumstances of a death involving the state (e.g. in prisons) 5/
The 80s brought Dudgeon v UK, in which the European Court held that criminalising sodomy was a breach of Art 8. NI was the last place in the UK where gay men still lived in fear of arrest for sodomy, because decriminalising it from Westminster would have been *too controversial* 4/
The 70s marked new chapters in the history of the ECHR in NI. The (in)famous Ireland v UK judgment found no torture in the Five Techniques, but did find that the Techniques amounted to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment in breach of Art 3 ECHR 3/
Our association with the ECHR goes a long way before the GFA, of course. As the non-discrimination guarantee in the Government of Ireland Act 1920 failed spectacularly and the Troubles began, the ECHR was one of the key sources for ideas around a new devolution settlement in 1972-73 2/
Ah, the periodic opportunity to plug something I wrote almost exactly 2 years ago when this argument was made (itself a repetition of the same argument made over time) ☺️ ukhumanrightsblog.com/2023/08/29/t...
Might use this in tutorials instead of droning on and on about defences to defamation: "This is not a defence to defamation. Instead, it's the fulfilment of a desperate wish to lose your house."
Of course, it's been almost a decade since the last Enemies of the People narrative.
I should hope. Otherwise the analogy is bizarre.
So a united Ireland and an independent Scotland in 5 years?
Post a movie from the year you were born. I was born in a pretty great year for film, but it had to be this one:
I think the constitutional statutes doctrine is useful, but its use for the ECA is funny when considering the lengths to which the government and parliamentary counsel went to make the Bill appear uncontroversial and ordinary. The drafting papers and law officers' opinions are a hoot.
This. I think it's vital to appreciate that the Parliament which originally claimed sovereignty is not the same institution anymore. And that there is no conceivable way of going back to that institution without making governance dreadfully inefficient in the 21st c. So reform must lie elsewhere.
Fridays can be a bit quiet at work, so in some much needed change from that, a colleague thundered over to my desk, accused me of making a mistake, realised as they elaborated that they had instead made the mistake and left. Now back to the quiet 😑
The German Federal Constitutional Court has been asked to rule on whether the German constitution contradicts a CJEU judgment on religious discrimination. Analysis by Jonas Seibold - eulawanalysis.blogspot.com/2025/08/holy...
I recently learned about this through the medium of a bad Guy Ritchie film. Apparently the Wicked Bible contains a musical code that, via some unnecessarily convoluted trips through 17th century art, leads to the fountain of youth under the Great Pyramid. Or something.
To add: parliamentary sovereignty/supremacy at the behest of a rights-restrictive government was one of the principal reasons why the Good Friday Agreement specifically requires incorporation of the ECHR. Parliament didn't guarantee timely access to a solicitor at a police station, Strasbourg did.
I'd say it's only great because codification in the UK lost steam some time ago and the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel has never been large enough to attempt to codify it all. In certain parts of the common law world, for example, contract law is mostly if not entirely statutory.
So yes, the common law is a historical and epistemological delight. But historical and epistemological delights don't necessarily protect rights. And in the case of a withdrawal from the ECHR during a rights-restrictive Parliament, the common law is almost certain to fail 8/8
On the contrary, Parliament will likely enact a bunch of rights-restrictive statutes in the wake of denouncing the ECHR (otherwise all this hot air over the ECHR is a colossal waste of energy). And the common law cannot run counter to statute law. It never has. 7/
Anyway, tldr: in the question of statute + common law, the statute was easier, clearer and more authoritative to use. It wasn't necessary to develop the common law and so it wasn't developed. There is no guarantee that it will be developed to cover the ECHR sized hole left by leaving the Treaty. 6/
No one else on the panel agreed, for the reason that there was no *established principle* to reflect Lord Kerr's suggestion. I'd say (respectfully) that this was question-begging, because Lord Kerr said it was *time for the common law to recognise such a principle*. 5/
Anyway the UKSC unanimously said the Home Sec had acted unlawfully because he had not complied with the 2018 Act's requirements. Only Lord Kerr suggested that there ought also to be a common law reason: the state cannot facilitate the imposition of the death penalty. 4/
The answer came from the Data Protection Act 2018, when read in light of the EU law which that statute was enacted to implement. Part of the interpretational toolkit of EU law is its Charter of Fundamental Rights. This Charter overlaps considerably with the ECHR. 3/
A recent example is Elgizouli [2020] UKSC 10. This concerned whether the Home Secretary lawfully provided evidence to the US which could facilitate the imposition of capital punishment. There was a statutory answer (No) behind which the entire court threw its weight. 2/
I think leaving rights protections to the common law would be a massive step backwards. The heyday of common law innovation ended when the "orgy" of statutes began some time ago. The common law now moves incrementally and with great caution. It would not be a good substitute for the ECHR. 1/
More like a dead sheep in wo(o)lf's clothing. All appearance, no substance.
When did the idea arise that the Irish presidency should be open to anyone who fulfills the basic requirements and can slap down a deposit? I thought that was for vanity runs for the Dáil, which should be enough for folk. And where do these people vanish during the 7 years between elections?
Mortgage?
We also had Barons of the Exchequer but the titles were simply copied over from England. So no luck (so far) tracing the origin of the title among Irish records either.
On the topic of legal history, I've often wondered why the Exchequer of Pleas had Barons. In the sense of why "Baron"?
This is absolutely one of those examples where you might look down the page and spot the footnote "It came to me in a dream".
You would think! Though can't blame the editors, they were very nice.
I love learning about legal history. Went down an especially interesting (to me at least) rabbit hole semi-recently about judicial review procedural reform in NI in the 1980s. Though came to a dead end when certain minutes seem to have disappeared ☹️
Whereas the "farm" in fee farm grant (a uniquely Irish estate which is a perpetual freehold lease but the grantee must pay an annual rent) refers to the rent, apparently descending from Medieval Latin. Very clear for teaching purposes.
Beautiful.
How is it pronounced? And what does it mean?
Sadly the pace of reform on that front in NI is 0. Our Law Commission published a draft Bill to fully abolish estates and tenure. In 2010. Yet here we are, still dealing in fee farm grants.
I think "acceptance" might be putting it too strongly.
This was in 2023. I had a panicked 15 minute search for news of the supposed disapplication and of course there was nothing. The comment was so casual: "The Refugee Convention has been disapplied for 5 years so it doesn't apply in this context". I hope this person has since read a book.
@colinmurray.bsky.social and I once had a reviewer who was convinced that the Refugee Convention had *already* been disapplied (even though it has no such provision) and said our paper was wrong as a result. We successfully pushed back but it shows the influence such things have, even as nonsense.
I look forward to the day Reform starts running "We will renegotiate over NI" as a manifesto pledge and its supporters immediately think of national insurance.
Britain, every time NI breathes: "You're STILL here?!" Britain, every time anyone else reminds it that NI exists: "How DARE you express opinions on one of our own?!"
Now that there's (at LONG last) some recognition that the Good Friday Agreement makes leaving the ECHR effectively impossible, it's time to move onto the next obsessive fantasy.
Oh yeah don't get me started on the fee farm grant, which has and has never had anything to do with farms or agriculture!
eireannach.ghost.io/a-nation-onc...
But I also know that we need to have more frequent and more serious conversations around accessibility in language and access to justice. It means a lot more than improving physical or even financial access. 2/2
I would welcome the abandonment of "certiorari" & "mandamus" in NI. And rationalise the 4 modes of starting proceedings. And a host of other things. I think it's true that calls for accessibility are sometimes brushed aside because those who argue that it's unnecessary aren't the ones impacted 1/
What the judge did not use was a "Gen Z translator" or something along those lines. Because accessibility does not necessarily mean colloquialism. It means accessibility. Let's discuss that *seriously*, because it needs to be discussed. 4/4
But how we understand accessibility is itself important. The article refers to remarks from Twomey J in an application. Those remarks, as reported in the Irish Times, were about costs - e.g. using "usual" in place of "party and party". That's still accurate, because party/party costs are usual 3/
It's not archaic to write accurately, though undoubtedly it is possible to change the language of legally relevant phrases (like "litigation friend") to make them more accessible *and* preserve accuracy. Accuracy is vital because the last thing you want from *a court* is confusion. 2/
I'm all in favour of accessible language but let's think about what that means. "a kid getting help from his mom" doesn't accurately describe someone acting as their child's litigation friend. Neither does "one side...on the other side" describe who is taking the case and against whom. 1/
Hard to tell from this bland announcement just what the government plans for asylum appeals, so I’m trying not to speculate. But I’ve worked in the sector in various roles since 1987 & I’ve seen a lot of policy proposals come & go so I have Thoughts on the dysfunctional way we decide such things 1/🧵
Listen, painted kerbstones and an explosion of flags are passé. Until some person has shoved their entire face through broken glass at a public building and screamed "NO SURRENDER!!!!" like a banshee, England will never approach Ulster-level bants 😏
Anyway, if local authorities were better funded, and the public revenue more strategically spent, you could turn India's haphazard urban growth into an asset. Massively increased public transport coupled with enforced bans on car traffic in places which are already physically ill suited to cars. 6/6
Other cities are no better. When vehicular traffic becomes a problem, the frequent solution is to build flyovers. So instead of lots of traffic jams along a busy road, you have two giant traffic jams on either end of the flyover. What a lovely solution. 5/
The city recently inaugurated the first phase of a giant and v expensive coastal road project that sees a multi lane highway hug the coast, extend into the Arabian Sea and break up the (reclaimed) shoreline with frankly ugly concrete flyovers. 4/
In India, public authority revenue allocation is dreadful. The lion's share goes to the federal and state governments, with only a handful of municipal authorities with any money to speak of. Mumbai, unsurprisingly, is the country's richest. But so much of this money is spent on roads 3/
The streets have so many frequent sharp turns that a car will slow to almost a halt, and you have to keep smashing your horn to alert pedestrians and cyclists that there is a car in their area. Imagine that in a relatively quiet residential area. People gather, children play and OH THERES A CAR 🚨 2/
Decades of haphazard urban development in India has meant that many streets are far too narrow for even a single lane of car traffic (people still try 😑). My parents live in one such area. The streets are narrow and laid out "organically", growing as land is bought and developed haphazardly 1/
Famously, the US and Imperial Japan sat around a table and agreed which Japanese cities would be bombed.
People can feel sympathy for Lucy Connolly over the scale of sentence she got after pleading guilty. But the appeal found her evidence demonstrably not credible on what she knew/did not know about the sentence before her guilty plea. Her media interviews repeat those false claims
