This article considers the interpretive significance of legislative inaction. Section I considers the nature of arguments based on legislative inaction. Section II explores the practical, conceptual and constitutional problems with trying to rely on legislative inaction as an interpretive aid. Section III concludes that attempts to draw inferences from legislative inaction alone are deeply flawed, but that inferences might legitimately be drawn from inaction if it forms part of the context against which the legislation is enacted. Even then, however, there are practical difficulties in determining what inferences to draw.

Negative attitudes towards litigants in person (LiPs) are long-standing. But despite their persistence, no study has ever considered: how did we get here? This is what this article sets out to do, analysing when the term LiP first appears, and the context in which this occurs. I argue this moment is a by-product of broader changes taking place for the legal profession in the nineteenth century. Drawing on Larson's “professional project” I argue the new county courts become a battleground for attorneys to distinguish themselves, and it is the introduction of certain kinds of distinction that undermines the self-represented party. This article ultimately argues that the LiP role is not simply self-representation, but is rather self-representation that can only occur in the latter stages of the professional project. This means, perversely, that the creation of the term LiP does not indicate the facilitation of lay participation in legal forums; it marks instead the moment when they are displaced. As I conclude, this displacement has profound consequences for LiPs to this day.

Claims of conscience are a substantial area of concern in relation to healthcare decisions but are often only considered in a limited context. Broadening our understanding of claims of conscience, however, might lead to claims that we are moving back towards a doctor-centred understanding of medical care. This article argues that we can allow claims of conscience without unduly penalising patients by focusing on the responsibilities that ought to attach to conscience claims. This article sets out three responsibilities – humility, universality and reciprocal respect – which ought to be part of any claim of conscience. The Charlie Gard case is then used as an example to explore the use of responsibilities. The article then moves to consider possible issues that arise from this view.

The UK Supreme Court noted in Smith v Chief Constable of Sussex Police that the approach to causation in claims based on Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is “looser” than in negligence. While the but-for test is generally applied in negligence, in Article 2 claims “it appears sufficient generally to establish merely that [the claimant] lost a substantial chance” of avoiding harm. The English courts have not always been comfortable with this divergence. In Re E. (A Child) Lady Hale stated that she was “troubled by the rejection of the ‘but for’ test” by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). In part this discomfort seems attributable to a lack of detailed exposition as to how the approaches to causation differ in negligence and human rights law. The lack of clarity as to what the “looser” approach consists of is unsatisfactory. Although the reference to causation in Smith was a relatively minor observation in the wider decision not to develop the duty of care owed by the police in negligence to a victim of crime, we cannot appreciate whether the difference in approach is justified without first understanding what the difference actually is. In response, one aim of this paper is to draw together key decisions on causation in the ECHR to identify what the “looser” approach entails and how it differs from the approach in negligence.

Distributed ledgers and blockchain technology are widely expected to promote more direct shareholder involvement in corporate governance by reducing costs of voting and trade clearance. Meanwhile, artificial intelligence may shrink the decision-making terrain where corporations rely on human management. This article analyses these technologies and concludes that, while such outcomes are plausible, their potential corporate governance impacts are likely more complex and contingent. Despite the implicit libertarianism that characterises much of the discourse, we in fact have choices to make about how such technologies are developed and deployed – and these policy decisions will have to be grounded in a normative conception of corporate purpose external to the technology itself.

When should a contractual right be assignable to a non-party? English law's answer to this question is complex, and many of its rules are difficult to justify. In some respects, the law appears unreasonably pro-assignment, whereas sometimes it denies assignability to rights that should be assignable. This article contends that, in developing the law of assignability, the judiciary and Parliament have relied on a series of dubious ideas that deviate from the law's usual approach to contracts, and the current law rests partly on intuitive policy rationales that do not withstand scrutiny. The main aim of the article is to propose a new framework for thinking about the law of assignability that is more closely aligned with general ideas about contract law.

Recently, attention has been given to the question as to whether children should be used as covert human intelligence sources (CHIS), aka informers. Being a CHIS is a risky endeavour, particularly when the person is deployed against serious crime, for example, gang violence. Questions arise over the propriety of using adolescents as CHIS, and whether the regulation of covert sources serves to minimise the risk to them. This article considers the regulatory environment. It concludes that the use of juveniles as CHIS can be justified, but that additional safeguards must be put in place to ensure their safety.

There is a dearth of British tech-companies listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE), and the LSE lacks a large, innovative tech-company such as Google. The UK Government, concerned as to the loss of UK tech-companies to foreign acquirors, views the encouragement of UK tech-firm listings as a policy priority. Dual-class stock, currently prohibited from the LSE Main Market's premium-tier, allows founders to list their firms, and retain majority-control, while holding significantly less of the cash-flow rights in the company. This article will broach the potential for dual-class stock to attract UK tech-company listings, and explore the benefits that dual-class stock can engender for UK tech-companies and their public shareholders. The risks of dual-class structures will also be discussed, but it will be shown that in a UK regulatory context, in relation to high-growth tech-companies, the risks may not be as severe as presumed, and easily moderated through judicious controls.

This article argues certainty in trusts is better understood by recognising a fourth certainty: “distributional certainty”. Distributional certainty is required in private trusts that involve dividing the property between beneficiaries: their shares must be clear. Distributional uncertainty is not, as usually understood, merely an instance of uncertainty of property: it has differing consequences, special resolution techniques, and may explain “administrative unworkability” in discretionary trusts. Distributional certainty is not required in charitable trusts. But this is not, as usually understood, merely an instance of the rule that charitable trusts do not need certainty of objects: it is an independent proposition.

This article focuses upon the provisions and underlying policy of the Landlord and Tenant Acts of 1927 and 1954. It surveys the mischief that each Act was designed to address and, from the perspective of compensation for business tenants, examines critically the legislative response. It demonstrates that the safeguards afforded by the 1927 Act were poorly conceived, ill-constructed and ineffectual. Although the 1954 Act was intended to instil simplicity, certainty and fairness, it fails on all counts. The law remains highly technical, unduly complex, arbitrary in operation and in need of major overhaul.

This article seeks to illustrate the kinds of difficulties that may follow from renouncing a unified approach to restitutionary claims for unjust enrichment. To do so, it draws on the experience of the French legal system, where the notion of unjustified enrichment describes a maxim inspiring various doctrines which have evolved in relative isolation from each other. Relying on this experience, the article argues that the objections recently raised by Nils Jansen against the German law of unjustified enrichment should not lead English lawyers to downplay the value of a unified approach to the subject.

According to an influential view, using the criminal law against innocent actions or agents is wrong. In this paper, I consider four related arguments against this view: a debunking argument that suggests that the intuitive appeal of this view may be due to a conflation of different ideas; a counterexamples argument that points out that there are many cases in which using the criminal law against innocent actions or agents is justified; a theoretical argument, according to which the force of the reasons for and against using the criminal law is a matter of degree and it is therefore implausible to hold that the latter always defeat the former; and an analogy argument, which holds that it is implausible to maintain that harming innocents is often justified in other contexts but (almost) never in the context of the criminal law.