18. Regina (Quintavalle) V British Broadcasting Corporation May 16, 2003

This landmark House of Lords decision dealt with the issue of when broadcasters can decline to show something they regard as unfit for the public. ProLife, a political party, was campaigning against abortion. It had fielded enough candidates in a general election to entitle it to one party election broadcast in Wales and submitted a tape of its proposed broadcast to various channels. The major part of the programme had been devoted to explaining the processes involved in different forms of abortion, with prolonged and graphic images. The pictures were judged to be very disturbing. The BBC did not broadcast the film. The party took legal action in an effort to have that decision declared improper. But the House of Lords decided that the BBC and other terrestrial broadcasters had been entitled to refuse to show it on the ground that it would be offensive to public feeling. Lord Nicholls said that television broadcasters had to ensure, so far as they could, that their programmes contained nothing likely to be offensive to viewers. That was a statutory obligation placed on the independent broadcasters by the Broadcasting Act 1990 and on the BBC by an agreement with the Secretary of State for National Heritage. It wasn’t for the courts to find that the broadcasters had acted unlawfully when they had done no more than give effect to the statutory and other obligations binding on them.

19. Regina (Williamson and Others) V Secretary of State for Education and Employment February 25, 2005

This case hinged on the contentious issue of whether the law against corporal punishment in schools broke the alleged human right of some parents to delegate to teachers the power to hit children. The claimants were religious educationalists. They applied for judicial review against the Secretary of State for Education and Employment, asking for a declaration that the Education Act 1996 did not prevent a parent delegating to a teacher in an independent school the right to administer physical punishment. They wanted it stated that a teacher who gave physical punishment on the basis of an expressed delegation by a parent in writing did not act unlawfully or unprofessionally. The House of Lords disagreed with that interpretation. The law lords ruled that the statutory ban on corporal punishment was not incompatible with the human right to freedom of religion and the freedom of some people to manifest their religion in practice by caning children. Although the statutory ban on corporal punishment was capable of interfering with the rights of those who sincerely believed that they had a religious duty to discipline children by the use of mild corporal punishment, Parliament was entitled to take the view that the ban was necessary in a democratic society to protect children from the infliction of physical punishment in an institutional setting.

20. Regina (Laporte) V Chief Constable of Gloucestershire Constabulary December 14, 2006

The circumstances in which the police are permitted to stop citizens and turn them away from where they want to go is an issue of crucial consequence in any society. Too little power and there might be disorder; too much power and you would have an oppressive police state. This case had to address that issue in the context of that key characteristic of democracy – the right to protest. Relying on their duty to prevent a breach of the peace, police intercepted coach passengers travelling from London to a protest demonstration in Gloucestershire and prevented them from continuing to the demonstration. Police had turned back three coaches of anti-war protesters, including Jane Laporte, from a journey to a protest against impending bombing raids on Iraq. The Lords decided that police acted unlawfully. Stopping them proceeding was unlawful because no such breach of the peace was about to occur. The Lords ruled, citing European jurisprudence, that freedom of expression and assembly are “an essential foundation of democratic society”, and that there was insufficient reason here for those rights to be curtailed.

TASKS

1. Which case(s) dealt with:

1. alcohol

2. banks

3. causing premature birth and death of a baby

4. eating out

5. education

6. euthanasia

7. medical treatment

8. rape

9. religion

10. right to protest

11. sex

12. unfair indictment

13. working conditions

2. Divide the cases into civil and criminal.

3. Which cases (if any) dealt with:

1. tort law

2. criminal law

3. family law

4. contract law

5. land law

6. administrative law?

4. Decide if the following statements about the British law are true (T) or false (F). Give your reasons using the text as example cases. Correct the false statement.

1. If a person lives in a vehicle, it is considered their abode only when it is parked.

2. It would not be an offence for a waiter to sell a customer his own bottle of wine and not include it on the bill, if it were identical to that in stock.

3. A teacher is entitled to exercise corporal punishment on pupils if allowed by their parents.

4. Being drunk and drugged in time of an assault is no proper defence.

5. If a person has to witness unpleasant things as the nature of his job requires it, he can not sue for mental distress.

6. If a person secretly adds alcohol to somebody’s drink being aware they are going to drive soon, they are involved into the crime of drink-driving.

7. In case someone injures a person so hard they need blood transfusion, but they reject it on religious grounds and die, the defendant is not guilty of murder.

8. If a person, being inebriated, takes sb else’s house for their own and tries to enter it, they are guilty of trespassing.

9. If somebody hits a pregnant woman and her child dies as a result, a person is guilty of murder / manslaughter.

10. If someone inflicts grievous bodily harm on a person and died in hospital as a result of the support machines being turned off, they are not guilty of murder.

11. If you cannot possibly commit a crime in the circumstances, the attempt to do it is nevertheless a crime.

12. If you obtain a package tour for yourself and somebody else, they are not entitled to any damage award if a loss occurs, because they did not enter the contract directly.

13. It is not illegal to express your protest against the government policy unless you cause breach of the peace or mutiny.

14. As the UK entered the EU it is to practise all its laws without any passing of additional laws.

15. The age of a person in case of a provoked homicide must be taken into account.

16. Your ordering a meal does not necessarily mean entering into a contact with the restaurant.

5. Match the antonyms.

Appalling Ban Cease Deceased Forcible Inebriated Innocuous Law-abiding citizen Mild Surreptitious

alive allow harmful open pleasant severe sober start voluntary wrongdoer

6. Match the synonyms.

Assembly Cane Cheat Excess Gain Grievous Hinge Homicide Lethal Pecuniary

deadly depend hit meeting monetary murder overuse profit serious swindle