The basis of this thesis is an investigation of Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) administrative and criminal enforcement files, relating to UK detentions and prosecutions. It would appear that this is the first time that such an analysis has been made. The thesis is divided into four parts of which Part B and C form the heart of the work. These two consider administrative (Part B) and criminal (Part C) enforcement measures and discusses their legal basis. But before these subjects are dealt with in more detail, enforcement personnel and their roles are analysed (Part A), and their role is compared to inspectors of the Health and Safety Executive and the Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB). Human rights and their impact on both enforcement process and inspectors of MCA and MAIB are addressed within the context of the Merchant Shipping Act 1995 and Regulations issued under the Act. The thesis identifies inconsistencies of UK legislation when compared with European law and apparent lack of clarification within UK law. The analysis of administrative enforcement measures focuses on detentions of merchant ships whereas the discussion of criminal enforcement measures concentrates on the areas which the files suggested were the most affected by investigations and prosecutions, namely groundings, violations of the Collision Regulations and pollution incidents. It becomes clear from the research that detentions by far outweigh prosecutions, that MCA policy supports this approach and that enforcement personnel indicate a preference for such administrative enforcement measures. However, a large number of Detention Notices were found non-compliant with legal requirements. Still only one case was identified, documented and discussed where the MCA was taken to arbitration by the owner affected by a detention. The thesis offers suggestions as to how the work of MCA enforcement personnel can be improved and (Part D) what measures would seem to be appropriate for the lawmakers to take in the future. It is suggested that the approach taken in recent European oil pollution legislation to focus on serious negligence rather than on strict criminal liability could offer a suitable way forward. Throughout this work I have endeavoured to state the law as at 31 October 2008. In a number of cases it has been possible to take account of developments since that date as my viva voce only took place in June 2009. I have made reference to new European and UK pollution legislation (see Chapter 13, fn 1) which came into force or will come into force in the course of 2009. I also used the decision in TS Lines Ltd v. Delphis NV (The TS Singapore), [2009] EWHC B4 (Comm) in Chapter 8.6.2. to help clarify the discussion about the quantum of compensation in an arbitration over a detention. But I did not carry out a detailed analysis of the new legislation and that case. The decision in Club Cruise Entertainment and Travelling Services Europe BV v. The Department For Transport [2008] EWHC 2794 (Comm) of 18 November 2008, however, was fully analysed and relevant aspects found their way into the discussion in the thesis.

This thesis explores the use of equity and its principles in the field of public law. It asks whether the relationship between local authorities and their service users can properly be understood as being a fiduciary relationship. In considering this question the thesis examines the extent to which the relationship is analogous to trusteeship or whether it is some other sui generis category. This requires exploration of core elements of trust and loyalty and analysis, within a local government context of the debate as to whether fiduciary duties are confined to having a proscriptive role or whether, as some advocate they have a wider prescriptive function. The relationship between local authorities and their service users is not considered to be a fiduciary relationship within the traditional class of relationships so classified. Notwithstanding, there are instances within that relationship where the characteristics resemble in part application of a sui generis label. For example, in the realm of local authorities and their interaction with the elderly, child care and youth counselling services it is possible to apply a quasi - trusteeship role. This categorisation cannot however be extended to the majority of interactions between local authorities and their service users which usually fall within a contract or tortious setting. The main reason in not being able to identify the relationship between local authorities and their service users as fully fiduciary is the inability to point to a central core of loyalty between the parties which is so necessary for a finding of the existence of a fiduciary relationship. The loyalty inhibitor is the polycentric essence of much of local authority decision making, which is made in a very diverse community group often with different complex needs and aspirations all clambering for attention. Further, as local authorities are public bodies they must accommodate the ‘public interest’ in any decision making process and outcome. These factors combine to make a very different decision making environment than the way fiduciary obligations can be exercised in private law and makes the hurdles higher for an exercise of translation to the public law sphere. The purpose of this analysis is to explore whether the roving commission of equity has any application to the public law field. Has equity died and shrivelled, or does equity still have the ability to flourish and accommodate new situations and changes in social morals and norms, ‘yet maintain its core values and norms, without which no society can survive, let alone flourish.’? Notwithstanding, these hurdles this author considers that equity still has a role to play in public law, none more so than in the day to day decision making of local authorities as well as in judicial review proceedings. Equity can bring a contextual approach so necessary when substantive review is applied. Equity has proved to be a robust flexible adaptable tool, even in a complex modern environment. For example, the remedies it has fashioned of injunctions, declaratory relief and freezing orders to mention a few , as well as aiding the common law in its application of trust principles to a deserted wife’s equity, where the title was in one party’s sole name. This author espouses a principle of stewardship which can be applied as an additional substantive review tool in the judicial tool box, along with Wednesbury and proportionality. Structuring substantive review is a major current debate in public law both judicially and academically: there is no valid reason why ethical principles such as stewardship-of person, place, property and purpose should not be a valid contributory player.

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No description available.

The focus of this study is on the public procurement law applicable where UK contracting authorities seek to adjust the provisions of existing contracts. This study aims firstly to identify the law applicable to contract adjustments and secondly to establish how that law is applied in practice. In order to achieve the first objective, chapter 2 of this study set out the substantive law applicable to contract adjustments (including that arising from the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union , the Public Contracts Regulations 2006 and 2015, and case law) and chapters 3, 4, and 5 consider respectively the content of that law specifically in the cases of review clauses, adjustments upon operation of law, and other adjustments. The second objective is met through considering the findings of relevant case law and also through undertaking empirical research. Chapter 6 set out the empirical research method, which focuses on adjustments to public private partnership contracts in the health, secure accommodation and education sectors. Data was collected through semi-structured questionnaires from private practice lawyers who advise contracting authorities on adjustments to those contracts within the scope of this research and contracting authorities themselves. Chapter 7 then sets out the findings of that empirical research. In the concluding chapter 8 the findings of the research are set out including an explanation of the ambiguities identified in the existing legal framework, and an articulation of the overall approach taken by contracting authorities when adjusting contracts, which suggests that a pragmatic approach (including assessment of likelihood of successful procurement law challenge) is taken to best enable the attainment of the contracting authorities’ procurement objectives. The study closes by setting out ways in which the law on contract adjustments could be clarified or improved.

On 25 October 1855 Lord Cardigan led the Light Brigade in a fateful charge against a Russian artillery battery. Poet Laureate Lord Tennyson immortalised the cavalry’s valour in verse. Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do & die, Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred Since then, British soldiers, sailors and pilots have been engaged in countless wars, conflicts and peacekeeping missions across the globe. Many have died in defence of the United Kingdom and her interests. What obligations do states have to armed forces personnel who lay down their lives? This thesis is about guaranteeing armed forces personnel’s right to life. It asks about the obligations states owe to their own armed forces under the European Convention on Human Rights. Military service exposes individual servicemen and women to countless dangers – the risk of being killed in enemy attack, friendly fire, the risks from hostile environments and infectious disease, difficult training exercises and the inherent risks surrounding weapons. This thesis examines whether states are under a duty to protect servicemen and women against such risks. These risks are inherent to military service. Some, such as enemy attack, are virtually impossible to predict and guard against. The focus of this thesis is to establish realistic, practical and effective expressions of the right to life that fulfil states’ obligations under human rights law, whilst also maintaining military efficacy, discretion and decision-making authority. In order to be effective human rights law must not impose unrealistic burdens on states. This thesis considers how to provide effective, balanced legal protection for servicemen and women that makes allowances for the realities of military service.

This thesis provides an English law analysis on collaboration and contract management in the context of offshore upstream oil and gas contracts in light of the Maximising Economic Recovery [hereinafter ‘MER’] Strategy. The predominant subject of the thesis is the impact on offshore contracting of the MER Strategy. The thesis firstly considers that the Strategy is not merely another statute to regulate the offshore sector – its impact is of paramount importance because it sets a comprehensive framework for the coming decades until the cessation of operations in the North Sea. The MER Strategy seeks to address the field ‘maturity’ in the North Sea, which causes high extraction costs and questions the current business and contracting model. Secondly, the thesis focuses on the contracting model and relationship among operators and contractors, i.e. oil and gas companies and the supply chain. This niche area of contract law has been in the spotlight of academics and practitioners for many years, and abundant literature exists focusing on so-called ‘risk allocation’ clauses. However, the thesis approaches the subject in an original manner: looking beyond the traditional legal standpoint, it introduces the element of ‘contract and commercial management’ and focuses on the potential of ‘collaboration’. It argues that these two elements are key to the future of offshore contracting in light of the MER Strategy. The explanation of where these two terms ‘sit’ from an academic, practical and taxonomic standpoint is not an easy task. Contract and commercial management is a management-based discipline that goes beyond certain limitations imposed on the role of contract, championed by ‘strict’ school of thoughts on contract law. It perceives the contract to be mainly a device of ‘problem solving’ rather than ‘failure management’. Collaboration is a notion with great potential for contracting in general – and offshore contracting in particular – which nevertheless brings with it substantial challenges that need to be addressed. Collaboration is a crucial concept in the MER Strategy, and the thesis seeks to ascertain its meaning both within and beyond the context of the Strategy. Most importantly, the thesis explores the legal meaning and ramifications of collaboration, since although it is not a legal term of art, it is ‘reflected’ on existing doctrinal notions.

Around 90% of criminal convictions in England & Wales are based on guilty pleas. The criminal justice process places deliberate pressures on defendants to plead guilty, undermining the traditional account of the guilty plea as a voluntary and reliable confession. However, despite the acknowledged risk of wrongful conviction, appeal against guilty plea conviction is limited. Through empirical research and theoretical analysis, this thesis examines how the appeal courts and the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) respond to challenges to guilty plea convictions and the accounts of the guilty plea they provide to justify these responses. This entails the analysis of appellate caselaw, alongside an examination of CCRC files in guilty plea cases, an observational study of defence plea advice and hearings, and interviews with lawyers and CCRC staff in order to assess whether the accounts offered by the courts and the CCRC have any foundation in practice. The research reveals that the criminal justice system, as designed and operated, prioritises efficiency over fairness and accuracy in its treatment of guilty pleas (reflecting Nobles and Schiff's analysis of tragic choices in the system). Despite the consequent risk of injustice, the appeal courts resist challenges to guilty plea convictions, relying on unsupportable accounts of the guilty plea as a confession, and of defence lawyers as sheltering defendants from plea pressures. In turn, the CCRC's approach to such cases is characterised by confusion and, ultimately, the prioritisation of efficiency and finality. In response, the thesis proposes an account of the guilty plea as the defendant's prediction of the likely trial outcome (the 'defendant-assessed verdict'). While requiring procedural changes to allow defendants to be supported and informed in assessing the case, this account could provide a justification for guilty plea convictions and offer a framework for assessing challenges to such convictions in the future.

No description available.

This thesis seeks to add to our information regarding the many lollards discussed by John Foxe in his <i>Actes and Monuments</i>, first published in English in 1563, and destined to become as much a part of the English Reformation as Cranmer's <i>Book of Common Prayer</i> and John Jewel's <i>Apology of the Church of England</i>. In particular it considers the group of later lollards who were the subject of serious inquiry by the ecclesiastical authorities during the first five decades of Tudor rule, 1490 to 1535, and who were found by their 'inquisitors' to be living along the Thames Valley. The counties studied here are Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, Middlesex and Oxfordshire. For reasons of space and time it has been impossible to include other work undertaken covering Essex, Kent and London. Previous studies of this sect have relied on official sources, usually the few extant transcripts of trials found in episcopal court books and act books. Consequently the details may be thought of as biased, although not necessarily <i>pro forma</i> of charge lists, and the very nature of trial procedure at this time, suggests that not too much reliance can be put on the evidence we have. Nevertheless that is all we have so far been able to consider. Evidence as to the social and economic status of lollards is lacking in such sources; consequently previous studies of lollardy have tended to accept contemporary disdain, and to consider them as a sect made up of comparatively poor, usually illiterate, individuals, who were in some way divorced from their communities, as a consequence of their beliefs. That the church was sufficiently concerned with the sect to undertake such determined persecutions should caution us against such conclusions. The martyrologist, John Foxe, supplies us with what we know of the trials within this area for the period under discussion. We are fortunate that he saw fit to transcribe so much detail from what he claimed was a register of Bishop Longland of Lincoln. This study has abandoned the previously-tried sources and turned to what are loosely called 'secular' sources: taxation and muster returns, probate material, usually wills, but including some inventories of testators' goods, and cases from central courts, to which lollards, as all the litigious English nation at this time, often went for redress. I have not abandoned the ecclesiastical material: visitation documents and episcopal court material both figure in the study; additionally there is some parish material: churchwardens' accounts and manor court rolls, but not as much as I should like. Taking the names of those charged with heresy, or the detectors of those so charged, as given us by Foxe, I have sought them out in their every-day lives, within the sources detailed above. This conglomeration of material adds flesh to those we have previously simply known (if we were lucky) by name, place of residence, and occupation. Now we can see lollards in the context of their societies and communities. Now we can talk of them as members of the early Tudor 'commonweal' to which so many of them seemed to have aspired. As a result of this thesis lollards are seen to have been socially, economically, and politically integrated within their communities. They are found at all levels of economic standing within most settlements we have come to associate with lollardy. They are also, occasionally, seen to be willing to declare their religious affiliation when making their last wills and testaments; sadly, however, many appear to adopt, whether sincerely or not we can not say, a conservative stance at the final public declaration they would make. Perhaps of prime importance is that we show lollards listed by Foxe to have existed, and to have been thriving in the mid-Thames valley, despite the apparent harshness of the episcopal attacks on them.