The Guardianship of the public interest: a British tale of contestable administrative law

No abstract available

The Scotland Bill implements and improves upon the Smith Commission recommendations

The Government recently published the Scotland Bill, which in essence should implement the recommendations of the post-referendum, cross-party Smith Commission, and provide for new powers in a range of areas. Adam Tomkins – a member of the commission representing the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party – argues that this is most welcome, and can move us from a situation in which debate in Scotland can move from being about the insufficient range of powers available, to a detailed scrutiny of how power is actually used

The Republican Monarchy Revisited. Book Review Of: The English Constitution. by Walter Bagehot. Edited by Paul Smith

Book review: The English Constitution. By Walter Bagehot. Edited by Paul Smith. Cambridge University Press. 2001. Pp. xxxii, 253. Reviewed by: Adam Tomkin

The Republican Monarchy Revisited. Book Review Of: The English Constitution. by Walter Bagehot. Edited by Paul Smith

Book review: The English Constitution. By Walter Bagehot. Edited by Paul Smith. Cambridge University Press. 2001. Pp. xxxii, 253. Reviewed by: Adam Tomkin

The Guardianship of the public interest: a British tale of contestable administrative law

No abstract available

Espacios florecientes: por unos asentamientos de refugiados más ecológicos

Al incorporar iniciativas de agricultura urbana en los entornos de los campos de refugiados se puede ampliar el concepto de alojamiento para incluir la protección contra el clima, abordar las deficiencias nutricionales y aumentar los niveles de dignidad humana, creación de espacios y autosuficiencia

Action selection in the striatum: Implications for Huntington's disease

Although the basal ganglia have been widely studied and implicated in signal processing and action selection, little information is known about the active role that the striatal microcircuit plays in action selection in the basal ganglia-cortical-thalamic loops. To address this knowledge gap we use a large scale three dimensional spiking model of the striatum, combined with a rate coded model of the basal ganglia-cortical-thalamic loop, to asses the computational role the striatum plays in action selection. We identify robust transient phenomena generated by the striatal microcircuit, which temporarily enhances the difference between two competing cortical inputs. We show that this transient is sufficient to modulate decision making in the basal ganglia-thalamo-cortical circuit. We also find that the transient selection originates from a novel adaptation effect in single striatal projection neurons, which is amenable to experimental testing. Finally, we compared transient selection with models implementing classical steady-state selection. We challenged both forms of model to account for recent reports of paradoxically enhanced response selection in Huntington's disease patients. We found that steady-state selection was uniformly impaired under all simulated Huntington's conditions, but transient selection was enhanced given a sufficient Huntington's-like increase in NMDA receptor sensitivity. I propose a mechanistic underpinning to a novel neural compensatory mechanism, responsible for improved cognition in severe neuro-degeneration. Thus, our models provide an intriguing hypothesis for the mechanisms underlying the paradoxical cognitive improvements in manifest Huntington's patients, which is consistent with recent behavioural data

Judicial Review, Irrationality, and the Legitimacy of Merits-Review

The definition of the irrationality ground of judicial review recognises the constitutional principle of the separation of powers, in allowing for judicial control of the executive only very rarely. The author in a previous article in this study found that the courts, on occasions, had intervened in circumstances where administrative decisions arguably were not irrational. To this end, the purpose of this article is to assess the constitutionality of these seemingly low standards of irrationality. The author does so by reference either to the manner of review employed—the use of the proportionality principle, for example—or the context of the administrative decision under scrutiny, such as the infringement of the applicant’s fundamental rights. The author finds that the cases from the previous article where low standards of irrationality were arguably adopted were, in fact, legitimate according to these chosen methods of evaluation. However, this is an interim conclusion because, for reasons of word length, the author is unable to complete a full assessment here. It is therefore proposed that a subsequent article will continue to examine the constitutionality of these cases. Furthermore, the author will also try and establish a zone of executive decision-making, for reasons of democracy, where the courts are excluded from irrationality review. If the author is unsuccessful in this regard, the final conclusion of this study will inevitably be that low standards of judicial intervention exist without limit—a clear assault on the constitutional principle stated above