Hybrid institutions in the national security constitution: the case of the Commissioners

This paper proposes the concept of a ‘hybrid institution’, defined with reference to certain institutions within the UK's constitutional order which provide oversight of national security processes. It focuses in particular on the Commissioners who have overseen and oversee the use of investigatory powers and the work of the intelligence services. These institutions, as was once said of another hybrid institution – the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation – are designed in order to operate within situations in which ‘potential conflicts between state power and civil liberties are acute, but information is tightly rationed’. They are ‘hybrid’ institutions in that they marry certain of the features characteristic of political institutions with others characteristic of legal institutions. The paper considers the relevant institutions and the role they play within the national security constitution, showing how their hybrid status facilitates the performance of a function which neither fully legal nor fully political institutions could fulfil

The vanishing law of Crown act of state

No abstract available

General warrants, thematic warrants, bulk warrants: property interference for national security purposes

This paper considers the powers of property interference under the Intelligence Services Act 1994 as they have been employed for the purpose of ‘equipment interference’ or ‘hacking’. It discusses in particular the granting of ‘thematic warrants’ under the relevant provisions, considering them in the specific context of the common law jurisprudence on ‘general warrants’. It argues that the national security context has seen the traditional common law suspicion of property interference evaded but shows that that the implications of that fact are felt also outside the national security context. It then considers these matters in relation to the new powers of equipment interference found in the Investigatory Powers Act 2016

Authority to carry in the United Kingdom: the right to travel, the privatisation of security and the rule of law

The rights to enter and exit the United Kingdom are limited in a number of ways which have in common a desire to protect the national security of the country. One of the relevant mechanisms, the legal basis of which has recently been overhauled, is that of ‘authority to carry’ schemes, which require transport companies to request permission to bring persons in and out of the UK and punish them if they do so without permission. This article outlines the relevant law and considers it from two points of view: first, the rule of law issues raised by the past and present operation of the relevant schemes and, second, the lessons of authority to carry schemes for the privatised enforcement of national security norms and the possible attenuation of the scope for legal accountability for their operation

Responding to COVID-19 in Scots Law

No abstract available

Ouster clauses and national security: judicial review of the investigatory powers tribunal

Reflects on the High Court ruling in R. (on the application of Privacy International) v Investigatory Powers Tribunal, and criticises its findings that the ouster clause in the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 prevented judicial review of decisions of the Investigatory Powers Tribunal. Discusses the courts' traditional hostility to ouster clauses, the background to the case, key aspects of the judgment, and its wider implications

Parliament's Secret War by Veronika Fikfak and Hayley J Hooper

No abstract available

Passports, the right to travel, and national security in the Commonwealth

This article, on the basis of a consideration of the development of the law relating to the use of passports as a tool of national security in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, challenges the common law conception of passports, arguing that passports effectively confer rights and so, consequentially, that the refusal or withdrawal of a passport represents a denial of rights. From this conclusion a number of points flow. Though these consequences are most acute for the United Kingdom and Canada, in which passports remain regulated by, and are issued under, prerogative powers, there are also a number of points of significance for Australia and New Zealand, where passports have a statutory basis

The acceptability of promotional policies to teachers and administrators in five selected communities.

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit