Page 33 - Lord Sumption News Today

ISSUE DATE: May 17, 2021 UPDATED: May 7, 2021 17:30 IST Illustration by Siddhant Jumde In 1748, Montesquieu published L’Espirit des Lois or The Spirit of Laws, which introduced the theory of separation of powers and formed the basic foundation of several constitutions, including that of India. The State that most effectively promotes liberty is one where the legislative, executive and judicial powers are entrusted to different bodies that act independently of each other. After the Emergency o...

When I was small, my father would conduct experiments around the house. When you blow across the top of a wine bottle, how many modes of vibration are there? How do you get the higher notes? Another time, the matter under investigation might be...

Ofcom to get powers to stop woke social media firms being judge and jury A new bill will see Ofcom reining in social media giants, with powers to levy multi-billion pound fines for breaches of duty of care laws 8 May 2021 • 8:00pm Ofcom is to get powers to prevent "woke" social media firms being "judge and jury" by arbitrarily removing political commentary.  The new online harms watchdog will be able to intervene to get tech giants to reinstate content of “democratic importance” and to p...

Introduction A separate legal entity – or rather, a corporate veil – exists to separate a corporate entity from its incorporators upon incorporation. Citing the century-old case Solomon v A Solomon & Co Ltd,(1) Justice Nallini Pathmanathan stated the following in Ong Leong Chiou v Keller (M) Sdn Bhd:(2) The juristic principle comprising the bedrock of company law is the legal fiction that on incorporation, the corporate entity is clothed with a separate and distinct personality. It is a l...

    The concept of resources in s25 of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 arises at s25(2)(a) of the Act. In coming to a fair order, the court must have regard to: (a) the income, earning capacity, property and other financial resources which each of the parties to the marriage has or is likely to have in the foreseeable future… Given financial resources are distinguished from property in the sentence, they have been taken as a separate class of asset. In this article, we aim to: • Delin...

THE role of Parliament is not to pass laws but to challenge them. When the major parties are agreed, the dissident voices will have to be heard outside instead. Labour’s answer to the Government’s Covid strategy has been along the lines of ‘we would have done much the same, but earlier and worse’. So it should not have come as a surprise to Sir Keir Starmer when he went for a walkabout in Bath the other day to encounter not an adoring public but a furious publican.  When the Opposition...

Crowning glory: monarch, politics and Parliament in an age of democracy The Queen and Prince Philip at the State Opening of Parliament 1998 17 April “The more democratic we get,” Walter Bagehot predicted in 1867, “the more we shall get to like state and show, which have ever pleased the vulgar.” The outpouring of tributes triggered by the death of the Duke of Edinburgh indicates that Bagehot was right. Universal suffrage has not, as some intellectuals expected, proved incompatible with ...

07 April 2021 When your career path forks, which way will you go – the Supreme Court or Strictly Come Dancing? Two new-ish books will help you decide. First, what is going through the mind of Lord Sumption, the appellate answer to Craig Revel Horwood? A crack team of academics and practitioners investigate – in the commercial law sphere anyway, as Challenging Private Law from Hart Publishing pre-dates the Covid restrictions which rile him so. From contract damages to piercing the corporate...

last or past? But last means “most recent” in this sentence: “United have beaten Wednesday five times in their last six meetings” whereas past refers to the past as a whole in this sentence: “United have beaten Wednesday five times in their past six meetings” (suggesting they have only ever played each other six times) Last Night of the Proms last post last rites later often redundant as context will inform the reader: “They will meet this month” rather than “They will meet l...

Priti Patel is to blame for the police breaking up the Sarah Everard vigil because of her “brutal” ban on all protests, an ex-Supreme Court Judge says. Jonathan Sumption accused ministers of “humbug” in trying to pin responsibility on the police – arguing the Met was placed in “an impossible situation”. Both Boris Johnson and the home secretary have criticised the scenes on Saturday, when officers grabbed women, forced them to the ground and led...