The Public Law Project, Shpresa Programme and Islington Law Centre has published a report titled ‘Punishing the victim: How the UK’s broken asylum system fails the people it should protect’. The report examines the fundamental failures in the UK's asylum system through the lens of Albanian nationals' experiences. The report analyses case studies demonstrating systemic issues in asylum processing, including barriers to accessing quality legal representation, flawed Home Office decision-making processes, and inadequate support mechanisms. Drawing on real cases involving LGBTQI+ persecution, human trafficking, and blood feuds, the research highlights how current procedures fail to properly implement protections available under the Refugee Convention 1951, the Modern Slavery Act 2015, and relevant immigration rules. The report provides evidence-based recommendations for reform while emphasising how existing legal frameworks are being inadequately applied to vulnerable asylum seekers.

In its report ‘Recommendations for best practice in respect of adoption’, the adoption sub-group of the Public Law Working Group established by the President of the Family Division, Sir Andrew McFarlane, says that ‘wholesale reform’ of the adoption process is needed. The adoption sub-group is chaired by Mrs Justice Judd, with a membership of professionals from across the adoption sector. The sub-group has worked on the review, consultation and report for four years, focusing on five areas: international adoption, consensual adoption, access to adoption records, processes and procedures in court and contact. The report provides a range of recommendations across the five areas and is intended as a review of the adoption process and a catalyst for positive changes, as well as a useful tool for those working in adoption and related services.

This Practice Note provides information about the ‘Recommendations to achieve best practice in the child protection and family justice systems’ report (the PLWG report) prepared by the Public Law Working Group (PLWG) and endorsed by the President of the Family Division on 1 March 2021. It includes information about the background to the PLWG report, recommendations, details of the best practice guidance and templates attached to the report and the conclusions reached by the PLWG. Background to the PLWG and the report The PLWG was formed to investigate the steep rise in public law children cases coming to the Family Court and to offer recommendations for improving the system’s ability to address the needs of the children and families at the centre of these cases. The additional pressures on the child protection and family justice systems arising from the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic have underlined the need for new ways of working. The objectives of the PLWG were to: • recommend changes to current practice and procedure to be implemented swiftly, without the need for primary or

This year’s Public Law annual round-up reviews some of the most significant developments of 2017 and previews what is on the horizon for 2018. This includes updates and analysis concerning the early UK parliamentary general election, the introduction of public sector gender pay gap reporting, developments in judicial review procedure, key public procurement case analysis, implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation, Regulation (EU) 2016/679, and of course Brexit, which is also the subject of a separate round-up. Also included are updates on LexisNexis® content, including news of exciting developments from the past year and what is coming up in the next 12 months. Reviewing 2017 Constitutional and administrative law What happened? On 18 April 2017, Prime Minister Theresa May announced her intention to hold an early parliamentary general election in the UK. Under the Fixed Term Parliaments Act 2011, the next election was not scheduled to take place until May 2020, but the Prime Minister believed that the UK had a ‘one-off’ chance to hold an election while the EU

Public Law analysis: The Public Law case law quarterly provides details and analysis of notable judgments collated by the Lexis+® Public Law team each quarter. Highlights in this edition include a Court of Appeal judgment on the compatibility of redaction and the duty of candour in judicial review proceedings, a Scottish ruling on the power of the courts to decline to give effect to a statutory provision and a key public procurement decision on the meaning of ‘sufficiently serious’.

The Public Law case law quarterly provides details and analysis of notable judgments collated by the Lexis+® UK Public Law team each quarter.

The Public Law case law quarterly provides details and analysis of notable judgments collated by the Lexis+® UK Public Law team each quarter.

Public Law analysis: The Public Law case law quarterly provides details and analysis of notable judgments collated by the Lexis+® Public Law team each quarter. Highlights in this edition include the Supreme Court’s declaration of incompatibility in a case about strikes, and the European Court of Human Rights’s (ECtHR) ruling about a state’s failure to take sufficient action against climate change.

The Public Law case law quarterly provides details and analysis of notable judgments collated by the Lexis+® UK Public Law team each quarter. Highlights in this edition include analysis of the Supreme Court’s decision in For Women Scotland v Scottish Ministers, which confirmed that ‘sex’ under the Equality Act 2010 (EqA 2010) refers to biological sex. This edition also looks at Supreme Court decisions on the Special Immigration Appeals Commission’s role in national security appeals, anonymity and freedom of expression in the context of litigation involving NHS Trusts, and statutory interpretation and procedure in a case concerning rights of the public under the Dartmoor Commons Act 1985. Also in this edition, the European Court of Human Rights decision in Green v United Kingdom, which examined the margin of appreciation in the context of parliamentary privilege. Court of Appeal decisions highlighted in this edition concern recognition of non-binary gender under the Gender Recognition Act 2004 (GRA 2004), DOLs orders and Article 5 ECHR, Article 14 ECHR challenges to employment legislation, regulatory compliance in planning decisions, and amendments to the Public Order Act 1986 (POA 1986). Further analysis considers legitimate expectation from oral statements, extensions of time in judicial review, recusal applications in cases of possible judicial bias, challenges to the removal of VAT exemptions for private school fees, applications to lift the automatic suspension in public procurement challenges, and the consequences of misusing AI in court proceedings.

Public Law analysis: The Public Law case law quarterly provides details and analysis of notable judgments collated by the Lexis+® UK Public Law team each quarter. Highlights in this edition include two Supreme Court cases originating in Northern Ireland, one considering the legal effect of the Windsor Framework and another in which the court departed from its own previous case law, a Court of Appeal decision on the Home Secretary’s proscription of Palestine Action plus the first judicial decision on the new test for lifting automatic suspension under the Procurement Act 2023 (PA 2023) and the first Court of Appeal authority on the operation of the Subsidy Control Act 2022 (SCA 2022).

The Public Law case law quarterly provides details and analysis of notable judgments collated by the Lexis+® UK Public Law team each quarter. Highlights in this edition include the Supreme Court's obiter discussion of whether retained EU law applies to pre-Brexit facts, a preliminary ruling from the European Court of Justice on extradition to the UK, and the Court of Appeal's decision that there is no public law duty to publish a policy explaining how a discretionary power will be exercised.

The Public Law case law quarterly provides details and analysis of notable judgments collated by the Lexis+® UK Public Law team each quarter. Highlights in this edition include the Supreme Court’s decision in Shvidler v Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, on the proportionality of sanctions; the Supreme Court’s judgment in Department for Business and Trade v Information Commissioner, on aggregating the public interest in freedom of information exemptions; the High Court’s discharge of a superinjunction in Ministry of Defence v Global Media; and Attorney General v BBC; R (‘Beth’) v IPT, concerning the government’s duty of candour and misleading the courts. Also featured is the Court of Appeal’s decision in R (Fajr Ellis) v Secretary of State for Justice, concerning education rights in prison.